Countries That Pay You to Move There: 2026 List & Guide
Eighteen countries currently offer some form of cash payment, tax break, or relocation grant to attract foreign residents. Some pay outright cash on arrival. Others discount tax bills for the first decade. A handful pay you to renovate a derelict house in exchange for living there. The internet is full of listicles that repeat the same five countries; the actual landscape is wider and more nuanced. This guide covers every legitimate scheme operating in 2026, what each program actually pays, who qualifies, and the catch on each one; because almost every program has a catch worth knowing before you book the flight.
Eighteen countries that pay you to move there currently run some form of relocation incentive: outright cash grants, multi-year tax holidays, remote-worker visas with subsidies, or property programs that pay you to renovate a derelict house in a depopulated village in exchange for living in it. The programs exist because rural depopulation, declining birth rates, and aging workforces have left specific regions of Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, and elsewhere economically fragile. Cash transfers and tax breaks to incoming foreign residents are cheaper than the alternative of letting whole towns empty out.
Most articles on this topic recycle the same five headline schemes without covering the actual program rules, the residency strings, the tax implications, or the question of who qualifies. The reality is more interesting and more useful: a handful of programs are genuinely lucrative and well-administered, several are real but have catches that disqualify most foreign applicants, and a few of the most-cited “programs” are essentially marketing campaigns that pay almost no one. This guide walks through all 18 schemes by category, names the catch on each one, and explains which are realistic for foreign nationals from the US, UK, EU, and elsewhere.
A note on terminology before starting. “Countries that pay you to move there” covers four very different types of program: cash grants paid directly to incoming residents, tax reduction schemes that lower your tax bill for a defined period, property programs like Italy’s €1 houses that involve renovation commitments, and remote-worker visas that combine a residence right with subsidised housing or onboarding stipends. The four types have very different math. Tax-reduction schemes can be worth tens of thousands of euros per year for high earners; the €1 house programs sound generous but usually cost more in mandatory renovation than buying a comparable property outright; the remote-worker stipends are useful but small. Treat the categories separately when assessing the offers.
The four categories of countries that pay you to move there
Before walking through individual countries that will pay you to move there, it helps to understand the four categories of program. Each has different mechanics, different ceiling values, and very different odds of being a good deal for any particular person.
Countries that pay you cash to move there
The most prominent countries that pay you to move there with direct cash are concentrated in Southern Europe and Ireland. Each program is geographically restricted (you cannot use the grant to move to Athens or Rome; only to specifically designated depopulating areas) and almost all carry residency-length claw-back provisions that require you to repay the grant if you leave early.
Greece launched grants to repopulate Antikythera (a remote island between Crete and the Peloponnese with fewer than 50 permanent residents) and has expanded similar schemes to other small Aegean islands. Individuals receive monthly stipends plus housing assistance and land allocation for those committing to farming or animal husbandry. Total package value runs up to €30,000 over the residency period for qualifying applicants.
Ireland’s ‘Our Living Islands’ policy, launched in 2023, offers grants of up to €84,000 toward the cost of refurbishing derelict properties on Ireland’s 23 inhabited offshore islands, including Arranmore, Cape Clear, and Tory. The grant is paid against vacant or derelict property purchase and renovation. Separate programs target young residents and remote workers. Full program details are published by the Irish Department of Rural and Community Development.
The Calabria region in southern Italy launched the Active Residency Income (Reddito di residenza attiva) program offering up to €28,000 paid over 2 to 3 years to people under 40 who move to villages with fewer than 2,000 inhabitants and either start a business or take up local employment. The scheme is structured to fight rural depopulation in one of Italy’s historically poorest regions.
Several Spanish regional governments run rural repopulation grants targeting depopulating areas in Asturias, Galicia, Castilla y León, and Extremadura. Grants typically cover relocation costs, business start-up support for those moving to villages, and housing renovation subsidies. Individual headline values run €5,000 to €15,000 depending on the region and family circumstances.
The Swiss mountain village of Albinen in the Valais canton has been offering CHF 25,000 per adult and CHF 10,000 per child (family of four = CHF 70,000) to families willing to relocate permanently and purchase or build a primary residence worth at least CHF 200,000. The program is designed to maintain school enrolment in the village.
Countries with tax-cut schemes for foreign movers
Tax reduction schemes are the highest-value countries that pay you to move there programs by dollar value, but they only pay out for people earning enough to benefit from the reduction. For high earners (€100,000+ annual income), the cumulative savings over a multi-year window can exceed €200,000 compared with the standard tax treatment. The five most generous active schemes:
Italy’s impatriate tax regime allows qualifying foreign workers to pay tax on only 50 percent of their Italian-source income for 5 years (the southern regions previously offered 70 to 90 percent exemption, though the regime was tightened in 2024). A high earner moving from London or New York with a €150,000 Italian salary could save tens of thousands of euros per year compared with the standard Italian tax rate. Official program details are published by the Italian Agenzia delle Entrate (tax authority). For broader Italy hiring context, see our best Italy EOR providers guide.
