The superb quality of life in Málaga has resulted in the 2021 Expat City Survey ranking it the second best city in the world to live behind Kuala Lumpur.
The annual survey is run by InterNations whose 4 million members, spread across 220 cities around the world ensure that it is the largest global community and source of information for people who live and work abroad.
Indices where Málaga scores highly are cost of living where it is rated 1st across the 220 cities and housing and finance where it is rated 5th, far ahead of Madrid, rated 25th and Barcelona, rated 38th. This is mainly due to the cost of housing – 67% of expats say that housing is affordable in Málaga vs 42% globally.
In the quality of urban living index Málaga is rated 15th and unsurprisingly, comes in 1st for leisure and climate – 80% love the weather and 86% are happy with the leisure options. The subcategory Friends and Socialising comes in 1st too – 69% of expats find it easy to make new friends vs 48% globally.
Top 10 Expat Cities
1 Kuala Lumpur
2 Malaga
3 Dubai
4 Sydney
5 Singapore
6 Ho Chi Minh City
7 Prague
8 Mexico City
9 Basel
10 Madrid
In 2021 more than 12,000 expatriates representing 174 nationalities and living in 186 countries across the globe provided information on a wide range of topics related to life abroad. Thanks to these insights, the ‘2021 Expat City Ranking’ offers an authoritative overview of the 57 best and worst rated cities for expats worldwide. For a city to be included, a sample size of at least 50 survey participants per city was required, with 57 cities meeting this threshold in 2021