Survey: Taiwan the 5th Best Place To Live For Expats – The News Lens International Edition

Taiwan is ranked the 5th best destination to live for expats, dropping two places since 2022, according to the annual Expat Insider survey conducted by InterNations, a global expats’ networking website.

The survey interviewed over 12,000 respondents living in 53 cities around the world. Mexico, Spain, and Panama are the three best places for expats, followed by Malaysia and Taiwan. The worst places for expats are Kuwait, Norway, and Turkey.

The survey found the happiness level of expats in Taiwan was as high as 78%, which was slightly higher than the average happiness score globally, at 76%.

Taiwan excelled in the Quality of Life Index, securing the second place among all destinations. Respondents also showed great satisfaction with amenities and public environments, and found the healthcare system the most affordable globally.

Respondents showed relatively high satisfaction in areas such as the Working Abroad Index (the ninth) and Personal Finance Index (the 11th).

Despite a strong sense of job security (third), The Working Abroad Index’s statistics showed that 31% of respondents sought more flexibility in Taiwan’s business culture, and another 40% of them looked for flatter structure in the organization and more independence in the workplace.

Taiwan performed relatively worse but still hovered above average in the Expat Essentials Index, ranking the 22th out of 53 destinations. The respondents said that the price of housing (the 23th) was not sufficiently affordable, and they experienced language barriers (the 39th), particularly for those who are English speakers. 

Compared with Taiwan’s top-tier performance, Hong Kong, which is widely known as Asia’s international financial hub, languished near the bottom of the list. As revealed by the Expat Insider surveys in recent three years, Hong Kong has been ranked 46th in 2021, 50th in 2022, and 40th this year, out of all the destinations. 

In the 2021 edition of the survey, Hong Kong ranked last for political stability, standing as the sole Asian city in the bottom 10 for the Safety and Politics Index. The respondents said the city’s political situation has deteriorated since the imposition of National Security Law in June 2020, and this has discouraged them to live in Hong Kong. 

In the same year, none of the respondents felt personally unsafe in Taiwan. This is in contrast with the global average of 6% of respondents, who expressed a sense of personal insecurity in their locations. 

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TNL Editor: Kim Chan (@thenewslensintl)

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