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Move & retire

India

The cheapest place on this site to live, and the hardest to be allowed to.

4/4
ingredients confirmed
Every ingredient this page asks for has a figure and a source.
Living
23.8% of US prices
A comparison of prices, not a budget: it says what things cost here against the United States, not what a month will cost you. Compared at country level, so capital cities and large metros run higher. The price level prices the basket residents buy, and a foreign renter cannot reach the cheap end of local housing — poorer countries may still sit too low here.
Safety
2.409 · 127th of 163
Low on the index, driven by internal conflict, militarisation and relations with neighbours
Residency
The long route runs through ancestry
Healthcare
Buy it, and it is very good and very cheap
Out-of-pocket spending is 43.9% of current health expenditure here (World Bank, 2023, CC BY 4.0). Read it with care: the measure counts only what insured people pay — not premiums, and not the uninsured — which is why the United States comes out at 10.9%, ahead of most countries on this site.

More is being checked.

Where these figures came from

One row per ingredient. Open any of them for the source, how far we trust it, and when we last checked.

Living23.8% of US prices

World Bank, 2024, CC BY 4.0: the PPP conversion factor for household consumption is 19.8969 local currency units per international dollar, against an official exchange rate of 83.6693 to the US dollar. Their ratio, 0.238, is the price level against the United States, whose own ratio is 1 by construction. Both figures are theirs; the division is ours. See the Pathoff method, section 12.

A comparison of prices, not a budget: it says what things cost here against the United States, not what a month will cost you. Compared at country level, so capital cities and large metros run higher. The price level prices the basket residents buy, and a foreign renter cannot reach the cheap end of local housing — poorer countries may still sit too low here.

Confidence
made by us from the source
Safety2.409 · 127th of 163

Global Peace Index 2026, Institute for Economics and Peace: score 2.409, ranked 127 of 163. Both figures are theirs; we publish them as they are.

Low on the index, driven by internal conflict, militarisation and relations with neighbours

Confidence
printed in the source
ResidencyThe long route runs through ancestry

Pathoff outcome rubric (the Pathoff method, section 10-4), residency band "Hard, and partly out of your hands": No retirement or passive-income category exists. Long-term status runs through employment, which is gated on a salary floor, or through the Overseas Citizen card, which requires Indian origin or marriage to someone who has it. For anyone without that ancestry there is no settlement route, and ancestry is exactly the kind of condition this band exists to record.

Confidence
made by us from the source
Rule
No change known to us
Last checked
2026-09
HealthcareBuy it, and it is very good and very cheap

Pathoff healthcare rubric (the Pathoff method, section 13-2), band "You buy your own, and it is affordable": The public scheme is for citizens; a foreign resident uses private care, which is inexpensive and fast, and serious treatment is done here — India receives more medical travellers than almost any country. Mid-band because there is no public system to fall into and quality varies enormously between the private hospitals and everything else.

Out-of-pocket spending is 43.9% of current health expenditure here (World Bank, 2023, CC BY 4.0). Read it with care: the measure counts only what insured people pay — not premiums, and not the uninsured — which is why the United States comes out at 10.9%, ahead of most countries on this site.

Confidence
made by us from the source
Rule
No change known to us
Last checked
2026-09

What it is like here

Living costs here are less than a quarter of the United States and private medicine is both excellent and inexpensive — India treats more foreign patients than almost anywhere. The obstacle is legal. There is no retirement or passive-income visa. The long-term route that exists, the Overseas Citizen card, turns on having Indian ancestry, which is not something an applicant can do anything about.

How the process works

1

Establish whether you have an ancestry claim

It is the single fact that decides whether a long-term route exists.

Timing not confirmed
2

Otherwise, employment or business

Both carry conditions; the employment route carries a salary floor.

⏱ 2–4 months
3

Register with the police for long stays

Foreigners staying beyond 180 days register locally, and it is enforced.

⏱ 2 weeks

Where people settle

Goa
The long-established foreign community, and the seasonal one
Bengaluru
Temperate all year, the best private hospitals, English everywhere
Dehradun / Himachal
Cooler and cheaper, with far thinner specialist medicine

Open any ingredient above to see where its figure came from, how far we trust it and when we last checked. Nothing here is a substitute for the official source. Last reviewed 2026-09-04.

Photograph of India by Rutiknatekar, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.