Where to live in Qatar
We track one city in Qatar: Doha. It averages 28°C over the year. We estimate a couple needs €3,264 a month to live centrally. Qatar sits in our zero or very low tax tier. For citizens from outside the Gulf Cooperation Council states, long-term residency is possible, with conditions.
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).
- Tax tier
- Zero or very low
- Little to no personal income tax
- Languages
- Arabic, English
- Limited English
- Safety
- 88/100
- country-level
- Healthcare
- 70/100
- country-level
- Internet
- ~130 Mbps
- median fixed broadband
The city we track
| City | Size | Setting | Avg temp | Rain a year | Est. cost a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Doha | mid-sized | coastal | 28°C | 82 mm | €3,264 |
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
Qatar sits in our zero or very low tax tier: little to no 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, for people from outside the Gulf Cooperation Council states. Long-term residency is realistic either through an employer-sponsored work permit or by buying real estate worth QAR 730,000 for a renewable residence permit, with a higher property tier granting capped permanent residency; there is no self-funded passive-income or retirement route.
Citizens of the Gulf Cooperation Council states have freedom-of-movement or simplified residency rights here.
The cheapest self-funded routes we track for Qatar:
- Investment: about $200k (Qatar real-estate investor residency, QAR 730,000 (~USD 200,000) for a renewable residence permit tied to the property; USD/QAR pegged at 3.65. A QAR 3.65M (~USD 1M) tier grants permanent residency, capped at 100/year.; as of June 2026)
For short visits, 7 of 198 passports can enter visa-free and 191 can get an e-visa or visa on arrival.
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).