You’ve seen the news stories about a “surge” in Americans retiring abroad – everyone is doing it for a better life!
Except those stories are not true.
The share of people over age 65 grew to 17.7 percent, while children under 18 made up 21.7 percent of the population, unchanged from 2022.
Several stories say about 450,000 retirees received Social Security checks, abroad – that comes to 0.7% of retirees. About 96% of American retirees receive Social Security which makes that number a reasonable proxy for the number of Americans who have retired abroad.
Another story claims the number receiving checks overseas has nearly doubled to 760,000: Social Security: How Long You Can Live Outside the US Without Losing Benefits (yahoo.com) – which would be about 1.3% of the over 65 group.
Regardless of which number is used, the % who are retiring abroad remains very small – about 1 in 100!
It is estimated about half of Americans who retired abroad already had prior dual-citizenship, a right of descent ancestry privilege, or were already permanent residents of the country they retired to.
Many retirees had immigrated to the U.S., or were born in the U.S. to immigrant parents, and in retirement, have elected to return to their home country, often due to family connections. Another group have “right of descent ancestry privilege” – for a number of countries, if you have recent documented ancestry, in some cases going back to grandparents or even further (especially Italy) you can qualify for residency or citizenship. Lastly, many Americans were already working and living abroad. For example, an American may have been working in Canada for 20 years, owns a home there and has permanent residency. Since their life is in Canada, they’ve chosen to retire to Canada.
About 37% of all Americans (working and retired) living outside the U.S. are in either Mexico or Canada, and not retired to exotic European destinations.