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ThonRetire

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Data & sources

Most comparison sites will not tell you when they last checked. That is the whole game here: an immigration threshold from two years ago is not stale trivia, it is a decision made on a number that no longer exists. So every field carries its own date.

Last full verificationJuly 2026
Facts tracked612
Age of dataset2 months
Being re-checked0

Everything is inside its refresh window. Fields carry individual dates, so one country can be refreshed without touching the rest.

Download the whole thing

CC-BY-4.0

Use it anywhere, including commercially. The only condition is that you credit ThonRetire and link back. Every number below carries the same verification date you see on the page — and where a fact has aged out of its window, the cell is blank and the status column says why, rather than shipping you a figure we have stopped standing behind.

thonretire-2026-countries.csv17 rowsOne row per destination, wide. Convenience view — no per-field provenance.thonretire-2026-facts.csv391 rowsOne row per public fact, with its own verification date, freshness status, confidence and primary source link.thonretire-2026-cities.csv62 rowsOne row per city, including the gap between city cost and the country-level headline figure.thonretire-2026.jsonall threeEverything above in one file, with the field dictionary and this licence embedded.
How to cite

Nguyễn Thành Dân (2026). ThonRetire Retirement Destination Dataset 2026, v1.3. Verified July 2026. https://thonretire.com/data — CC-BY-4.0

Frozen cite (does not move when we re-check)

DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21817351 · Full BibTeX and seal on the 2026 edition.

@misc{thonretire-index-2026,
  author       = {Nguyễn Thành Dân},
  title        = {{ThonRetire Retirement Index 2026}},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = {8},
  version      = {1.3},
  publisher    = {ThonRetire},
  howpublished = {\url{https://thonretire.com/edition/2026}},
  doi          = {10.5281/zenodo.21817351},
  note         = {Sealed edition, verified July 2026. SHA256: 45f2266f7801ff60…},
  license      = {CC-BY-4.0}
}

Attribution is the only condition, and a link back is the simplest way to give it. Released as ThonRetire Retirement Destination Dataset 2026, version 1.3, verified July 2026. These files are the current export and they will change at the next re-check. If you are citing a figure in something that has to stay right, take it from the 2026 edition instead — same numbers, dated, hashed, and never recomputed.

One finding already sits in these files: country cost averages miss city reality by a median of 16.5% — reproducible from the gap_vs_country_pct column of the cities file.

Not everything goes stale at the same speed

A single "last updated" date across a whole site is the most common lie in this category. The flight time from Sydney to Lisbon has not changed in a decade. Portugal's D7 income threshold is pegged to the minimum wage and moves whenever the budget does. Putting one date on both means either nagging you about the first or misleading you about the second. So each fact carries its own class, and each class has its own deadline.

Fast-movingre-checked every 3 months

Visa income thresholds, government fees, tax rates, programmes opening and closing

255 facts · all current

Driftingre-checked every 6 months

Cost of living, insurance premiums, processing times, banking and infrastructure

238 facts · all current

Slowre-checked every 24 months

Flight times, foreign ownership rights, inheritance structure, language and air quality

119 facts · all current

Freshness by destination

100% current

Each field carries its own verification date, so countries age at their own pace. This is the live view behind the changelog — 612 facts tracked, 0 past their refresh window.

Panamacurrent
Malaysiacurrent
Thailandcurrent
Cypruscurrent
Portugalcurrent
Maltacurrent
Costa Ricacurrent
Greececurrent
Mexicocurrent
Mauritiuscurrent
Philippinescurrent
Italycurrent
Spaincurrent
Uruguaycurrent
UAE (Dubai)current
Indonesia (Bali)current
Vietnamcurrent

What happens when a fact goes past its date

Three steps, and the third one is the one nobody else takes.

  1. Inside the window. You see the number and the month we last checked it against the source named beside it.
  2. Past the window once. You still see the number, marked as being re-verified. It was true when we checked; it may still be. You should know we are not certain.
  3. Past it twice. We hide the number and point you at the official source instead. A blank with a link costs you five minutes. A wrong immigration threshold costs you a plane ticket.

What we do not do is quietly drop the page out of search when data ages. That would punish you for our backlog. The page stays; it just stops pretending.

Where the facts come from

  • Official immigration / residency pages per destination (visa names, age and income thresholds)
  • Tax authority summaries and double-tax treaty texts (AU/US/UK/CA pairs where published)
  • Reputable professional briefings (Big-4 / specialist expat tax notes) for regime shape — not as legal advice
  • Indicative cost-of-living bands cross-checked against public COL indexes (rounded USD/mo)
  • Flight times as typical one-way door-to-door from the origin city hub (not a fare quote)

35 of those 35 entries are a primary page published by the ministry, revenue authority or programme agency itself, and every one of them is a link you can open from the country page — not a citation you have to take on trust. Link set last walked 2026-08. Anything we score ourselves — the composite, cost of living, healthcare and flight time — is labelled as ours and points at the method instead of borrowing a government name.

What we do not know

Some immigration backlogs, bank KYC timelines and insurance quotes move faster than this page. Open gaps are marked in criteria. Always confirm against the official source before acting.

Confidence is recorded per field. High means a parsed value backed by more than one source. Solid means a single source or a value we could not machine-read. Indicative means treat it as a starting point for your own research, not a number to act on.

Sources by destination

Panama

Malaysia

Thailand

Cyprus

Portugal

Malta

Costa Rica

Greece

Mexico

Mauritius

Philippines

Italy

Spain

Uruguay

UAE (Dubai)

Indonesia (Bali)

Vietnam

ThonRetire is an indicative decision aid. It is not immigration, tax or financial advice. Immigration thresholds, tax regimes and processing backlogs change without notice — always confirm against the official source, and take a qualified adviser before you commit money or move country.