#1
Thailand
Southeast Asia · Tropical
89best fit /100
- Flight home
- 9h from Sydney
- Visa
- LTR / Retirement O-A
- Tax on your income
- 0% foreign income (LTR)
- Living cost
- $1,800/mo
17 destinations · verified July 2026
Retiring abroad on an Australian passport
Scores weight flight time from Sydney — a 0% tax win on the other side of the planet rarely beats being able to see family.
To break Australian tax residency you need intention + a permanent home abroad + fewer than ~183 days back in Australia in a year — days alone aren't enough. Keep a written plan for visiting grandkids without blowing the tests. Model your super + investments against each treaty before you commit.
What matters most to you? — optional, moves the ranking
Leave these alone and you get our balanced view. Turn one up and you will see exactly how many points it moved, on every country.
normal
normal
normal
normal
normal
normal
Your top three from Australia
Ranked for an Australian passport, retiring now, aged about 62. Non-tax resident.
#2
Malaysia
Southeast Asia · Tropical
88best fit /100
- Flight home
- 8h from Sydney
- Visa
- MM2H (Silver)
- Tax on your income
- 0% foreign income (to 2036)
- Living cost
- $1,900/mo
#3
Philippines
Southeast Asia · Tropical
87best fit /100
- Flight home
- 8h from Sydney
- Visa
- SRRV Classic
- Tax on your income
- 0% foreign income (source-based)
- Living cost
- $1,500/mo
See all 17 countries ranked
| # | Country | Best fit | Relative score | Flight | Tax | Cost/mo | Health | Residency |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Thailand | 89 | 9h | 0% | $1,800 | 8.2 | Difficult | |
| 2 | Malaysia | 88 | 8h | 0% | $1,900 | 8.7 | No PR route | |
| 3 | Philippines | 87 | 8h | 0% | $1,500 | 6.8 | Permanent | |
| 4 |  Indonesia (Bali) | 79 | 6h | 5–35% | $1,700 | 6.5 | KITAP 3–4 yrs | |
| 5 |  Italy | 79 | 24h | 7% | $2,400 | 8.6 | 5 yrs | |
| 6 |  Mauritius | 78 | 12h | 0–20% | $2,000 | 7 | 5 yrs + $200k | |
| 7 |  Malta | 78 | 24h | 15% | $2,600 | 8.8 | 5 yrs | |
| 8 |  Greece | 77 | 25h | 7% | $2,200 | 7.9 | 5 yrs | |
| 9 |  Panama | 77 | 30h | 0% | $2,100 | 7.8 | Immediate | |
| 10 |  Mexico | 76 | 18h | 1.92–35% | $1,700 | 7.5 | 4 yrs | |
| 11 |  Cyprus | 75 | 22h | 0–5% | $2,200 | 8 | On grant — long queue | |
| 12 |  Spain | 73 | 24h | 19–47% | $2,500 | 9 | 5 yrs | |
| 13 |  Portugal | 72 | 24h | 13–48% | $2,600 | 9 | 5 yrs | |
| 14 |  Uruguay | 72 | 38h | 0% | $2,300 | 8 | Direct — <1 yr | |
| 15 |  UAE (Dubai) | 69 | 14h | 0% | $3,500 | 8.5 | Golden Visa | |
| 16 |  Costa Rica | 68 | 34h | 0% | $2,000 | 7.8 | 3 yrs | |
| 17 |  Vietnam | 61 | 8h | Under review | $1,400 | 6.3 | Near-unattainable |
What Australian citizenship changes about this list
Everything below is the same 17 countries seen through one passport. The order moves, but so does the reasoning: which treaties exist, how far you actually are from home, and where the paperwork gets easier or harder because of where you were born.
Double-tax treaties, across the whole list
9 of the 17 destinations have a double-tax treaty in force with Australia, 1 more has one signed but not yet in force, and 7 have none at all. A treaty is not a tax cut — it decides which of the two countries gets to tax your pension, so that only one of them does.
- Signed, not yet in force (1)
- Portugal
No treaty does not mean no. It means the question of who taxes your pension has no agreed answer, so you have to work it out under both countries' domestic rules before you move — not after. That applies to Panama, Cyprus, Costa Rica, Greece, Mauritius, Uruguay and UAE (Dubai).
How far you would actually be from Sydney
This is the number people discount at 62 and regret at 74. It is not about holidays; it is about how quickly you can be at a hospital bed on the other side of the world.
- Under 6 hours from Sydney (1)
- Indonesia (Bali) 6h
- 6 to 12 hours from Sydney (5)
- Malaysia 8hPhilippines 8hVietnam 8hThailand 9hMauritius 12h
- 12 to 20 hours from Sydney (2)
- UAE (Dubai) 14hMexico 18h
- Over 20 hours from Sydney (9)
- Cyprus 22hPortugal 24hMalta 24hItaly 24hSpain 24hGreece 25hPanama 30hCosta Rica 34hUruguay 38h
Where the passport moves the score most
Every country starts from the same baseline. These are the places where holding Australian citizenship changes the answer by the widest margin — up and down.
