Retirement age

The Retirement Abroad Index 2026 has ranked 20 countries across five key areas including healthcare, cost of living and visa accessibility – and the results may surprise you.

While you might be drawn to these sunny spots for a holiday, have you ever considered they could be the perfect place to spend your retirement?

As Brits approach retirement age, plenty contemplate purchasing a property in well-loved retirement havens such as Spain and France, but there are warmer, more affordable locations that could offer greater advantages, according to the latest figures.

The Expatriate Group, a specialist provider of international health insurance serving expats and retirees globally, has published The Retirement Abroad Index for 2026. The study assessed 20 countries, evaluating them across five crucial categories, including healthcare, visa accessibility, health insurance requirements, cost of living, and community and integration.

Drawing from these essential factors, it’s evident which destinations emerged as frontrunners for retirees and which have fallen in the rankings, with some surprising contenders.

Lee Gerry, director of Expatriate Group, said: “Retiring abroad has never been more achievable, but the decisions that matter most – healthcare access, visa routes, and the reality of day-to-day costs – are often the least well understood.”

“This index is designed to cut through the noise and give people an honest, data-led picture of where the real opportunities are.”

The top destination for retirement, according to the index, was the Philippines, with a Special Resident Retiree’s Visa that ranks among the most accessible globally. It requires a fixed deposit of roughly £11,000 for those receiving a pension.

What’s more, it achieved impressive marks for affordability and anticipated integration, which, combined with its tranquil beaches and stunning scenery, makes it an idyllic spot to enjoy your retirement years.

The second choice is perhaps less of a shock, as it’s certainly more familiar to Brits, though still not typically considered the top pick: Thailand.

The nation boasts several well-established and vibrant cities, each providing a flavour of its rich culture, but most prominently, Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Phuket all feature internationally recognised private hospital networks.

Thailand secured a perfect 20 out of 20 on the scoring index, excelling in the healthcare category alongside Spain and France. Regarding visas, their Non-Immigrant O-A Visa demands coverage of at least $100,000, approximately £74,000, per policy, per year, as a visa requirement.

The third country, which may surprise some retirees, is Colombia, offering one of the most straightforward retirement visa routes among the 20 destinations and, remarkably, achieving a cost of living score of 18 out of 20.

According to their findings, the report indicates a retired couple can generally enjoy a comfortable lifestyle in Medellín, the capital of Colombia, on roughly £1,000 to £1,500 per month. In contrast to most British cities, it boasts reliably warm weather and possesses a lively atmosphere that’s difficult to match elsewhere.

Portugal emerged as the first European nation to feature on the list as an ideal spot to spend your golden years, claiming fourth place. Joint fifth went to Sri Lanka and South Africa, while Malaysia and the UAE shared sixth position, before Mexico secured a solid seventh spot.

While Spain continues to be among the most favoured destinations for British retirees, it didn’t appear until eighth on the list, achieving 18 out of 20 for healthcare, though it was let down by the cost of living and visa complications.

It also shares eighth place with Indonesia, which is cherished for its relaxed way of life and renowned for its strong emphasis on wellness culture. Packed with stunning beaches and particularly attracting visitors to Bali, it has climbed to the top of countless people’s bucket lists as a must-visit destination.

Coming in at number nine is Panama, followed by Qatar. Panama has made headlines in recent years for its ‘Pensionado’ programme, which offers a generous range of discounts designed to make retirement far more affordable.

The scheme also requires retirees to demonstrate a lifetime income of just £738 or so per month, with an extra £184 for each dependant.

Due to several countries sharing identical scores, the top 10 is actually made up of 13 nations in total. These are:

• Philippines
• Thailand
• Colombia
• Portugal
• Sri Lanka
• South Africa
• Malaysia
• UAE
• Mexico
• Spain
• Indonesia
• Panama

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? player who scooped £500,000 explains how it will make a huge difference to their lives after tough times

Andrew Fanko missed out on the chance to take the jackpot on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? – but insisted his £500,000 prize had still saved his family financially.

The 44-year-old and his wife Frankie, who live in Market Harborough in Leicestershire with their six-year-old daughter, both work as translators. Andrew admitted work has been thin on the ground recently, as AI was putting them out of business, putting him under further pressure on him to do well on the show.

He made it to the million pound question but decided against answering it as he couldn’t be certain – and if he had gone with the ITV audience he would have been WRONG. It still meant he walked away with half a million pounds and played one of the best games in the show’s history.

