Where to live in Chile
We track 4 cities in Chile: Antofagasta, Punta Arenas, Santiago and Valparaíso. Average temperatures run from 7°C to 17°C. We estimate a couple needs €2,483 to €2,868 a month to live centrally. Chile sits in our low to medium tax tier. For citizens from outside Mercosur and its associate states, long-term residency is comparatively open.
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- Tax tier
- Low to medium
- Moderate personal income tax
- Languages
- Spanish
- Limited English
- Safety
- 58/100
- country-level
- Healthcare
- 66/100
- country-level
- Internet
- ~230 Mbps
- median fixed broadband
The 4 cities we track
| City | Size | Setting | Avg temp | Rain a year | Est. cost a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antofagasta | mid-sized | coastal | 17°C | 3 mm | €2,603 |
| Punta Arenas | smaller | coastal | 7°C | 588 mm | €2,483 |
| Santiago | major | near the coast | 16°C | 374 mm | €2,868 |
| Valparaíso | mid-sized | coastal | 15°C | 360 mm | €2,646 |
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.
Taxes
Chile sits in our low to medium tax tier: moderate personal income tax. The tier applies to every city here, and couples who cap tax below it will not see these cities in their results.
Source: OurNextCity tax tiers, assigned by hand from each country's top marginal personal income tax rate and overall tax reputation, with no fixed rate cut-offs. Coarse by design; not tax advice.
Residency and visas
Comparatively open, for people from outside Mercosur and its associate states. Chile grants temporary residence to self-funded applicants through passive-income (rentista) and pension (jubilado) routes, an investor route, and flexible employer-changeable work visas, with permanent residency reachable in 12 to 24 months.
Citizens of Mercosur and its associate states have freedom-of-movement or simplified residency rights here.
The cheapest self-funded routes we track for Chile:
- Income: about $1,000 a month (Chile Rentista/Jubilado temporary-residence visa; SERMIG publishes no fixed minimum and defers to Ministry of Social Development basic-needs parameters, with the consistent practical single-applicant benchmark being USD 1,000-1,500/mo of passive income or pension (figures quoted natively in USD); as of June 2026)
- Investment: about $500k (Chile Inversionista (investor) temporary-residence visa, USD 500,000 minimum in productive goods or services (stated by SERMIG as USD 500,000 or equivalent); as of June 2026)
For short visits, 92 of 198 passports can enter visa-free, 1 can get an e-visa or visa on arrival and 105 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).