21 Countries in a Historical Expat Quality-of-Life Ranking

One country wins on transport, another on climate, another on how easily newcomers feel at home. A quality-of-life ranking can make moving abroad look like a decision with a tidy answer. Real life is more interesting—and more individual—than a single league table.

The ranking originally featured here came from an older InterNations survey. Its country order and percentages should not be presented as current results. The useful question now is how to read such surveys without asking them to make the whole decision for you.

Find out whose experience is being measured

InterNations’ Expat Insider reports experiences of people living outside their country of origin. That is valuable information about the respondents’ lives, but it is not the same as a complete assessment of everyone living in each destination.

Read the methodology for the edition you are using. How were participants recruited? Which destinations had enough responses? What counted towards the index? Changes in the sample or questions can affect comparisons between years.

Separate the overall score into real needs

Before reading the rankings, write down three things that would most affect an ordinary week for you. Perhaps it is public transport, reliable access to a particular service and enough affordable space at home. Someone else may prioritise schools, language or proximity to family.

Use those needs to decide which parts of a survey deserve attention. An excellent overall position cannot compensate for a serious mismatch on something essential to your circumstances.

Test a normal weekday

A holiday introduces you to a place when you are free to explore it. Living there adds errands, routines and obligations. During a research visit, try travelling at the time you would commute, shopping for an ordinary meal and walking around a neighbourhood beyond its most attractive street.

Ask people about practical details, while remembering that their situation may differ from yours. A remote worker, a local employee, a student and a retired resident can experience the same city very differently.

Give each source the right job

Use surveys for patterns and questions. Use official sources for residence permissions, work rules and service eligibility. Use current local information for actual housing and daily costs, and qualified advice when decisions involve tax or other personal obligations.

A note with “known”, “needs checking” and “would like to test” can be more helpful than another list of the world’s best places. It turns a broad idea into something you can investigate.

Our guide to travel expectations and reality explores the same habit with photographs. Whether the inspiration is a beautiful image or a number-one ranking, the next step is to discover how the place would work for you.

The complete historical order

The order reproduced in the source, from twenty-first to first, is Denmark, Hungary, Finland, Ecuador, Luxembourg, Australia, France, Portugal, New Zealand, Canada, South Korea, Switzerland, Germany, Singapore, the Czech Republic, Malta, Costa Rica, Spain, Japan, Austria and Taiwan. This is a historical InterNations survey-based selection, not a newly calculated 2026 ranking.

The article describes 14,300 respondents, 174 nationalities and residence across 191 countries or territories. Those sample descriptors do not mean that every destination had an equal number of respondents or that every resident of each country was represented. The respondents were people living abroad, which is a particular perspective rather than the entire population’s experience.

The stated quality-of-life categories include leisure, personal happiness, travel and transport, health and well-being, and safety and security. Elsewhere, the old summaries mix in jobs, finances, childcare and settling-in results. Those may be relevant to a person’s decision, but they should not be silently treated as the same index. A place can perform differently across several measures without the survey contradicting itself.

The country photographs illustrate the list; they are not evidence for a healthcare, income or education score. Likewise, a percentage describing respondents’ satisfaction is not a guarantee for someone considering a move. A useful reading begins by asking which question was answered, by whom and in which edition. Only then does the numbered order have a clear meaning.

Read the historical order as a record of what a particular respondent group reported at that time. The twenty-one countries remain useful starting points for questions about transport, services, social connections and daily routines. Choose one category that matters to you, then investigate how it would work in an actual neighbourhood and household situation. This gives the survey a practical role without asking a decade-old overall score to settle a relocation decision or to describe every resident's experience.

A reader can use the categories as questions rather than copy the final order as a personal verdict. Someone prioritising public transport may weigh the results differently from someone whose main concern is space for a family or access to particular work. The overall position combines considerations that can pull in different directions.

The distinction between relocation and a holiday is equally important. People already living abroad report an experience shaped by housing, employment, language and everyday routines. A short visit may reveal only a small part of that experience. The historical ranking can introduce the countries and the survey’s themes, but it cannot tell a reader whether they personally qualify to move, what their household costs would be or how a particular neighbourhood would suit them.