Asked how the money will change his life, Andrew said: “It’s come at a really, really lovely time. First because our work has been kind of thrown under the bus a bit in the last few years because of AI. We are both translators and the freelance translation market has pretty much died to death in the last five to 10 years so although I’m lucky enough to have an in-house position at the moment, I don’t know how long that’s going to last, and Frankie’s work has dried up quite a lot so this will really make a huge difference to us.

“If either of us want to retrain or anything like that, it gives us the chance to be able to do that and I don’t think early retirement is a possibility, but it certainly makes our lives a lot easier.

“We genuinely were getting pretty concerned about the work situation. It was getting pretty stressful. Knowing that it is gonna come in fairly soon has been absolutely massive for us. It’s made a huge difference. We both feel a lot lighter, a lot more positive.”

Andrew sailed through the ITV show until hesitating on Question 12 for £125,000 about which cell type does not have a nucleus. He phoned his friend Jonathan who was 60 percent sure it is bacteria, and after using his 50-50 went with this correct answer.

He stumbled again on a question 14 for £500,000 about which character is killed in Murder on the Orient Express. He tried to get help from host Jeremy Clarkson but when that failed, correctly guessed Sam Ratchett.

His final question for £1 million was to name which one out of the four people named was an EGOT winner, meaning having scooped four different arts prizes including an Emmy and an Oscar.

He didn’t know the answer and asked the audience but the majority of them thought it was Bette Midler. After taking the £500,000 and not answering, Andrew was told the correct answer was Andrew Loyd Webber.

Reflecting on missing out on the big prize, Andrew said: “I’m fine with it. Honestly. The only way I wouldn’t have been fine with just missing out is if I had known the answer to the million pound question and not gone for it, but I just didn’t know it. So it is the best of all worlds really because I’ve been able to win a really life changing sum of money, genuinely life changing, and I know I couldn’t have done any better. So yeah, I have no regrets at all.

“The main pressure I felt was on the half a million pound question. So the Agatha Christie question, Frankie(wife) is a massive Agatha Christie fan. So I was like I could feel the eyes kind of burning into the back of my head. I knew that she would know it in a heartbeat. But I had to think about it, quite a lot before I was confident enough to go for it.”

Andrew and his wife are both big quiz fans and he has previously been on MasterMind, 15-1, Only Connect, and Brain of Britain. The couple also won on Eggheads with two friends, taking a £33,000 prize between them.

His big win has not put him off having a go at other TV quizzes.

He revealed: “I probably will do stuff in the future. Just because I absolutely love it. It might be harder to get on now, I guess, but you know… Mastermind. I got to the semi final four years ago and I still have ambitions to do well on Mastermind.. perhaps not immediately because I do want to take a little break from it, but yeah, I think Mastermind in the future is the one that I want another crack at. So the last time I did Britain at the Winter Olympics and African World Heritage sites.. so quite a range. I’d maybe do something like the TV show Spooks or perhaps something to do with Liverpool Football Club, although that’s been done loads of times. Something else sporty, I think.”

Now the episode has aired his long wait for the money is now almost over, having filmed the show last year, and once paid he will take his daughter Jemima to Disneyland and to buy his wife a new car.

He speaks French, Italian and Spanish but the first holiday they take will actually be a cruise to the Norwegian fjords with extended family.

Andrew said: “I wasn’t really nervous in the chair itself. I enjoyed it. I love answering quiz questions and it is what I spend most of my time doing. But the actual win with the lights and Jeremy and the audience and everything.. you do sort of lose a bit of perspective of where you are.

“I would say, the biggest tip I’ve got is probably to practise the fastest figure first – because that’s the key. I think once you get in the chair, that’s the great thing about Millionaire and the format is that once you get in the chair, anyone can win a huge amount of money because I don’t think they ever ask you sort of really, really genuinely very hard questions.

“It’s just such a wide range of things that that’s what makes it hard to progress quite a long way, but they can just fall for you. “But I would definitely practise faster than the first at home before you go and also while you’re practising in ‘the millionaire’s row’ where you sit before you go on, you get a chance to sort of get your fingers ready and practise on.”

Last month viewers saw Roman Dubowski win £1million in the opening episode of the series. He told the Mirror he celebrated with a cup of tea after he correctly answered that a Bass Ale logo appeared in the novel ‘Ulysses’ and paintings by Picasso and Manet.

There have been a total of seven winners of the £1million in the UK since the show began in 1998. Clarkson replaced Chris Tarrant as the host when the show returned in 2018 after a four year break.

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