Where to live in Ethiopia
We track 3 cities in Ethiopia: Addis Ababa, Gonder and Jijiga. Average temperatures run from 15°C to 20°C. We estimate a couple needs €1,931 to €2,061 a month to live centrally. Ethiopia sits in our low to medium tax tier. For foreigners, long-term residency is possible, with conditions.
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- Tax tier
- Low to medium
- Moderate personal income tax
- Languages
- Amharic
- Limited English
- Safety
- 45/100
- country-level
- Healthcare
- 40/100
- country-level
- Internet
- ~20 Mbps
- median fixed broadband
The 3 cities we track
| City | Size | Setting | Avg temp | Rain a year | Est. cost a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Addis Ababa | large | inland | 15°C | 1,042 mm | €2,061 |
| Gonder | mid-sized | inland | 18°C | 1,048 mm | €1,931 |
| Jijiga | mid-sized | inland | 20°C | 562 mm | €1,934 |
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
Ethiopia 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
Possible, with conditions. Long-term residency is realistic mainly through investment, where a USD 150,000 residential-property purchase or company investment grants a renewable multi-year residence permit, or through an employer-sponsored work permit; there is no passive-income, retirement, or points-based route.
The cheapest self-funded routes we track for Ethiopia:
- Investment: about $150k (Ethiopia foreign-national residential property ownership (Proclamation 1388/2025), USD 150,000 per unit, paid in foreign currency, grants a residence permit/multiple-entry visa up to 5 years; figure already in USD; as of June 2026)
For short visits, 2 of 198 passports can enter visa-free, 195 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).