Panama Ranked #1 for Expats Again. Should You Believe It?

Panama has done it again. InterNations’ 2026 Expat Insider survey ranked it the world’s #1 country for expats — the third consecutive year it’s taken the top spot. That’s a genuinely impressive run, and we’re not going to pretend otherwise, especially since we’re two of the people this survey is aimed at.

But we’ve also spent enough time researching Panama, and enough time going through our own residency process, to know that a #1 ranking is a starting point, not a verdict. So this article does two things: it explains what actually earned Panama that ranking, and it fills in three things the rankings don’t cover well — what housing really costs right now, what happens to your health insurance options as you get older, and what Panama’s laws do and don’t recognize if you’re a gay couple.

Who Actually Ranked Panama #1

Two surveys tend to drive most of the “Panama is #1” headlines, and they’re measuring different things.

InterNations Expat Insider is one of the largest recurring surveys of people actually living outside their home countries. The 2026 edition surveyed nearly 8,000 expats across 162 nationalities, scoring countries across five categories — Quality of Life, Ease of Settling In, Working Abroad, Personal Finance, and Expat Essentials. Only 31 destinations had enough responses to qualify for the 2026 overall ranking, and Panama finished first.

International Living’s Global Retirement Index is a different instrument, built specifically for retirees, weighing housing, visas and retiree benefits, cost of living, healthcare, climate, and governance. Panama won it in 2025 — its 11th win overall, more than any other country. In the 2026 edition, though, Panama came in #2, with Greece taking the top spot (90.1 to Panama’s 89.3).

We think that’s actually a useful data point. It’s a reminder that “the world’s best country” isn’t a fixed fact — it’s an output of whatever the survey chose to measure.

What Actually Drove the 2026 Ranking

Panama didn’t win by dominating one category and coasting on the rest. It performed well almost everywhere.

The finance numbers are the standout: 90% of expats in Panama said their disposable income was enough to live comfortably, against 71% globally. 76% were satisfied with their financial situation, against 55% globally. And 69% rated Panama’s general cost of living favorably, against just 39% worldwide.

Some of that is structural. Panama uses the U.S. dollar at parity with the balboa, so American income, American investments, and Panamanian prices all live in the same currency — no mental exchange-rate math. Visa access also scored well: Panama ranked #2 worldwide for ease of getting a visa, with 82% of respondents rating the process positively. And the demographics matter: 37% of Panama’s respondents were retired, against 14% globally, so this survey is disproportionately hearing from people whose financial math (fixed income, no local job hunt, dollar pensions) plays to Panama’s strengths.

Housing: Cheaper Than St. Petersburg — For Now, and Not Everywhere

This is where we can add something the rankings don’t: a direct comparison to where we currently live.

According to Numbeo’s city-to-city comparison, overall cost of living including rent is 53.3% higher in St. Petersburg, Florida than in Panama City, and rent specifically runs 66.2% higher in St. Petersburg. Put in dollars, a one-bedroom apartment in Panama City’s center currently averages around $1,291 a month against roughly $1,926 in St. Petersburg; outside the center it’s about $918 versus $1,571.

Source: Numbeo cost-of-living comparison, Panama City vs. Saint Petersburg, FL.

So yes — Panama City is meaningfully cheaper than home for us, right now. But we’d be doing readers a disservice if we stopped there, because two things are also true.

First, the gap is closing. Panama City real estate agents are reporting rents up roughly 8% to 15% over the past six to twelve months, with one Panama City brokerage describing rents as having risen “for 12+ months” and new-construction sales up nearly 28% year over year even as available inventory fell. The $180,000–$400,000 purchase segment — not coincidentally close to the $300,000 minimum for Panama’s Qualified Investor Visa — has been one of the strongest-performing price brackets in the market. None of this means Panama has become expensive. It means the days of assuming today’s price will still be there in three years are probably over.

Second, “cheap and good” inside Panama City itself is genuinely hard to find. The bargain listings tend to be older buildings, farther from the Metro, or short on the amenities (backup water, generator, modern air conditioning) that make tropical apartment living tolerable. Real budget housing exists — it’s just usually outside Panama City, in interior towns or smaller cities, where a comparable one- or two-bedroom can run $400 to $800 a month instead of $900-plus.

The Part About Healthcare the Rankings Gloss Over

International Living gave Panama a healthcare score of 92 out of 100 in its 2026 index, and on the ground, that reputation is largely earned — private hospitals in Panama City, in particular, offer sophisticated care at a fraction of U.S. private-pay prices. What almost never makes it into a “Panama is great for retirees” article is what happens to your insurance options as you age, and specifically what happens after 65.

