Where to live in Botswana
We track 3 cities in Botswana: Francistown, Gaborone and Maun. Average temperatures run from 21°C to 24°C. We estimate a couple needs €2,240 to €2,359 a month to live centrally. For foreigners, long-term residency is possible, with conditions.
12 questions, about 4 minutes, no account needed. Taking the quiz is free, and so is seeing your #1 city. Full results for both of you are a one-time US$12 (€12 in Europe).
- Safety
- 61/100
- country-level estimate
- Healthcare
- 56/100
- country-level estimate
- Democracy
- 6.7/10
- estimated
Estimated from World Bank indicators and calibrated to the scales of our reference tables: safety from the country-level homicide rate per 100,000 people (VC.IHR.PSRC.P5, 2021) and Worldwide Governance Indicators Political Stability and Absence of Violence estimate (GOV_WGI_PV.EST, 2025), healthcare from the life expectancy at birth (SP.DYN.LE00.IN, 2024) and current health spending per person in US dollars (SH.XPD.CHEX.PC.CD, 2023), cost of living from the price level of GDP relative to the United States, from GDP per person in US dollars and at purchasing power parity (NY.GDP.PCAP.CD/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD, 2025) and democracy score from the Worldwide Governance Indicators Voice and Accountability estimate (GOV_WGI_VA.EST, 2025). Source: The World Bank (World Development Indicators, Worldwide Governance Indicators), CC BY 4.0.
Limited data for Botswana. Figures for safety, healthcare, cost of living and political stability in Botswana are country-level estimates from World Bank indicators, each named with its year. We have no tax, English, social openness or internet speed figures for Botswana, so the quiz scores those factors conservatively and this page leaves them out.
The 3 cities we track
| City | Size | Setting | Avg temp | Rain a year | Est. cost a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Francistown | smaller | inland | 22°C | 470 mm | €2,259 |
| Gaborone | mid-sized | inland | 21°C | 442 mm | €2,359 |
| Maun | smaller | inland | 24°C | 438 mm | €2,240 |
Source: City size from GeoNames, temperature from the Open-Meteo archive (2019 to 2023 averages), rainfall from TerraClimate (1991 to 2020 normals), coast distance from Natural Earth. Cost is our model estimate for a couple living centrally, from the World Bank price level.
Residency and visas
Possible, with conditions. Long-term residence runs through employer-sponsored work permits, an investor/entrepreneur permit tied to operating a real business, or discretionary self-sufficiency, with no published passive-income or golden-visa route.
The cheapest self-funded routes we track for Botswana:
- Investment: about $36k (Investor/entrepreneur permit: no legal minimum, but specialist firms cite a de-facto floor of ~BWP 500,000 equity in a registered Botswana company; converted at ~14 BWP/USD (June 2026).; as of June 2026)
For short visits, 103 of 198 passports can enter visa-free, 94 can get an e-visa or visa on arrival and 1 need a visa in advance.
Source: OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed approximations researched against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. Not legal advice: check the official source before you apply. Short-stay entry from the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT).