Moving to Egypt from the US

Our residency index: 60/100, possible, with conditions. It is our own rating of how realistic long-term residency in Egypt is for US citizens, based on the routes Egypt publishes. Egypt's only self-funded long-term path is investor residency via a property purchase or a bank deposit under the 2023 investor-residency decree (renewable temporary residency, not permanent residence or citizenship); there is no passive-income or retirement visa, with other routes being employment, study, or family sponsorship.

The cheapest self-funded routes we track:

• Investment: about $50k (Egypt investor residency, lowest tier: USD 50,000 registered-property purchase or USD 50,000 bank deposit for a 1-year renewable permit under PM Decree 3326/2023 (figures set in USD by the decree); as of June 2026)

Check the official requirements before you apply: amounts, conditions and exchange rates change, and what a couple needs can differ from a single applicant's threshold.

For short visits, US passport holders can get a visa on arrival for a visit, according to the passport-index dataset. Short-stay entry covers visits; living there takes a residence permit.

Ranked by our match model for a typical couple who both hold US passports, using the preset answers of our best places to live list. Your own answers would change the order. We pick the cities, up to five, by how often English Wikipedia readers looked them up over the past year.

1. 1

   1. Alexandria

   57% match

   Est. cost

   €1,988/mo

   Avg temp

   21°C

   Safety index

   58/100

2. 2

   2. Port Said

   52% match

   Est. cost

   €1,880/mo

   Avg temp

   22°C

   Safety index

   58/100

3. 3

   3. Cairo

   48% match

   Est. cost

   €2,048/mo

   Avg temp

   23°C

   Safety index

   58/100

4. 4

   4. Luxor

   44% match

   Est. cost

   €1,845/mo

   Avg temp

   27°C

   Safety index

   58/100

Our estimate for a couple living centrally runs from €1,845 a month in Luxor to €2,048 in Cairo. For comparison, we estimate €4,640 a month in New York City. Use these figures to compare places rather than to set a budget.

Egypt is in our low to medium tax tier (moderate personal income tax); the US is in our low to medium tax tier (moderate personal income tax). Tiers describe each country's own income tax. They do not cover tax you may still owe in the US after you leave, or the treaty between the two countries, so check both with a tax adviser before you move.

• Warm, affordable cities to live abroad
• Best places to live in the Middle East and North Africa
• Best places to live in Africa
• Best warm, dry cities to live in

• Moving to Egypt from the UK
• Moving to Egypt from Canada
• Moving to Egypt from Australia
• Moving to Egypt from Ireland
• Moving to Egypt from New Zealand

Every country and origin we cover

Every figure here comes from the datasets behind our city and country pages:

• Short-stay entry: the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT license), which records the entry rule for short visits on each passport.
• Residency index, routes and thresholds: the OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. It is a summary, not legal advice.
• City ranking: our match model, the one behind the quiz, run with a typical couple's preset answers and both partners holding US passports. It ranks up to five of the country's best-known cities: of the cities in our quiz (100,000 people or more, capitals and a few towns movers seek out, such as Faro), the five most read about on English Wikipedia over the past year. It folds suburbs into their main city and leaves out countries with a residency index under 40 and areas under a US State Department Level 4 advisory, as our best-cities lists do.
• Costs: our cost model, a country-level cost-of-living index scaled for city size, from our city dataset (last rebuilt June 2026).
• Tax tiers: three coarse bands we assign by hand from each country's top marginal personal income tax rate and overall tax reputation.