Frequently Asked Questions

Each country receives a composite score calculated as a weighted sum of 10 dimension scores. The formula is: composite = Σ (dimension_score × normalised_weight). Users set the weights to match their priorities. Dimensions set to zero are excluded and remaining weights re-normalise automatically.

Purchasing Power, Rule of Law, Safety, Warmth, School Culture, Healthcare, Infrastructure, Climate, Religious Freedom, and English Proficiency. Each dimension uses institutional data sources and is scored 0-100.

World Bank (governance indicators, price levels, income per person, logistics infrastructure, and UNODC homicide rates), Numbeo (crime as residents report it), OECD (health workforce and hospital beds, PISA 2022 school data), WHO (universal health coverage), IHME GBD (healthcare access and quality), Hofstede Insights and InterNations (warmth), ITU (internet use and broadband, via the World Bank), Pew Research (religious freedom), EF EPI (English proficiency), and Open-Meteo (modelled climate data). The Global Peace Index is shown on country pages as context but is not scored.

60 countries across all major world regions: Western Europe, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, Latin America, East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Middle East, Oceania, and Africa.

All raw values are converted to a 0-100 scale where higher is always better. For indices where a lower raw value is better (e.g., homicide rates, Pew restrictions), the scale is inverted. Each indicator has fixed bounds written into the method, so a score does not move just because another country was added. Homicide rates and income use a log scale, so going from 20 to 10 homicides per 100,000 counts as much as going from 2 to 1.

Yes. Relocate Index is completely free. All underlying data sources are publicly available from institutions like the World Bank, OECD, and WHO. There is no login wall, paywall, or premium tier.

Most underlying sources (World Bank, WHO, PISA, Pew) publish once a year or less often, so scores change rarely. Each country page shows the year of every value it uses. Scores are recomputed when a source publishes a new edition.

Yes. A CSV export of all normalised scores for all 60 countries is available on the methodology page. Use it for your own analysis.

Safety measures crime: half from homicide rates (UNODC), half from how residents rate crime in their area (Numbeo). Rule of law measures institutions: whether courts and contracts work and how well corruption is controlled (World Bank governance indicators). A country can have low crime but weak institutions, or the reverse.

When the missing dimensions account for more than 30% of your total weight budget, a country is moved to the "Limited data" section. Its partial score is shown, but it does not rank among countries with more complete data. This prevents countries with few data points from appearing artificially high or low.

Warmth captures how easily newcomers can build a social life and feel welcomed. It blends the Hofstede Indulgence vs Restraint score (cultural openness) with the InterNations Ease of Settling In survey (expat-reported experience). Both sources must be available for a country to receive a warmth score — 18 countries lack this data.

Climate is scored differently from other dimensions. You select a climate preference (tropical heat, sunny warm, four seasons, etc.) and countries are scored on how well their actual climate data matches that preference. Temperature, sunshine hours, and rainfall come from Open-Meteo's climate API, which serves modelled climate data rather than weather-station records. If you select "no preference," a simple heuristic score is used.

Relocate Index narrows the field to a shortlist of candidate countries. Visa pathways, tax systems, housing costs, and job markets are highly personal — they depend on your nationality, profession, family situation, and income. These are best researched once you have a short list of 5-8 countries. The "What this tool does NOT cover" section lists what to research next.

If a country has no data for a dimension, that dimension is excluded from its composite score. The remaining dimension weights re-normalise to sum to 1.0, so the score reflects only available data. The country receives a "Limited data" badge showing which dimensions are missing.

Healthcare uses a three-pillar formula: WHO Universal Health Coverage index (35%), IHME Healthcare Access and Quality index (35%), and healthcare capacity (30%). Capacity combines physicians per 1,000 (40%), hospital beds per 1,000 (35%), and nurses per 1,000 (25%). If some capacity data is missing, available sources are reweighted proportionally.