- +6Malaysia — 8h + English + excellent healthcare + AU treaty
- +5Thailand — ~9h from Sydney + AU treaty + superb private hospitals
- +4Philippines — ~8h, English, cheap, permanent-style SRRV
- -12Uruguay — ~38h from Sydney — effectively 'another life'
- -10Panama — ~30h from Sydney — brutal for grandkid visits
- -9Costa Rica — 34h from Sydney + CCSS levy + backlog
Non-tax-resident checklist
Leaving Australia for tax purposes — practical checklist (not advice)
- Be clear you're leaving for goodATO looks at intention and whether you have a permanent home abroad — not just how many days you're away.
- Set up a real home overseasLong lease or buy something — this anchors your new life for the residency tests.
- Keep Australian visits under ~183 days a yearTrack days each income year. Grandkid trips are fine — living half the year in Sydney is not.
- Cut the 'resident' tiesMedicare, electoral roll, private health, clubs, resident bank flags — tidy them up with advice.
- Check your super fund rulesSome Commonwealth-style memberships can keep you treated as a resident — ask your fund.
- Plan capital gains when you leaveLeaving Australia can trigger tax on some assets — get numbers before you book one-way tickets.
- Tell the ATO and update your detailsLodge the part-year return; flag non-resident status properly.
- Read the destination tax treatyIt decides which country taxes pension, dividends and rent — and what double-tax relief you get.
- Write a 'visit family' planHow many weeks in Sydney, where you'll stay, who keeps the old house — put it on paper for your adviser.
What happens to Australian state pension when you leave
This is the one part of the decision that is not decided by the country you move to. It is decided by the body that pays you, and the seven passports on this site are answered seven different ways. Every line below is quoted from the paying authority's own page, with the date we opened it.
A frozen pension is not a one-off cut. It is a gap that widens every year you stay.
The number that matters on the day you move is the same either way. What separates the two outcomes is time. A UK State Pension that is uprated each year and one that is held at the rate you left on start out identical, then drift apart for as long as you live — which is why the effect is invisible to any cost-of-living comparison that shows a single month. Hansard put the observed distance at roughly £7,000 a year against more than £11,000 for the same pension paid inside the UK, for 442,000 people. Australia handles the same question a completely different way, by residence years rather than by destination. The United States barely handles it as a portability question at all and instead makes it a tax question. There is no general rule across the seven passports here, which is exactly why this page exists.
- Paid where you're going?
- Payable overseas, but the rate changes at the 26-week markThe page's own footer reads 'Page last updated: 3 March 2022'. We record the publisher's date, not the date we opened it.Source · Opened and read 2026-08-07
- Does it still rise each year?
- Not yet sourced
- Who taxes it
- Not yet sourced
- Does your residence history change the amount?
- After 26 weeks the rate depends on how many years you were an Australian resident between 16 and Age Pension age — 35 years or more and it does not change, fewer and it is pro-rated in thirty-fifthsServices Australia's own worked example: 10 years of residence gives 10/35ths of the usual rate. A grandfather clause from 1 July 2014 protects people with 25 years' residence who have been continuously outside Australia since.Source · Opened and read 2026-08-07
- What you must send back each year
- Not yet sourced
- Health cover you leave behind
- Medicare does not cover you while you are overseas; the Pensioner Concession Card is cancelled after six weeks awayServices Australia points to Reciprocal Health Care Agreement countries as covering some of the cost. That is a much shorter list than the list of countries retirees actually move to.Source · Opened and read 2026-08-07
Australia is the one origin here where the amount depends on your own history rather than on which country you move to — the same destination pays two Australians different pensions.
In their own words
When you reach 26 weeks after leaving Australia your rate will depend on how long you were an Australian resident between 16 and Age Pension age.For example, if you were a resident for 10 years, you'll get 10/35ths of the usual rate.Medicare doesn't cover you while you're overseas. Make sure you have a plan for health care before you travel. Countries that have a Reciprocal Health Care Agreement with us may cover some of the cost.3 cells we could not fill, and why
No home-tax cell for Australia.
The non-resident withholding treatment of the Age Pension is an ATO matter and we have not opened an ato.gov.au page that states it. Australia's own means test abroad is also administered by a separate Services Australia schedule we have read but not yet reduced to a cell.
The residence-years mechanism, which is the larger effect for most people, is fully sourced above.
Descriptive only — this layer states what the rules are and never what to do about them, and nothing in it feeds the country rankings. 22 of 42 cells across seven passports are open-source-verified so far; the rest are listed above as gaps rather than filled from memory. Layer last reviewed 2026-08-07.