The World’s Best Places For Expats To Live, Ranked In New Report

If you’re considering moving to a new country, Mercer’s Quality of Living Report 2024 is designed to help determine which countries might offer expats the best quality of life. European cities, notably Zurich, Vienna, and Geneva, rank highly as the best places for expats, but Auckland and Vancouver also ranked in the top ten.

Best Places For Expats: Why These Cities Ranked Highly

The report singles out the winner Zurich for its “outstanding public services, low crime rates and a lively cultural scene” although as Bloomberg points out, the good lifestyle in Zurich and Geneva comes with a price tag.

Vienna, in second place in this report, came first in the Most Liveable City 2023 report by the The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) because of its infrastructure, culture and entertainment, in addition to having solid healthcare and education services.

Incidentally, Copenhagen, which ranked fourth in the Mercer report, came in second place in the EIU 2023 report. Denmark ranks consistently very highly in terms of self-reported happiness and for its healthcare—the average Dane will see a medical practitioner 11 times a year.

Best Places For Expats: U.S. Cities

The highest ranking U.S. city in this report was Boston at number 32 and New York obtained a rank of 45. Lost Angeles, however, climbed a whopping 26 places to number 44 because of improvement in crime, air quality and internet access.

Best Places For Expats: How The Methodology Works

The report is designed to allow comparisons between places across the world in terms of the quality of living for employees sent to work abroad. The study examines the living conditions and costs in global cities to rank these places so that multinational corporations and governments can take a view on how much compensation a person should receive for working there as an expat.

The methodology covers the climate, disease and sanitation standards, physical remoteness and ease of communications, the political and social environment and violence and crime in each city.

New York is the base city for the global rankings, and the study researches and compares 241 cities across five continents.

Best Places For Expats: Top 20 Cities

Of the 241 cities in the global study, the Mercer report ranked eight cities in Europe in the top ten for the best places for expats in 2024. For North America, Vancouver came top, and for the Pacific region, the report ranked Auckland in New Zealand at number five:

• 1st—Zurich, Switzerland
• 2nd—Vienna, Austria
• 3rd—Geneva, Switzerland
• 4th—Copenhagen, Denmark
• 5th—Auckland, New Zealand
• 6th—Amsterdam, Netherlands
• 7th (joint)—Frankfurt, Germany
• 7th (joint)—Vancouver, Canada
• 9th—Bern, Switzerland
• 10th—Basel, Switzerland
• 11th—Munich, Germany
• 12th—Sydney, Australia
• 13th—Toronto, Canada
• 14th (joint)—The Hague, Netherlands
• 14th (joint)—Wellington, New Zealand
• 16th—Dusseldorf, Germany
• 17th—Luxembourg, Luxembourg
• 18th—Stockholm, Sweden
• 19th—Berlin, Germany
• 20th—Ottawa, Canada

In terms of Asia, Singapore came top at number 30, the only Asian city in the top 50. Dubai was the highest rated in the Middle East, at number 83, with Abu Dhabi in 85th place. The leading African city. for expats in the report, at number 88, is Port Louis, and the best city for expats in South America, at number 92, is Montevideo in Uruguay.

Places For Expats That Ranked The Lowest

According to the 241 cities that Mercer included in the Quality of Living report, the lowest quality of living for expats was found in cities in Africa and the Middle East:

• 238th—Sanaa, Yemen

• 239th—Bangui, Central African Republic
• 240th—Baghdad, Iraq
• 241st—Khartoum, Sudan

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