Where to live in Mongolia
We track 3 cities in Mongolia: Darhan, Erdenet and Ulan Bator. Average temperatures run from 1°C to 3°C. We estimate a couple needs €2,156 to €2,345 a month to live centrally. For foreigners, long-term residency is possible, with conditions.
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- Safety
- 61/100
- country-level estimate
- Healthcare
- 57/100
- country-level estimate
- Democracy
- 6.4/10
- 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) 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 Mongolia. Figures for safety, healthcare, cost of living and political stability in Mongolia 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 Mongolia, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Darhan | smaller | inland | 3°C | 263 mm | €2,156 |
| Erdenet | smaller | inland | 1°C | 314 mm | €2,168 |
| Ulan Bator | mid-sized | inland | 1°C | 227 mm | €2,345 |
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 residency is realistically reached through the investor route (forming or holding shares in a foreign-invested Mongolian company), with work and family routes as the other main paths; there is no retirement or passive-income visa.
The cheapest self-funded routes we track for Mongolia:
- Investment: about $100k (Investor (Type B) residence permit, deposit/investment of USD 100,000 per investor to establish a foreign-invested company (at least 25% equity); figure already in USD; as of June 2026)
For short visits, 65 of 198 passports can enter visa-free, 98 can get an e-visa or visa on arrival and 35 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).