Panama actually offers three different paths, and they age very differently:

The premium climb is the part that catches people off guard. One Panama-based insurance broker’s example: a $5,000-deductible plan for someone age 55–59 runs roughly $2,200 a year; the same deductible for someone turning 65 runs roughly $3,500 a year. That’s before accounting for the fact that a growing share of insurers simply won’t write you a new policy at all once you’re past their age cutoff — at which point your remaining private options are a shrinking list of international insurers, at a rising price, until even that list runs out in your mid-70s.

We haven’t yet gotten a direct quote from a Panama-based or international insurer for our own ages — that’s on our research list before we file anything, not something we’re prepared to state as settled. But the pattern above is consistent enough across insurers and brokers that we think anyone planning a Panama retirement on a multi-year timeline, the way we are, needs to model out insurance cost and availability for the age they’ll actually be when they arrive — not the age they are today.

For Gay Couples, Panama Has a Real Legal Gap

Panama’s Family Code defines marriage in opposite-sex terms, and Panamanian law prohibits same-sex marriage outright. Panama’s Supreme Court upheld those provisions in 2023. Outright International’s Panama profile, updated in March 2026, confirms that same-sex couples still cannot marry in Panama and that legal recognition of same-sex relationships remains limited, with no explicit nationwide statutory protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

That means a same-sex couple legally married in the United States cannot assume Panama will treat that marriage the way the United States does. It affects immigration filings, inheritance, medical decision-making, and survivor rights — which is why a same-sex couple should plan on two independent immigration filings rather than one spouse qualifying as the other’s dependent.

Socially, gay couples may feel genuinely comfortable in Panama City. Legally, the country still has real catching up to do. Both of those things are true at the same time.

Panama City has a visible gay community, gay bars and clubs, and Pride celebrations, concentrated in Bella Vista. Many gay expats describe day-to-day life there as comfortable. But social comfort and legal equality are two different measurements, and Panama currently scores very differently on each.

Other Trade-Offs the Ranking Doesn’t Capture

A few more things worth knowing before you let a #1 ranking make the decision for you:

The heat is real. Panama City is tropical — hot and humid essentially year-round, not just in the rainy season. If you’re heat-sensitive, that’s a serious variable, not a minor inconvenience, and it should shape how much you rely on air conditioning, which neighborhood you choose, and how much walking you realistically plan to do.

Bureaucracy is the flip side of easy residency. InterNations has previously ranked Panama in the 30s worldwide for how easy it is to open a local bank account and to handle government services online — a reminder that “easy visa process” and “easy paperwork generally” aren’t the same claim.

Not everything is cheaper. Local labor, local produce, and healthcare can be dramatically less expensive than in the U.S. Imported groceries, electronics, and vehicles often are not. Living like a local and living like an American who happens to be in Panama are two different budgets.

How We’re Actually Using This Ranking

We’re not neutral observers here. I filed for my Pensionado Visa on April 17, 2026, and received final approval on July 15, 2026, so I’m now a Panamanian permanent resident based on that program. Kent is planning to pursue Panama’s Qualified Investor Visa once our home in St. Petersburg sells — the current investment minimum is $300,000, and our immigration attorney, Carolina Tejada Vaprio at Morgan & Morgan, has confirmed that threshold is now permanent rather than subject to a future increase or sunset date.

None of that means we’re moving next year. Our current plan is to actually relocate in roughly four to five years. Getting residency now is part of preparing for that — it lets us keep visiting, keep researching, and keep testing our assumptions against reality, rather than deciding everything at once and hoping it holds up.

A #1 ranking is part of why Panama is still on our list. It isn’t the reason we’re going.

So, Should You Believe It?

Yes — and no. The underlying result is real: people who move to Panama and stay tend to report being genuinely satisfied, three separate years running. That’s not nothing.

But “#1 for expats overall” is an average across a survey population skewed toward retirees with dollar income, and it says nothing about your specific situation: whether your marriage will be legally recognized, what your health insurance will cost and whether you’ll even be able to buy it at the age you’ll actually be, or whether the cheap listing you found is cheap because it’s a genuine deal or cheap because it’s an hour from anything you need.

Use the ranking to build a shortlist. Then go verify the parts that are true for you specifically — including the ones, like housing trajectory and insurance age cutoffs, that the survey was never designed to measure.