Where to live in Macao
We track one city in Macao: Macau. It averages 23°C over the year. We estimate a couple needs €2,918 a month to live centrally. For foreigners, long-term residency is hard to obtain.
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
- 77/100
- country-level estimate
- Healthcare
- 75/100
- country-level estimate
- Democracy
- 5.1/10
- 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, 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), 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 Macao. Figures for safety, healthcare, cost of living and political stability in Macao 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 Macao, so the quiz scores those factors conservatively and this page leaves them out.
The city we track
| City | Size | Setting | Avg temp | Rain a year | Est. cost a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Macau | mid-sized | coastal | 23°C | 1,834 mm | €2,918 |
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
Hard to obtain. Realistic long-term routes are the discretionary IPIM 'major investment' plan (must create local jobs) and the skill-based Talent Recruitment System, with shortage-occupation professionals needing a local employer sponsor; the old real-estate and special-qualifications routes are closed.
The cheapest self-funded routes we track for Macao:
- Investment: about $1.9M (IPIM major investment plan, MOP 15M (no passive real-estate route since 2007; converted at 1 USD = 8.07 MOP); as of June 2026)
For short visits, 85 of 198 passports can enter visa-free, 106 can get an e-visa or visa on arrival and 7 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).