Moving to Ethiopia from New Zealand

Our residency index: 40/100, possible, with conditions. It is our own rating of how realistic long-term residency in Ethiopia is for New Zealand citizens, based on the routes Ethiopia publishes. Long-term residency is realistic mainly through investment, where a USD 150,000 residential-property purchase or company investment grants a renewable multi-year residence permit, or through an employer-sponsored work permit; there is no passive-income, retirement, or points-based route.

The cheapest self-funded routes we track:

• Investment: about $150k (Ethiopia foreign-national residential property ownership (Proclamation 1388/2025), USD 150,000 per unit, paid in foreign currency, grants a residence permit/multiple-entry visa up to 5 years; figure already in USD; 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, New Zealand 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 New Zealand 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. Cities in regions of Ethiopia under a US State Department "Level 4: Do Not Travel" advisory (checked 13 October 2026) are left out.

1. 1

   1. Addis Ababa

   60% match

   Est. cost

   €2,061/mo

   Avg temp

   15°C

   Safety index

   45/100

2. 2

   2. Jijiga

   55% match

   Est. cost

   €1,934/mo

   Avg temp

   20°C

   Safety index

   45/100

Our estimate for a couple living centrally runs from €1,934 a month in Jijiga to €2,061 in Addis Ababa. For comparison, we estimate €3,812 a month in Auckland. Use these figures to compare places rather than to set a budget.

Ethiopia is in our low to medium tax tier (moderate personal income tax); New Zealand 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 New Zealand after you leave, or the treaty between the two countries, so check both with a tax adviser before you move.

• Best places to live in Africa
• Cheapest cities to live abroad
• Best cities for a couple on €2,500 a month

• Moving to Ethiopia from the US
• Moving to Ethiopia from the UK
• Moving to Ethiopia from Canada
• Moving to Ethiopia from Australia
• Moving to Ethiopia from Ireland

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 New Zealand 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.