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Home Countries Panama

Ups And Downs Of Retirement In Panama

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
Dec 07, 2014
in Panama, Retirement/Living
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Retirement in Panama Comes with many ups and downs
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10 Things You Need To Know About Panama

I’ve been making the case for Panama for more than 15 years, and I’m more bullish on the opportunities and upsides on offer in this country today than ever before.

Bottom line, if you are in the market right now for a place to live, retire, invest, or do business overseas, I’d say you’re doing yourself a big disservice if you aren’t looking closely at what Panama has to offer.

That said, you also should understand that today’s Panama is a very different place from the Panama of 15 years ago. It’s a different place today even from the Panama we moved to about six years ago.

Plus, of course, no place is perfect, including Panama. Even “paradise” has its downsides.

In that spirit, here are 10 things that anyone thinking about spending time or money in Panama today needs to know to make a success of the effort:

#1: Panama City is no longer a cheap retirement choice.

The cost of living in Panama’s capital city has appreciated steadily over the past decade. As a result, today, Panama City no longer qualifies as a “cheap” place to call home. You can live modestly in this city on a budget of US$1,500 per month, but a more realistic monthly budget for an average couple of retirees would be US$2,000.

The cost of living elsewhere in Panama, however, can be much more affordable. A couple could retire to Santa Fe, for example, in the highlands of Panama, on as little as US$1,000 per month.

#2: Panama City rents aren’t cheap either.

The lion’s share of any retiree’s budget is typically given over to rent. This is an important part of the reason why the cost of living in Panama City can be considerably greater than the cost of living many other places in this country. A retired couple will spend US$1,000 or more per month to rent a comfortable apartment in an appealing Panama City neighborhood. Meantime, you could rent a small house at the beach on the Azuero coast, for example, for US$600 per month or less or a house in the mountains around Santa Fe for US$500 per month or less.

#3: Health care in Panama is international standard and costs a fraction the cost of comparable care in the United States.

However, both the standard and the cost of care can vary dramatically, not only from one part of the country to another, but also depending where you seek care in Panama City. The Johns Hopkins-affiliated Hospital Punta Pacifica in downtown Panama City offers facilities and services like those available at any metropolitan-based U.S. hospital for perhaps half the cost; however, the public hospital in Panama City wouldn’t be up to most foreigners’ standards.

That said, you do have other good options, beyond the Hospital Punta Pacifica, for good health care in Panama City. Clinica Einstein, for example, located in Panama City’s El Cangrejo neighborhood, offers many of the same services in a small, friendly, clean clinic environment where doctors and nurses speak English, lab tests can be processed on site, and prices are half as much or less than those at Hospital Punta Pacifica…meaning they’re one-fourth as much as U.S. costs.

#4: Panama offers many easy options for establishing legal residency.

However, the great numbers of foreigners, especially foreign retirees, migrating to this country over the past several years have resulted in a backlog at the Department of Immigration that can mean months of delays getting your visa processed and approved.

A new visa option, however, created by Executive Decree in 2012, offers a short-cut. This “Friends of Panama” visa, as it’s referred to, can be processed in weeks instead of months and can even result in a work permit.

#5: Panama is not the banking haven it once was.

When former President Ricardo Martinelli signed an exchange-of-information tax agreement with the United States in 2010, he ended the country’s position as a banking haven. Still, though, Panama, home to more than 80 banks, remains an international banking center.

#6: Panama has used the U.S. dollar as its currency since 1904.

This is an important advantage for American retirees today who don’t have to worry about exchange risk.

#7: Panama is known as the “Hub of the Americas” for a reason.

Access is easy from U.S. departure cities, this is an ideal base from which to explore Central and South America, and more direct flights to Europe are available all the time. Panama City’s Tocumen International Airport is currently being expanded from 34 gates to more than 50.

#8: Panama City is hot and humid year-round.

However, elsewhere in the country the climate can be very different and much more appealing. On the coast outside the capital, the hot temperatures are tempered by ocean breezes, and in the mountains around Boquete, for example, the climate is cool and crisp year-round, even chilly. Houses in this highlands town can come with fireplaces.

#9: Panama City is bursting with nightlife.

Including five-star restaurants, casinos, night clubs, gentleman’s clubs, sports bars, pubs, discos…

However, this is not a place to come for what you might call “high culture.” If your favorite thing to do on a Friday evening is to attend the opera or a live theater performance, Panama may not be the place for you.

#10: Panama’s program of special benefits for pensionados is the Gold Standard.

As a pensionado, you’ll enjoy discounts on most anything and everything you buy, from dining out to car rentals and from in-country travel to prescription medicines.

Kathleen Peddicord

 

 

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Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has covered the live, retire, and do business overseas beat for more than 30 years and is considered the world's foremost authority on these subjects. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 21, established businesses in 7, renovated historic properties in 6, and educated her children in 4.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets across three continents, from the East Coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland... then to Paris, France... next to Panama City, where she has based her Live and Invest Overseas business. Most recently, Kathleen and her husband Lief Simon are dividing their time between Panama and Paris.

Kathleen was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. In that capacity, she opened her first office overseas, in Waterford, Ireland, where she managed a staff of up to 30 employees for more than 10 years. Kathleen also opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France.

Kathleen moved on from her role with Agora in 2007 and launched her Live and Invest Overseas group in 2008. In the years since, she has built Live and Invest Overseas into a successful, recognized, and respected multi-million-dollar business that employs a staff of 35 in Panama City and dozens of writers and other resources around the world.

Kathleen has been quoted by The New York Times, Money magazine, MSNBC, Yahoo Finance, the AARP, and beyond. She has appeared often on radio and television (including Bloomberg and CNBC) and speaks regularly on topics to do with living, retiring, investing, and doing business around the world.

In addition to her own daily e-letter, the Overseas Opportunity Letter, with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers, Kathleen writes regularly for U.S. News & World Report and Forbes.

Her newest book, "How to Retire Overseas: Everything You Need to Know to Live Well (for Less) Abroad," published by Penguin Random House, is the culmination of decades of personal experience living and investing around the world.

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