Where to live in Latvia
We track 3 cities in Latvia: Daugavpils, Liepāja and Riga. Average temperatures run from 8°C to 9°C. We estimate a couple needs €2,717 to €2,995 a month to live centrally. Latvia sits in our low to medium tax tier. For citizens from outside the EU, EEA and Switzerland, long-term residency is comparatively open.
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- Tax tier
- Low to medium
- Moderate personal income tax
- Languages
- Latvian
- Some English
- Safety
- 69/100
- country-level estimate
- Healthcare
- 66/100
- country-level estimate
- Internet
- ~90 Mbps
- median fixed broadband
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, 2023) 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) and 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). Source: The World Bank (World Development Indicators, Worldwide Governance Indicators), CC BY 4.0.
Limited data for Latvia. Figures for safety, healthcare and cost of living in Latvia are country-level estimates from World Bank indicators, each named with its year. We have no social openness figures for Latvia, so the quiz scores that factor conservatively and this page leaves it out.
The 3 cities we track
| City | Size | Setting | Avg temp | Rain a year | Est. cost a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daugavpils | smaller | inland | 8°C | 638 mm | €2,734 |
| Liepāja | smaller | coastal | 9°C | 681 mm | €2,717 |
| Riga | mid-sized | coastal | 8°C | 628 mm | €2,995 |
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.
Taxes
Latvia 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 the EU, EEA and Switzerland. Latvia (EU member) offers accessible self-funded routes: a relatively cheap residence-by-investment program (company equity, real estate, bonds, or bank deposit) plus self-employment and EU Blue Card / digital-nomad permits for capable applicants.
Citizens of the EU, EEA and Switzerland have freedom-of-movement or simplified residency rights here.
The cheapest self-funded routes we track for Latvia:
- Income: about $2,714 a month (Latvia self-employed residence permit, sufficient-means requirement EUR 2,340/mo (3x minimum wage), per PMLP subsistence regulation effective 2026-04-01; converted at EUR/USD 1.16; as of June 2026)
- Investment: about $58k (Latvia residence-by-investment cheapest route: EUR 50,000 equity into a Latvian company (small-firm criteria; plus EUR 10,000 state duty); converted at EUR/USD 1.16; as of June 2026)
For short visits, 93 of 198 passports can enter visa-free 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).