Where to live in São Tomé & Príncipe
We track one city in São Tomé & Príncipe: São Tomé. It averages 26°C over the year. We estimate a couple needs €2,848 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
- 52/100
- country-level estimate
- Democracy
- 6.3/10
- estimated
Estimated from World Bank indicators and calibrated to the scales of our reference tables: safety from the Worldwide Governance Indicators Political Stability and Absence of Violence estimate (GOV_WGI_PV.EST, 2025) and life expectancy at birth (SP.DYN.LE00.IN, 2024), 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 São Tomé & Príncipe. Figures for safety, healthcare, cost of living and political stability in São Tomé & Príncipe 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 São Tomé & Príncipe, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| São Tomé | smaller | coastal | 26°C | 1,692 mm | €2,848 |
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. Temporary residence is available via employment, self-employment with sufficient funds, study, or family ties, and since 2025 a remote citizenship-by-investment donation route grants status outright with no physical-presence requirement.
The cheapest self-funded routes we track for São Tomé & Príncipe:
- Investment: about $95k (São Tomé and Príncipe citizenship-by-investment, USD 90,000 donation to the National Transformation Fund plus USD 5,000 application fee (single applicant); figures already in USD; as of June 2026)
For short visits, 56 of 198 passports can enter visa-free and 142 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).