Where to live in Zimbabwe
We track 3 cities in Zimbabwe: Bulawayo, Harare and Mutare. Average temperatures run from 19°C to 20°C. We estimate a couple needs €2,573 to €2,785 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
- 48/100
- country-level estimate
- Healthcare
- 43/100
- country-level estimate
- Democracy
- 3.3/10
- 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, 2022) 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 Zimbabwe. Figures for safety, healthcare, cost of living and political stability in Zimbabwe 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 Zimbabwe, so the quiz scores those factors conservatively and this page leaves them out.
The 3 cities we track
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. Long-term residency realistically runs through the investor residence permit (an active business, with the cheapest tier needing a local joint-venture partner) or an employer-sponsored work permit, with permanent residence after five years; there is no retirement or passive-income route.
The cheapest self-funded routes we track for Zimbabwe:
- Investment: about $100k (Zimbabwe Investor Residence Permit, cheapest tier USD 100,000 offshore capital in a ZIA-approved joint venture with a Zimbabwean (figure already in USD); USD 300,000 for a sole venture, USD 1,000,000 for direct permanent residence; as of June 2026)
For short visits, 41 of 198 passports can enter visa-free and 157 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).