Moving to Panama from the UK

Our residency index: 90/100, comparatively open. It is our own rating of how realistic long-term residency in Panama is for UK citizens, based on the routes Panama publishes. Several accessible routes: a low-bar retiree (Pensionado) visa for those with a lifetime pension, an investor (Qualified Investor) visa, and the Friendly Nations visa for many nationalities, most granting immediate or fast permanent residency.

The cheapest self-funded routes we track:

• Income: about $1,000 a month (Panama Pensionado (retiree) visa, lifetime pension of USD 1,000/mo for a single applicant; as of June 2026)
• Investment: about $300k (Panama Qualified Investor Visa, USD 300,000 real-estate purchase held 5 years (current minimum in mid-2026, before the scheduled rise to USD 500,000); 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, UK passport holders can visit visa-free for up to 90 days, 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 UK 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. Panama City

   68% match

   Est. cost

   €2,800/mo

   Avg temp

   26°C

   Safety index

   60/100

Our estimate for a couple living centrally in Panama City is €2,800 a month. For comparison, we estimate €4,315 a month in London. Use these figures to compare places rather than to set a budget.

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

• Safest cities in Latin America
• Best places to retire in Latin America
• Cheapest cities to live in Latin America
• Best places to live in Latin America

• Moving to Panama from the US
• Moving to Panama from Canada
• Moving to Panama from Australia
• Moving to Panama from Ireland
• Moving to Panama 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 UK 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.