Method

The calculation

1. Household cost. We start from the monthly cost of living for one adult in your chosen country, at the standard of living you pick. Additional adults are added at a fraction of the first, because housing and utilities are shared. Children are added at a separate per-child rate.
2. Healthcare. Private cover is priced separately and by age band, because it is the cost that changes most sharply as you get older. It is not folded into a single average.
3. Cushion. A percentage is added for irregular costs that monthly budgets systematically miss: replacing a car, dental work, flights home.
4. Currency. The result is converted to the currency you hold your savings in, at a dated exchange rate that is shown alongside the answer.
5. Capital required. That annual figure is discounted as a real annuity over the horizon you choose, using your own assumed real return.
6. Residence check. Separately, your income is compared against the published income thresholds for the residence permits that apply to your situation.

There is no hidden 4% rule

Many calculators bury a fixed safe-withdrawal rate in the arithmetic. We do not. The withdrawal rate here is an output: a consequence of the horizon and the real return you chose. If you assume a longer retirement or a lower return, the required capital rises, and you can see exactly why.

Returns are expressed in real terms, after inflation. This avoids the common error of projecting nominal growth against today's prices and concluding you are richer than you are.

Why the numbers are reproducible

The calculation engine is deterministic and contains no randomness, no network calls and no language model. The same inputs always produce the same result.

Country data lives in a versioned dataset that is compiled into an immutable release with a content hash. Every result records the engine version, the dataset version and that hash, so any figure can be reproduced exactly as it appeared on the day you saw it, even after the underlying data is updated.

A language model may be used to explain a result in plain language. It is never used to produce a number, and it cannot change one.

How data is admitted

Every cost, healthcare and visa figure must carry a source with a publisher and a date, and must be signed off by a named reviewer before it can be published. Data that fails either test cannot reach the site: the build refuses to publish it.

That is why country pages are not available yet. The engine is finished. The dataset is still being verified against official sources, and we would rather show nothing than show a plausible-looking wrong number.

What this does not do

• It does not compute your cross-border tax position. Tax treaties, exit taxes and pension-specific rules are genuinely complicated and vary by nationality.
• It does not decide residence eligibility. Consulates do, and they apply published rules inconsistently. We show the published threshold and tell you where you must verify directly.
• It is not financial, tax or immigration advice.