Living long-term in Asia
Five countries, each with its own guide: which city to base yourself in, what the country is like once the holiday ends, and the one thing about it the marketing leaves out. Whether you may stay at all is a visa question — each guide answers it once and links to the record, and the comparison of every Asian route lives in the visa finder, not here.
Thailand
Three cities, three prices, and one is unliveable a quarter of the year.
Malaysia
English everywhere, top private hospitals, a monsoon that hits one coast.
Indonesia
Bali is the famous one; Yogyakarta the cheapest serious base in Indonesia.
Philippines
The one country here where the whole thing happens in English.
Vietnam
Hanoi's winter, Saigon's metro, Da Nang's beach, and nothing to apply for.
How the five compare
Side by side, on what changes daily life. Each cell summarises a claim on the country or city guide behind it — nothing here is said only here.
| Axis | Thailand | Malaysia | Indonesia | Philippines | Vietnam |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Default base | Chiang Mai — cheapest of the three, easiest to arrive into, the largest remote-work community in the country. | Kuala Lumpur — the only place in Malaysia with the full set: schools, specialist hospitals, the long-haul airport. | Bali — more remote workers than anywhere else in Southeast Asia, so arriving alone is a solved problem. | Cebu — the airport, the private hospitals and the professional scene without Manila's commute. | Da Nang — flat, small enough to cross in twenty minutes, and the beach is part of an ordinary weekday. |
| English in daily life | In hospitals and the expat districts. Little outside the malls once you leave them. | Works everywhere — forms, doctors, landlords. | At the private hospitals foreigners use and in Bali's villa market; thin beyond that. | Government forms, hospital consultations, leases and bank paperwork all run in English. The largest advantage in the region. | At the clinics and in the expat districts; less the further you move from them. |
| Healthcare | Excellent private hospitals that bill upfront and in full. On the retirement route, cover is a condition of the visa. | The strongest in the region — international-standard private hospitals, so serious treatment happens where you live. | Good private clinics for routine care; anything serious means Jakarta or Singapore. Scooter injuries are the commonest claim. | Private hospitals bill upfront. PhilHealth will enrol you and is a floor, not cover. | Fine for routine care; anything serious means an international hospital or evacuation to Bangkok or Singapore. |
| The weather risk | Burning season in the north, mid-February to mid-April — plan to be elsewhere. | The serious monsoon hits the east coast, November to March. Every city worth living in is on the west. | Bali's wet season is heavier than people expect; Jakarta's air is the ordinary condition of the city, not a season. | Around twenty cyclones a year; the Pacific-facing side takes the landfalls. Where you live is a typhoon decision. | Hanoi has a real winter and an air season that arrives with it; the central coast has typhoon season. |
| Getting around | Metro only in Bangkok. Elsewhere, a scooter or a car. | Built around cars even with KL's rail; Penang and Johor Bahru have none. | A scooter, effectively without exception, outside Jakarta's one MRT line. | Cebu has no rail; Manila's commute is measured in hours. | Saigon's metro finally opened; Da Nang is flat enough not to need one. |
| The catch | One of the three cities is unliveable a quarter of the year, and the tax clock starts at 180 days, not 183. | The famous long-stay route is residence by investment, not retirement, and the cities are not walkable. | The real visa excludes most of the people who made Bali famous. | Banking has a 59-day wall, and the weather decides more than the city does. | Nothing to apply for: years on rolling entries accrue no residence and no right to work. |
A dash means the guide does not cover that yet. Cost is left out on purpose: sourced monthly figures live on the city pages, dated, and we rank nothing on estimates.
Whether you may stay at all is decided by the visa, not by the city. 4 of the five have a route you can apply for; Vietnam has none — there is no route to apply for, and staying means chaining entries that accrue no residence. The region's other routes we hold a record for — Japan, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan — have no guide here yet; each record carries its income test, stay length and source.
Find the Asian route that fits you →Frequently asked questions
Which Asian country is easiest to move to?
For getting things done, the Philippines: government forms, hospital consultations, leases and bank paperwork all run in English, and Malaysia is close behind on that. Easiest to be allowed to stay is a different question — a visa one — and the finder answers it per country with the income test and stay length for each route.
Where is the cheapest place to live in Asia?
We do not rank countries on cost, because we publish only sourced figures and the dataset holds few of them yet. Within each country the guide names the cheapest base — Chiang Mai in Thailand, Yogyakarta in Indonesia, Johor Bahru in Malaysia, Hanoi over Saigon in Vietnam — and the city pages carry dated figures where we have them, and a blank where we do not.
Do I need private health insurance in Asia?
Yes, in every country here. Private hospitals in Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines bill upfront and in full; PhilHealth is a floor, not cover; in Vietnam and Indonesia anything serious means an international hospital or evacuation to Bangkok, Jakarta or Singapore. Malaysia is the exception in quality, not in whether you need cover. On Thailand's retirement route, cover is a condition of the visa itself.
When is the wrong time of year to arrive?
It depends on the country, and it is a where question as much as a when one. Northern Thailand's burning season runs mid-February to mid-April. Malaysia's serious monsoon, November to March, hits the east coast while every city you would live in is on the west. The Philippines' typhoon season runs June to November and lands on the Pacific-facing side. Hanoi has a real winter, and Bali's wet season is heavier than people expect. Each guide has the detail.
Can I live in Asia long-term without a visa?
No. Every stay is on some permission, and where a country has no long-stay route — Vietnam today — people chain tourist or business entries, which accrue no residence and no right to work. Which route exists in each country, and what it asks for, is on the visa pages; each guide here links to its country's record once.
How the visa facts behind these guides are kept current
Every visa record links the government page it was checked against and carries the date it was last confirmed. Those pages are re-fetched weekly and confirmed changes are dated on the changelog. The method is on how we verify, and the whole dataset is free to download under CC BY 4.0.