(NEXSTAR) – Looking to get away for a long, long time? You and thousands of others, apparently.
Expatsi, an online resource for Americans thinking about relocating to a foreign country, has recently published the results of a 2024 study which polled more than 116,000 Americans about the countries they might like to move to, should they choose to live abroad.
The participants — who all claimed to be considering a move overseas — were asked about their reasons for wanting to leave, their budgets, their plans to pay for healthcare, and any freedoms they hoped to retain/enjoy. They were also quizzed about their preferences for things like climate, proximity to a city, proximity to the ocean, or the languages they were willing to learn, among other factors.
Based on their answers, Expatsi’s assessment recommended an ideal abroad locale for each participant. And most often, that suggested locale was Portugal, which was recommended to 48% of participants, followed by France at 46% and Spain at 44%. (Expatsi’s survey suggested a “top ten” for every participant.)
- Portugal (48%)
- France (46%)
- Spain (44%)
- Greece (44%)
- Switzerland (43%)
- Austria (40%)
- Luxembourg (38%)
- Belgium (35%)
- Slovenia (34%)
- Norway (33%)
Expatsi’s report did not reveal which metrics, specifically, that Portugal (or any of the other top recommendations) possessed that would make it so attractive to Americans looking to get away. But expats currently living in Portugal tend to enjoy relatively affordable housing and healthcare, a mild climate and low crime rates, according to International Living, which recently ranked Portugal as the second-best place to retire on its Annual Global Retirement Index. (Panama was first.)
Expatsi, in its survey, also asked participants outright which country they most wanted to move to, and Portugal again came out on top, with 11% of all participants favoring it. (Spain and the U.K. rounded out the top three, with 10% and 8% of participants naming it as a top choice.)
Plenty of Americans are actually making moves to Portugal, too. Between 2017 and 2022, the American expat population in Portugal increased nearly 240% to around 10,000, according to Forbes. And Americans have continued to express increased interest in moving to Portugal, especially after the 2024 U.S. presidential election, according to the founder of Portugal Pathways, which assists with relocation and visa applications. (Indeed, Expatsi also saw spikes in interest from poll participants in July and November 2024, following the first Biden-Trump debate and again after the election.)
But despite high interest in Portugal from prospective expats, most Americans stay much closer to home when they actually relocate. Reports cited by the Association of Americans Resident Overseas (AARO) indicated that the largest percentages of American expatriates are living in Mexico and Canada, with estimates ranging from around 1.5 million to 2 million between both countries. (Mexico has slightly more than Canada, according to one estimate.)
In either case, American expatriates still living in North America make up a major share of the total estimate of U.S. citizens living overseas. AARO cited calculations from 2022 and 2023 that estimated the number to be between 4.4 million and 5.5 million, not including members of the military or their families. Another estimate from 2022, from the nonprofit American Citizens Abroad, put that figure at around 5.1 million, albeit including military personnel.
The U.S. Department of State does not provide more specific figures on overseas citizens, pointing to the fluctuating nature of Americans traveling or relocating at any given time. U.S. embassies in foreign countries try to maintain rough tallies, but nothing definite, according to a spokesperson for the State Department.
Americans still hoping to move to Portugal, meanwhile, might be wise to see if their preferred neighborhoods are already too saturated with fellow emigrants or tourists.
“Porto is no longer a city. It’s a tourism destination,” one person argued in a recent Reddit discussion, making similar claims of the Portuguese cities of Lisbon and Algarve.
“I’m starting to wonder why Portugal is so popular for expats,” the Reddit user continued. “Maybe 10-20 years ago when everything was authentic and inexpensive?”