Bangkok ranked 9th in 2023 best cities for expats, down from 6th last year

One of the globe’s leading expat networking and guide websites ranked the Big Mango, Bangkok, as the 9th best city to live and visit for expats in 2023. The ranking is down from last year when Bangkok was ranked 6th.

InterNations said it conducted an online survey from February 1 to 28 this year, with 12,065 expats from 172 countries and territories around the world taking part.

Bangkok was ranked 9th with overall happiness at 85%, cost of living at 73%, ease of settling in at 54%, overall career satisfaction at 66%, satisfaction with work-life balance at 77% and satisfaction with medical costs at 80%.

Bangkok was beaten this year by Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, which was ranked eighth last year. The city had a high score on the quality-of-life index since last year.

Spain moved up several places in the rankings. Four of the country’s cities were favoured by expats, including Malaga at the top of the rankings, Alicante at second, Valencia at third and Madrid at sixth.

The southern Spanish city of Malaga topped the rankings with an overall happiness score of 88%, cost of living score of 79%, ease of settling in score of 67%, overall career satisfaction score of 69%, work-life balance satisfaction score of 80% and satisfaction with medical costs score of 80%.

The full top ten rankings are below:

1. Malaga, Spain
2. Alicante, Spain
3. Valencia, Spain
4. Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates
5. Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
6. Madrid, Spain
7. Mexico City, Mexico
8. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
9. Bangkok, Thailand
10. Masqat, Oman

The bottom ten cities out of 53 countries were from Kuwait, Norway, Turkey, South Korea, Germany, South Africa, Italy, Malta, New Zealand and Japan.

Despite the drop in score for expat living, Bangkok was recently ranked the fourth most searched tourist destination in the world, according to eDreams Odigeo. The city was also the most popular destination in Asia according to the Travel Off Path website.