Portugal beats European competition in new study to find best place to retire
A new study has named Portugal as the best country for retirement in Europe.
The experts at Moving to Spain, a website dedicated to sheding light on what is needed to move to Spain, have analysed the cost of living, health care, average apartment prices, average annual sunshine hours, retirement visas, percentage of populations aged 65 and above, life expectancy, total blue flag sites and global peace index scores across every European country in order to reveal the best countries in Europe for retirement.
“Based on our index, the best retirement country in Europe is Portugal, with a retirement score of 7.83 out of 10,” Moving to Spain says.
“Portugal is a safe country, with a high percentage of its population aged 65 and above. It offers plenty of sunshine, good-quality beaches, as well as a reasonably low cost of living. One of the many things Portugal is famous for is its wine and port. Add spectacular golf courses and wonderful scenery, and it is the complete package,” it adds.
Spain and Italy are tied in second place with a score of 7.31, with Greece in fourth (6.70) and Bulgaria in fifth (6.39). The top-10 also features France (5.53), Slovenia (5.36), Croatia and Malta tied in eighth place (5.35) and Ireland (5.15).
Moving to Spain used several sources for itsdata analysis, including the Economics and Peace Global Peace Index for safety data, Numbeo for cost of living scores and apartment prices, The World Bank for life expectancy and percentage of population aged 65 and above, Prosperity for healthcare quality scores, Blue Flag for the number of Blue Flag sites in each European country, World Data for average sunshine hours per year, and Where Can I Live for countries offering retirement visas.
After compiling the data, the website created a weighted table, assigning a score out of 10 to each factor and then averaging these scores to obtain an overall score out of 10.
The full report can be found online.
