Where to live in Uruguay
We track 3 cities in Uruguay: Montevideo, Paysandú and Salto. Average temperatures run from 17°C to 19°C. We estimate a couple needs €2,945 to €3,313 a month to live centrally. Uruguay sits in our low to medium tax tier. For citizens from outside Mercosur and its associate states, long-term residency is comparatively open.
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- Tax tier
- Low to medium
- Moderate personal income tax
- Languages
- Spanish
- Some English
- Safety
- 63/100
- country-level estimate
- Healthcare
- 68/100
- country-level estimate
- Internet
- ~140 Mbps
- median fixed broadband
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) and 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). Source: The World Bank (World Development Indicators, Worldwide Governance Indicators), CC BY 4.0.
Limited data for Uruguay. Figures for safety, healthcare and cost of living in Uruguay are country-level estimates from World Bank indicators, each named with its year. We have no social openness figures for Uruguay, so the quiz scores that factor conservatively and this page leaves it out.
The 3 cities we track
| City | Size | Setting | Avg temp | Rain a year | Est. cost a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Montevideo | large | coastal | 17°C | 936 mm | €3,313 |
| Paysandú | smaller | near the coast | 19°C | 1,241 mm | €2,945 |
| Salto | smaller | inland | 19°C | 1,361 mm | €2,985 |
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.
Taxes
Uruguay sits in our low to medium tax tier: moderate 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
Comparatively open, for people from outside Mercosur and its associate states. Uruguay grants residency to financially independent foreigners who prove stable foreign passive income or a pension (rentista/pensionado 'sufficient means' route), leading directly to permanent residency with no required investment.
Citizens of Mercosur and its associate states have freedom-of-movement or simplified residency rights here.
The cheapest self-funded routes we track for Uruguay:
- Income: about $1,500 a month (Uruguay rentista/pensionado 'medios de vida' route, ~USD 1,500/mo passive income for a single applicant (administrative expectation; no statutory minimum); as of June 2026)
For short visits, 84 of 198 passports can enter visa-free and 114 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).