Everyone yearns for a good work-life balance, and some people love the idea of exploring a little more of the world while working remotely. Some countries are set up for both—offering accessible digital nomad visas and great infrastructure, ranking highly in several recent expert reports across both categories. What’s more, these five countries—Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, and Norway—have also recently topped the best places to travel in 2026 lists. Here’s why.

Digital Nomad Visas—The Best Countries To Work From Home

You need a stable environment to work remotely—places with good tech infrastructure and efficient public services, like transport and healthcare. It can be stressful not working in the same country as your employer, so living somewhere that cultivates better mental health, either in access to recreational infrastructure or parks and green spaces, is a bonus. Living in a new place also means you need to make friends fast and maybe learn a new language. A society that has a good work-life balance might enable you to do this more easily, with spaces for volunteering, thriving art scenes, and lots of access to sports and other cultural activities.

If you are dreaming of life as a digital nomad, recent research by Compare The Market insurance shows which countries might be your best bet. Compare The Market analyzed 26 countries and created an index of those that offer the best working from home conditions, based on the best digital infrastructure, but also energy efficiency and climate conditions. As per this study, the best countries to work from home are the Netherlands, Iceland, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, France, Canada, Australia, and Malta.

Digital Nomad Visas—Countries With The Best Work-Life Balance

CNTraveler listed the top ten countries with the best work-life balance, many of them the same as those that offer the best conditions for working from home. A survey by remote.com also went one step further by listing the cities in these countries with the best work-life balance in 2025:

  • New Zealand—Wellington
  • Ireland—Dublin
  • Belgium—Brussels
  • Germany—Berlin
  • Norway—Oslo
  • Denmark—Copenhagen
  • Canada—Ottawa
  • Australia—Canberra
  • Spain—Madrid
  • Finland—Helsinki

Some of these countries have some of the most generous annual leave allowances in the world. Finland, for example, has 24 paid annual leave days and 14 paid public holidays, totalling 38 total time off days. And if you need any more convincing, Finland has topped the World Happiness report every year since 2018.

Digital Nomad Visas—These Countries Are On Lonely Planet’s 25 Best Destinations For 2026

Three of the five countries with the best work-life balance and the best working from home environments, as per recent expert reports, are also on the Must-Visit lists of Lonely Planet for 2026.

Finland in Europe is on the list for the Northern Lights, naturally, but also the great outdoors, the Sami reindeer, the Finnish lakeland, and the “whole Arctic shebang”.

British Columbia, Canada is one of Lonely Planet’s 25 best destinations 2025 for embracing the big outdoors full of “mossy forests, saw-toothed mountains, white water rivers and wildlife-rich ecosystems.”

Ikara Flinders Ranges and the Outback in South Australia makes the cut for the sunsets, lunar-like landscapes, and Australia’s largest salt lake, kati-thanda-lake-eyre.

Digital Nomad Visas—The Countries On CNTraveler’s Best Destinations List 2026

Of these five countries, three of them feature on CNTraveler’s best destinations to visit in 2026—Canada, Australia, and Finland.

Prince Edward County, or PEC in Canada (a few hours’ drive from both Montreal and Toronto), is on the list for its upcoming exciting hospitality openings to add to the impressive list of “boutique hotels, small family-run wineries, and world-class restaurants.”

Adelaide in Australia for the late-2026 opening of the $500 million (US$330 million) Market Square development, one of the largest fresh produce markets in the Southern Hemisphere. Plus the debut of two new suites in the iconic sleeper train, the Ghan, that can transport you in style between Adelaide and the Northern Territories.

Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory in Australia is on the list, for its festivals, notably the Aboriginal art fair in August, as is King Island in Australia for its golf courses and hideaway villas “overrun with wallabies” on the edge of the southern ocean.

Oulu in Finland, south of the Arctic Circle, has 600 miles of walking and cycling paths, a low-impact Arctic food culture, and will become in 2026 a European Capital of Culture, an exciting moment to visit. There is a lot of innovative digital art and a big sauna culture.

The Digital Nomad Visas Available In These Five Countries

For digital nomads, these five countries stand out for their exceptional work-life balance, reliable infrastructure, and cultural richness. Norway and Australia were both recently ranked in the top ten digital nomad visas for the best quality of life by a Global Citizens Solution report. Canada came in the top ten for the best digital nomad visa for tech and innovation.

Finland offers one of the most accessible digital nomad visas in Europe, called the self-employment visa, despite the high cost of living. To be eligible for Finland’s self-employment visa, applicants must earn at least $1,260 per month (€1,220) or just over $15,000 per year. To work as a digital nomad in Denmark you would need to apply for a long-term type D visa.

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