Where to live in Tonga
We track one city in Tonga: Nuku‘alofa. It averages 24°C over the year. We estimate a couple needs €3,005 a month to live centrally. For foreigners, 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).
- Safety
- 70/100
- country-level estimate
- Healthcare
- 57/100
- country-level estimate
- Democracy
- 7.6/10
- 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 Tonga. Figures for safety, healthcare, cost of living and political stability in Tonga 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 Tonga, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nuku‘alofa | smaller | coastal | 24°C | 2,046 mm | €3,005 |
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. The realistic self-funded route is the Assured Income (retirement) visa for those with overseas pension or fund income, renewable every two years and leading to permanent residency after five years; ordinary residency visas otherwise hinge on Tongan ancestry or marriage, and there is no active investor route.
The cheapest self-funded routes we track for Tonga:
- Income: about $346 a month (Tonga Assured Income (retirement) visa, TOP 10,000/year (no work, study or business permitted); converted at 1 TOP = 0.4153 USD (June 2026); as of June 2026)
For short visits, 32 of 198 passports can enter visa-free, 37 can get an e-visa or visa on arrival and 129 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).