This Is the European City Where Expats Are the Happiest, Research Finds

Emigrating from your home country to a new one can be a pretty big gamble. There are a host of questions that run through your head when buying that one-way ticket. Will you love your new home just the same as the old one? How will your habits change? Will you make any friends? I should know. I did it myself in 2021, emigrating from the United States to Portugal to finish my Ph.D. While life in Lisbon has been nothing short of spectacular thus far, there are other destinations around the world where my fellow expats are apparently even happier. 

InterNations, an expat community website with more than 5 million members, released its 2023 Expat City Rankings. To create the rankings, the team used data from its annual Expat Insider survey, which polled 12,065 participants about their lives living and working abroad. It ranked 49 participating nations in five areas: Quality of Life, Ease of Settling In, Working Abroad, Personal Finance, and Expat Essentials.

After digging into the data and learning more about the responses, the InterNations named Málaga, Spain, as the best place in Europe for expat life. 

“According to the respondents, Málaga is the best-rated city worldwide for Local Friendliness (1st): 89 percent say that the locals are particularly friendly towards foreign residents (versus 65 percent globally),” the findings revealed. It’s maybe not surprising, then, that the city also ranks 2nd for Finding Friends.

Málaga also ranked extremely highly in the Quality of Life Index score, coming in second, thanks to its always gorgeous weather and plentiful nature spaces to explore. But here’s more good news for living in Spain: two more Spanish cities — Alicante and Valencia — came in at the number two and three spots, respectively. 

“What these three Spanish cities have in common are top 10 ratings in the indices Ease of Settling In, Quality of Life, and Personal Finance,” InterNations shared in the report. “This translates into welcoming cultures that allow for an enjoyable and affordable life. Málaga and Alicante also make it into the top 10 for Expat Essentials such as housing.” 

As for the not-so-spectacular places to live, the participating respondents ranked Rome in second-to-last place and Milan in dead last, both scoring below average for quality of life and available work. Still, this shouldn’t deter you if you’re thinking of moving to either Italian city. After all, life can never be that bad in a place that appreciates pasta and pizza so deeply.

See where all the participating cities are ranked at internations.org.