Estonia, the best country in the world to move to in 2026: we read the whole ranking (and Spain came 21st)

First place by two tenths of a point

The index is Rumavi’s Global Relocation Index 2026, published on 1 July. It scores 192 countries and territories on 24 indicators grouped into four pillars: finance and tax, livability and health, safety and stability, and settling and opportunity. Every indicator runs from 0 to 100, and higher is always better.

Estonia scores 72.8. Singapore, 72.6. Malaysia, 72.0. The rest of the top 10 is Portugal, Taiwan, Lithuania, Hong Kong, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Czechia and Malta. The story took off in August, when Euronews picked it up, and it has been doing the rounds ever since.

Two tenths of a point between first and second. And here’s a detail most headlines leave out: Rumavi is a Singapore-headquartered advisory firm that sells help with relocating, investing and buying property abroad. Putting Singapore second says something good about the index. That it comes from a private company, not a public body, is still worth keeping in mind when you quote it.

Rumavi is upfront about its limits in the methodology: only around 127 countries have strong institutional data, and the other 65 should be read as directional. It also says it plainly: no index captures the full reality of a move.

It wins with a 20 for climate

That’s Estonia’s worst score, and it isn’t a mistake. Rumavi measures climate comfort with temperature normals and sunshine hours, using a formula built for people who move in search of warmth. For them, a Baltic winter is about as bad as it gets. Anyone who has spent a January in Tallinn gets it without the formula.

What stands out is the weight. According to the methodology, climate counts for 6.5% of the general ranking, almost as much as street safety or tax on foreign income (6.8% each). It is one of the heaviest indicators. Estonia fails it and still comes first.

The index flags two more weak spots: general affordability (62) and tax on foreign income (58).

Where the lead comes from

The difference is in the half of the index that never makes the photos. These are its best scores on the Estonia country page:

• Currency and banking: 99.
• Business opportunity: 96.
• Property rights for non-citizens: 90.
• Startup ecosystem: 89.
• Green space: 86.
• Political stability: 83.
• Rule of law and housing affordability: 82 each.

The pillars make it even clearer. Estonia scores 82.0 for settling and opportunity and 81.0 for safety and stability, but stays around 67 for both finance and livability. Put another way: nobody picks Estonia for the weather. They pick it for how it works.

By persona, it’s first for families (74.5) and second for entrepreneurs (78.6). For retirees it drops to ninth, which makes sense: people who retire abroad tend to look for the one thing Estonia doesn’t have. Sunshine.

The surprise: Spain scores higher on “digital infrastructure”

We expected a 100 here. This is the country of e-Residency and of a land register you can search online. Yet Estonia scores 70 for digital infrastructure, and Spain 89.

The methodology explains it: that indicator only measures median fixed broadband speed, using Ookla data. In other words, it measures fibre. And Spain does very well on fibre.

What makes Estonia different doesn’t show up in any of the 24 scores. Two examples anyone can check:

• e-Residency. A government-issued digital identity, offered by Estonia since 2014, that lets you authenticate yourself and sign documents online, and set up and run a company remotely. According to the counter on the official website, in October 2026 there were more than 144,000 e-residents from over 170 countries, who have founded more than 44,000 companies. One caveat: it does not give you residency, citizenship or tax residency.
• The kinnistusraamat. The land register can be searched online, with the owner, mortgages and encumbrances of every property. We explain it step by step in our land register guide.

And Spain? 21st, with 68.6

Spain ranks 21st out of 192, according to its country page. Nothing to brag about, nothing to worry about. The interesting part is the score-by-score comparison, because the two countries win at almost opposite things. Remember that in every row a higher score is better for the person moving:

• Climate: Spain 59, Estonia 20.
• Digital infrastructure (fibre): Spain 89, Estonia 70.
• General affordability: Spain 75, Estonia 62.
• Income tax (higher score, lower tax): Spain 38, Estonia 65.
• Business opportunity: Spain 65, Estonia 96.
• Street safety: Spain 62, Estonia 77.
• Housing affordability: Spain 72, Estonia 82.
• Property rights for non-citizens: a tie at 90.

Estonia comes out ahead in all six of the index’s personas. The two are closest for digital nomads: Estonia is sixth and Spain eighth. If you work from a laptop wherever you like, the ranking almost lets you choose by the weather.

If what you want is to buy property there

The score that matters most to us is property rights for non-citizens, so a quick clarification. That 90 is Rumavi’s own assessment (its methodology labels it curated), based on the foreign ownership rules compiled by Global Property Guide. It is an informed opinion, not official data. And Spain gets the same score.

Housing works the same way: an 82 for housing affordability doesn’t mean everything is cheap, because general affordability stays at 62.

Nor does the ranking tell you what you actually need to know before you sign. That’s what these guides are for:

• Costs of buying property in Estonia: notary fee, VAT and land register state fee, with four worked examples.
• Estonian land register: how to check the owner, mortgages and encumbrances.
• Energy performance certificate in Estonia (energiamärgis): when you need one and how to check it.
• Tax on selling property in Estonia, in case you sell one day.

Why it matters to us (besides the pride)

When we decided that Estonia would be one of Domuspace’s two pillars, alongside Spain, it was never about adding another pin to the map. If we wanted a product that takes the friction out of an agency’s day, it had to come from a place built for speed and transparency.

One concrete example. The Domuspace cadastral map covers the whole of Estonia, with official data from the Maa- ja Ruumiamet, and the whole province of Málaga. In Estonia, contracts can be signed with eID through eID Easy, a feature Domuspace switches on for you. And the app works in Spanish, English, Estonian and Russian, because an agency in Tallinn or on the Costa del Sol serves clients in all four. There’s more on how Domuspace works in Estonia.

Domuspace doesn’t replace your CRM or the portals: the listing stays where it is. We take care of everything around it, which is nearly everything else: prospecting on the map, contacts and follow-up, contracts, the calendar and the team.

A ranking doesn’t make any software better, and we won’t pretend otherwise. But if you run an agency in Estonia or on the Costa del Sol and want to see it with your own areas, book a demo. It takes 25 minutes and it’s built around your case, not a generic presentation.

Index data checked on 17 October 2026 on the Rumavi website.