Where to live in Tajikistan
We track 3 cities in Tajikistan: Dushanbe, Isfara and Istaravshan. Average temperatures run from 13°C to 16°C. We estimate a couple needs €2,074 to €2,142 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
- 64/100
- country-level estimate
- Healthcare
- 50/100
- country-level estimate
- Democracy
- 2.4/10
- 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, 2020) 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 Tajikistan. Figures for safety, healthcare, cost of living and political stability in Tajikistan 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 Tajikistan, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dushanbe | mid-sized | inland | 16°C | 532 mm | €2,142 |
| Isfara | mid-sized | inland | 15°C | 161 mm | €2,074 |
| Istaravshan | mid-sized | inland | 13°C | 400 mm | €2,074 |
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. No passive-income or retirement visa exists; long-term residency runs through employment work permits, setting up a wholly foreign-owned business, or a discretionary multi-year investor (Category C) visa, with a bureaucratic process and no clear path to permanent residency.
The cheapest self-funded routes we track for Tajikistan:
- Investment: about $500k (Category C investor visa, USD 500,000 qualifying investment for a 3-year residence visa (USD 1,000,000+ for 5 years); no formal golden visa, requires active business engagement; as of June 2026)
For short visits, 86 of 198 passports can enter visa-free, 111 can get an e-visa or visa on arrival and 1 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).