I am a 55 year old American. I will be retiring in about 5 years and my wife and I want to live somewhere in Europe that has a nice Mediterranean climate and good healthcare. I recently obtained a second passport for Ireland. My wife, however only has a USA passport. What countries or areas would the folks on here recommend for us to live out our retirement and also would she be able to get healthcare? She is a few years younger than me. Thank you!
You can’t get an Irish passport for her as your wife?
No, Ireland does not allow that. I was able to get an Irish passport based on my grandmother being born an Irish citizen.
I should expand my response a bit. I can get my wife an Irish passport by living in Ireland for at least three years. We love Ireland, but the Mediterranean climate we are seeking when we retire does not exist on the Emerald Isle of Ireland.
So spend three years in Ireland, get a passport, then go anywhere.
If you can afford to pay for healthcare and aren’t too picky about where in a country you live, there’s decent healthcare everywhere near major towns.
If you expect free health care from the government, you’re going to be sorely disappointed anywhere if you’re used to US healthcare with good insurance - quality may be ok but long waiting lines for appointments and procedures are the norm, more so post-covid. Of course if you’re without health insurance then everywhere will look a lot better, but getting qualified is a definite process. Third party insurance for private care is rather more affordable though.
Everywhere in the Mediterranean arc is cheaper than living in NYC, but probably not cheaper than living in Mississippi.
Again, I’d go check out International Living magazine. You will probably find a lot more helpful information there than you will here for this kind of question. Climate, healthcare, and quality of life are not exactly common topics here.
There are a lot of unstated unknowns in your question. Do you care about taxes? Do you want citizenship or just residency? Do you plan to move around or stay put? Do you want to be on an island or the mainland?
Thus I’ll reinterpret your question as, “Which countries with Mediterranean climates offer residency programs potentially accessible to American citizens?”
Prime candidates: Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Montenegro, Malta, Turkey, Gibraltar
Additional possibilities: France, Monaco, Cyprus. Croatia? Albania?
They all have different taxes, cultures, costs, requirements, advantages, timelines. You can hire a CBI consultant like Henley or Arton, or you can invest some serious effort into research. There’s tons of information on the internet. Some of it is true.
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