Honest, comprehensive guidance for retiring in Asia
Find out where you can get a visa, what you can afford, and which countries suit the way you want to live. Covers Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia. Free. Takes 3 minutes.
Country Match
Most "best country to retire" lists rank countries on lifestyle and average costs, and assume you can get a visa. Country Match starts with the visas you qualify for. Then it checks whether you can afford the life you want in each country, and how well each one suits you.
Your age, who is coming with you, your income and where it comes from, your savings, the ways you would commit money for a visa, your monthly budget and the kind of place you want to live. It takes about three minutes.
Each country has several visa routes, with different age, income, capital and insurance requirements. We test you against every route, then check whether you can afford to live there, with health insurance priced for your age.
All six countries scored on visa eligibility, budget, healthcare, lifestyle and stability, with the best route you qualify for. A country that is ruled out shows which requirement you missed, and usually by how much.
Country guides
Each guide is a 300-400+ page comprehensive reference — visas, taxes, healthcare, locations, daily life — with an online companion updated as the rules change, included free for the edition's lifetime.
Thailand has five retirement routes, from an extension renewed every year to ten-year visas, so most situations have one that fits, and younger retirees and the semi-retired have options too. Private hospitals in the big cities draw patients from around the world, and getting into them depends on insurance or cash.
See the Thailand guide →Vietnam is a young country with real regional variety, from the northern highlands to the southern coast, and foreigners are usually made welcome. Because Vietnam lacks a formal retirement visa, most retirees use tourist e-visas with periodic border runs and accept leaving every few months along with the inherent uncertainty about their ability to stay long-term if the country's tolerance for border runs changes. For a small minority of retirees, a business or investment visa is viable.
See the Vietnam guide →The Philippines has a long-standing American expat community and familiar legal and banking systems. The main retirement visa was restructured in September 2025 and suits retirees over 50 with a pension best, though those under 50 and those without a pension have options too. Typhoons, floods and power cuts are part of life.
See the Philippines guide →Angkor, Phnom Penh's riverfront and the south coast at Kampot and Kep are all within a few hours of each other. Food and everyday prices are low but by regional standards health insurance is more costly. Cambodia's retirement extension opens at 55, renews once a year, and asks for no income, deposit or insurance. Retirees under 55 use the business extension instead, which needs work in Cambodia. Serious medical care usually means a flight to Bangkok.
See the Cambodia guide →English-speaking and well-built, Malaysia is an easy cultural landing for retirees coming from the US, UK, or Australia, with a food scene that rewards staying. There is no retirement visa. Residence comes through second-home programs, and on the main routes you commit several hundred thousand dollars first, as a bank deposit and a home you cannot sell for 10 years, and then live with no rent. A modest income is the minimum on top of that. Sarawak runs the one program with no purchase, asking a smaller deposit and an income instead.
See Malaysia details →Bali gets most of the attention, but Indonesia is much bigger than Bali and offers real climate, culture, and lifestyle variety. Healthcare is the weak point here, which matters more the older you are.
See Indonesia details →YouTube videos promising paradise on too-low-to-be-true budgets. Glossy magazines promoting paid seminars and conferences. Facebook posts selling real estate investments, tax avoidance schemes, financial advice and "coaching" services under the guise of retirement guidance.
Almost none of it tells you what it costs to live well, which visas you qualify for, what the tax implications are, or the realities nobody mentions until you're already there.
What's more: much of this content ignores or misrepresents visa availability and stability, healthcare costs, access and quality, the practical realities of housing, and the cultural contexts of these countries that shape daily life.
We name the potential trade-offs and challenges. The visa details that are ignored because they're complicated or inconvenient. The costs the YouTube videos and social media posts don't discuss or often ignore, including health insurance.
Each guide includes access to an online companion we update whenever the rules change. Country Match reflects those changes within days, not when we publish the next edition.
No generalities. Hard numbers, cited visa thresholds, named rules. Compiled by people with first-hand experience living abroad who know that the details make all the difference.
The content in our guides isn't for sale. They contain no sponsored information, affiliate links or paid recommendations. We don't offer courses, coaching, mentoring, or financial, tax or legal advice, and we don't promote investment opportunities or real estate developments.