Spain’s Beckham Law (named informally after David Beckham’s 2003 Real Madrid transfer) caps Spanish income tax at a flat 24 percent on Spanish-source employment income up to €600,000 (47 percent above) for the year of arrival plus 5 more calendar years. Compared with Spain’s standard progressive rates topping out at 47 percent from around €60,000, the savings are material. Foreign-source income is generally untaxed in Spain during the period. The 2023 Startups Law significantly expanded eligibility to include digital nomads and broader remote-worker categories. For local hiring options alongside the tax regime, see our best Spain EOR providers guide.
Portugal’s former Non-Habitual Resident (NHR) regime was closed to new applicants at end of 2023, but a successor scheme called IFICI took effect in 2024. IFICI offers a flat 20 percent income tax rate on Portuguese-source employment and self-employment income for 10 years, plus exemptions on most foreign-source income. Targets researchers, scientific innovators, and qualifying skilled workers in priority sectors.
Greece offers two stacked schemes. The non-dom regime lets high-net-worth individuals pay a flat €100,000 per year on foreign-source income for up to 15 years (requires €500,000 minimum investment in Greece). The separate Article 5C foreign-worker scheme lets qualifying employees and self-employed individuals exempt 50 percent of their Greek-source income from tax for 7 years.
Malta runs two tax incentive schemes for foreign residents. The Highly Qualified Persons Rules (HQPR) cap tax at a flat 15 percent on employment income up to €5 million for qualifying senior roles in financial services, gaming, and aviation. The Global Residence Programme offers a flat 15 percent rate on foreign-source income remitted to Malta, with minimum €15,000 tax per year.
The most valuable relocation programs are the ones nobody calls relocation programs
Travel listicles concentrate on cash grants and €1 houses because the headlines are dramatic. For most foreign professionals weighing a real international move, the tax reduction schemes are dramatically more lucrative than any direct cash grant. A software engineer earning €150,000 in Italy under the impatriate regime saves roughly €20,000 per year for 5 years versus standard tax treatment, totalling €100,000 cumulative. The same engineer claiming Antikythera’s headline €30,000 grant gets, at most, €30,000 once. Greece’s 50 percent income exemption for foreign workers is similarly more valuable than any island incentive. Spain’s Beckham Law and Portugal’s IFICI both run in the same range. The hierarchy of programs by actual dollar value for a high earner is: tax reduction schemes > €1 house renovation (only if you want rural Italy) > cash grants > remote-worker incentives. The internet has this almost exactly backwards.
Countries with €1 house and property programs
The most viral category of places that pay you to live there is the €1 house program: depopulated municipalities sell derelict properties for a symbolic euro to anyone willing to commit to renovating them. The first major scheme launched in Sambuca di Sicilia (Sicily) in 2019 and has since spread to dozens of Italian villages plus parallel schemes in Croatia, Spain, and Japan. The math on these programs is more interesting than the headline suggests:
Approximately 30+ Italian municipalities run €1 house programs. Active sites include Mussomeli, Sambuca di Sicilia, Cinquefrondi, Salemi, Latronico, Bivona, Maenza, Patrica, Castropignano, Pratola Peligna, and dozens more. The houses are real, the purchase price is real, and the programs are open to non-Italians including US, UK, and other non-EU applicants. Sambuca’s first auction in 2019 attracted bidders from 110 countries.
The Croatian village of Legrad (population approximately 2,200) gives away vacant houses for HRK 1 (now €0.13). Several other depopulating Slavonian regions run similar schemes. The Croatian government also offers renovation subsidies of up to €25,000 for qualifying young families moving to rural areas under the Demographic Development scheme.
Several Spanish regional governments combine cheap or free property offers with rural depopulation grants. Aragon, Castilla-La Mancha, and parts of Galicia have active programs. Properties are typically transferred for low symbolic prices to applicants who commit to multi-year residency, often combined with business start-up requirements (opening a village shop, taking over a closing restaurant, restoring agricultural land).
Japan has approximately 8 million vacant houses («akiya») and hundreds of municipalities run «akiya banks» that offer these properties for free or for a symbolic price to anyone willing to renovate and reside. Some municipalities add cash grants of JPY 1 to 3 million for renovation. The program has accelerated significantly across 2023 to 2026 as rural depopulation has intensified.
Countries that pay remote workers to move there
The newest category of countries that pay you to move there is remote-worker incentive programs: cash grants paid to fully-remote workers willing to relocate to specific cities or regions. Tulsa, Oklahoma launched the most successful program in 2018 (Tulsa Remote, USD 10,000), and multiple cities and countries have followed. These programs are administratively simple, the payouts small relative to tax schemes, but the logistics are straightforward.
Tulsa, Oklahoma pays remote workers USD 10,000 in cash (plus a free coworking space membership and community programming) to relocate to Tulsa for at least one year. The program is funded by the George Kaiser Family Foundation and has placed thousands of remote workers since 2018. Tulsa Remote is the gold-standard example of a well-administered relocation incentive: real cash, clear eligibility, established community. The official program site is tulsaremote.com.
Topeka, Kansas runs the Choose Topeka program offering up to USD 15,000 (USD 10,000 for remote workers, up to USD 15,000 for those relocating with local employment). Funding is split between Choose Topeka (the regional economic development partnership) and employer-matching contributions. Cash is paid in tranches over the relocation year.
West Virginia runs Ascend WV, offering USD 12,000 cash plus outdoor recreation packages worth approximately USD 25,000 to remote workers relocating to participating cities (Morgantown, Lewisburg, Shepherdstown, Elkins, Wheeling). The program is funded by the Brad and Alys Smith Outdoor Economic Development Collaborative. Cohort-based: applicants are selected from a pool with several thousand applications per cycle.
What the listicles get wrong
Several countries appear repeatedly in countries that pay you to move there listicles even though their schemes either no longer exist, never really existed at scale, or have very narrow application. The following are programs worth understanding the reality of:
Chile’s “Start-Up Chile” isn’t a relocation grant. Start-Up Chile gives non-equity grants of up to USD 80,000 to early-stage tech founders, but the program is highly selective, runs as a 4 to 6 month accelerator, and pays into the company rather than the individual. It’s a Y Combinator-style accelerator, not a country paying anyone to move.
The Italian Molise €700/month scheme has effectively wound down. Articles still reference Molise paying €700/month for 3 years to incomers, but the original 2019 announcement was for a very limited program with stringent conditions and the actual disbursement was minimal. Treat it as a marketing scheme that ran briefly.
Most US small-city programs require US citizenship. Tulsa Remote, Choose Topeka, and Ascend WV are all explicitly open to US citizens and permanent residents only. Non-Americans cannot participate.
Portugal’s NHR is closed to new applicants. The Non-Habitual Resident regime that made Portugal famous as a retirement and remote-worker tax haven closed to new applicants at the end of 2023. The successor scheme IFICI is much narrower (research, scientific innovation, specific skilled professions). Articles published before 2024 routinely mislead on this.
Antigua, Barbuda, and other Caribbean “citizenship by investment” programs are not free. They require investments of USD 100,000+ minimum. They are programs where you pay to immigrate, not programs where they pay you.
How to actually apply for a relocation program
For any of the legitimate countries that will pay you to move there schemes, the application process follows a roughly similar pattern. Six practical points cover most of what you need to know before applying:
1. Confirm eligibility before anything else. Most programs are restricted by nationality (EU-only, US-only), age (under 40, under 45), professional category, or income level. Read the fine print on the program’s official government or municipal website rather than secondary listicles.
2. Sort the visa question separately from the grant question. EU programs assume free movement: a non-EU applicant might qualify for the grant but still need an entirely separate residence visa, which the grant program won’t help with. Allocate the visa application as a parallel project with its own 3 to 12 month timeline.
3. Budget for the full all-in cost. A €1 house with mandatory €30,000 renovation, €5,000 deposit, €3,000 legal fees, and your living costs for the renovation period adds up to a real number. The headline grant covers only a fraction of the total cost in most cases.
4. Tax-reduction schemes need professional tax advice. The election windows are strict and a mistake forfeits the regime for the full multi-year period. Spend €1,500 on an international tax adviser in the destination country before electing into any scheme. For a deeper look at Spain’s Beckham Law specifically, see our Beckham Law Spain guide.
5. Talk to people who have actually done it before applying. Every program has an unofficial community of past recipients. LinkedIn and Reddit both have active communities. Pre-application due diligence is the single most useful thing you can do.
6. Plan the employment side as carefully as the residency side. If you’re moving to take up an employment-based tax incentive, the employer setup matters. For foreign companies hiring you under local employment, check whether an Employer of Record can hold the local employment contract and run the payroll. Our contractor vs EOR employee comparison covers the operational ground.
For a deeper look at the European tax-incentive schemes mentioned in this guide, see our Spain work visa guide covering Beckham Law alongside the HQP visa route. For the broader cost picture of hiring globally through an Employer of Record, our EOR cost guide walks through total employer cost across markets, and our best cities to work remotely guide covers the broader remote-work destination landscape alongside the formal incentive schemes above.
A final note on this kind of decision: every relocation incentive scheme has a structural reason for existing (depopulation, tax competition, demographic decline). The countries running them want stable, productive long-term residents. The schemes work best for people who would have considered the destination anyway and for whom the incentive tips the balance, rather than for people who pick the destination solely for the incentive. A €30,000 grant doesn’t make a place a good fit for you; it makes a good fit a slightly easier decision.
Frequently Asked Questions: Countries That Pay You to Move There
Yes. Eighteen countries currently run some form of program that pays incoming residents through cash grants, tax breaks, property programs, or remote-worker incentives. The most lucrative are tax reduction schemes (Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Malta) which can save high earners €100,000 or more over a multi-year period. Cash grants are smaller (typically €5,000-30,000) and usually tied to specific depopulating regions. The €1 house programs in Italy, Croatia, and Japan are real but require mandatory renovation that typically costs €30,000-80,000.
For high earners, Italy’s impatriate tax regime is one of the most valuable single programs, offering a 50 percent income tax reduction for 5 years on Italian-source income. A €150,000 earner can save €100,000+ over the full period. Spain’s Beckham Law and Greece’s 50 percent foreign-worker exemption run in similar ranges. For people not earning enough to benefit from tax breaks, Ireland’s Our Living Islands offers grants up to €84,000 toward property refurbishment, the highest direct cash grant currently available.
Multiple programs remain active in 2026, including Italy’s impatriate tax regime, Spain’s Beckham Law (expanded under the 2023 Startups Law), Ireland’s Our Living Islands grants, Italian €1 house programs across 30+ municipalities, Tulsa Remote (USD 10,000), Choose Topeka (up to USD 15,000), and the Greek non-dom regimes. Portugal’s former NHR closed to new applicants at end of 2023 but was replaced by the narrower IFICI scheme.
Italian municipalities sell derelict properties for €1 to anyone willing to commit to renovating them within a defined window (typically 1-3 years). The headline price is real but hides a mandatory renovation commitment of €25,000-50,000+, a security deposit of €5,000-10,000 forfeited if you don’t complete the renovation, plus legal fees and finishing costs. Total all-in cost is typically €35,000-80,000. Programs operate in Sicily (Mussomeli, Sambuca), Calabria, Abruzzo, Sardinia, and elsewhere. Non-EU applicants need separate residence visas to live in the property.
Yes, but with a caveat: most cash grant programs are open to non-Europeans but require you to first obtain a separate residence visa for the destination country, which the grant program doesn’t help with. US citizens can apply for Italian €1 houses, Italian impatriate tax regime, Spanish Beckham Law, Greek tax schemes, and Portuguese IFICI, but each requires the appropriate visa (digital nomad, work visa, or family-based). The grant programs and the visa programs run as parallel tracks rather than as a single combined offer.
The main European countries with relocation incentive programs are Italy (impatriate tax regime, €1 houses, Calabria active residency), Spain (Beckham Law, rural depopulation grants, regional property programs), Greece (non-dom regime, foreign-worker tax exemption, island grants), Portugal (IFICI tax scheme), Ireland (Our Living Islands), Switzerland (Albinen village), Malta (HQP and GRP tax schemes), and Croatia (Legrad and Slavonia property programs). The tax-reduction schemes are the highest-value programs by dollar amount for working professionals.
Every program has at least one catch. The most common: residency requirements with claw-back if you leave early; language requirements (most Spanish regional programs require Spanish, akiya Japan effectively requires Japanese); age caps (Calabria under 40, Albinen under 45); designated locations that are depopulating for a reason (limited services, poor connectivity, restricted job markets); mandatory renovation costs that exceed the headline grant; and separate visa requirements that the grant program doesn’t cover for non-citizens.
A relocation grant typically pays €5,000-30,000 once, while moving to a country you don’t want to live in costs much more over time. The financially logical view: a grant works well as a tiebreaker when you were already considering a destination, but it’s rarely enough on its own to make a bad-fit destination worth moving to. The exception is tax reduction schemes for high earners, where 5-10 years of saved tax can total €100,000+. For those programs, the math can justify a move to a destination you wouldn’t otherwise have chosen, but only if you can credibly commit to the multi-year residency the schemes require.
Dane Cobain is a Copywriter at Employsome and an accomplished author whose work spans fiction, non-fiction, and professional writing. Over the past decade, he has built a strong track record creating straightforward content for the HR, payroll, and corporate sectors. Dane brings a storyteller’s eye to the evolving world of global employment, with a particular focus on Employer of Record and PEO models. His articles explore industry trends and dedicated Best Of Guides when managing an international workforce.
Our content is created for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide any legal, tax, accounting, or financial advice. Please obtain separate advice from industry-specific professionals who may better understand your business’s needs. Read our Editorial Guidelines for further information on how our content is created.
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