Is Panama The Retirement Haven you were looking for ? Pros and Cons for Retiring in Panama

Panama is rated one of the Top 10 Best Places to Retire in the World! Besides being close to the U.S. (making travel easy), Panama uses the American dollar, so you'll have no worries about currency fluctuations. What’s more, Panama offers a wide range of options for becoming a legal resident, and its top-notch medical care is highly regarded. The best hospital, Punta Pacifica, is affiliated with Johns Hopkins and is known for performing cardio surgery, neurosurgery, and a variety of complex procedures. Welcome to The Atlantis Report. Below are my top nine reasons why you should consider Panama as your retirement destination. #1. Warm weather year-round, beautiful beaches, beautiful mountains. No major natural disasters. #2. If you can prove, you have $1000/month in a pension. You can qualify for the pension program, so you don’t have to worry about immigration, and visa’s all the time. Or you could straight out just get permanent residency for about 8000 to 9000 US Dollars. You can apply for citizenship in 5 years. You don’t have this option in Asian countries who are very strict with immigration. #3. Panama uses the US dollar, so you don’t have to deal with a potentially unstable countries currency. #4. You can own land and property with no restrictions. #5. Relatively safe. #6. It can be cheap if you live in a smaller town and don’t need imported goods. #7. Panama does not tax your foreign earned income or online income. #8. A growing economy and great future potential. #9. Affordable quality healthcare and cheaper health insurance. And these are some cons of retiring in Panama for American citizens. these should not deter you from living there!: #1. Legal system stacked toward Panamanians, especially rich Panamanians. (Rent, don’t buy, if possible. Autos will be damaged easily, and only your insurance will pay.) #2. Theft everywhere, even from your employees. Slightly more common in Panama than the urban US. Leave valuable items in the US. #3. Not as clean, nor as organized, nor as always-functional (water, electricity, highway repair, and improvement) as the US. #4. Many bureaucrats are unfriendly, although that is often true everywhere in the world I’ve lived! #5. Security is becoming an issue, but it's still manageable If living in the city, traffic can be annoying It is a third world country after all, so roads might not be great, and public services work but with quirks. #6. Local politics are a mess. #7. Panama could not be as cheap as you would expect, I think it partly depends on where you are planning to live in Panama and where you are coming from in the US. For example, certain things may be cheaper than your US hometown, but Panama is by no means dirt cheap. A massive influx of foreigners over the years has driven up prices on everything from food to real estate to medical services because there is more demand. I think moves overseas are never easy. You will be adapting to a new culture and language. I can definitely see how someone who is from say New York, and is used to fast and reliable service might have a lot of trouble adapting to slow, unreliable service in Panama. Panama has issues with insufficient infrastructure. Just recently, there were two significant power outages, including one where a transmission line went out, and the blackout stretched into Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. On the pro side, you will have beaches nearby and mountains if you want to make a trip. Plenty of nature outside the city. Warm people and hot weather. Fresh fruit that is delicious (especially the pineapple) and affordable. You can get homemade meals in informal restaurants for as little as $3. Once I had to go see a doctor for a nasty cold. I had a consult for $40. The prescriptions were much more expensive, of course. My advice would be to come to check Panama out for an extended period and see if you like it. Like anywhere else, there are good things and bad things about it. Remember that moving overseas is a commitment and not a tourist visit. Do as much research you can. If at all possible, travel down to Panama either for vacations or even for a few days so you can get a feel for the place firsthand. While there try to talk to as many foreign American retirees as you can, there are many throughout the country. Nowhere will you feel like ‘back home.’ So make sure you can be as comfortable as possible wherever you decide to settle. There are always going to be details that might make your retirement pleasurable or uncomfortable. So anticipate. Panama City is a continually growing cosmopolitan and very lively place, but it is also somewhat hard to move around due to poor public transport management. Even if you drive your own vehicle, you’ll have to make adjustments. The countryside is much more laidback, but if you’re going rural, make sure you have excellent internet communication and parcel delivery at hand. In short, do your homework. I would say to look at your finances and determine your monthly income. Then come to Panama for a minimum of 6 months renting in an area you can both afford to live in and would like to live in. Allow for some fairly horrendous inflation in the future just in case and try it out. Many people have come to Panama and invested in their dream home only to find that the weather, or the culture, or the facilities ( medical, shopping, entertainment, service, repair, etc.) are not to their likings. They have every intention of living in Panama but have never lived outside of the United States for an extended period. The shock of being deprived of their original culture and so many of the small things they take for granted is often more than they can handle. It may take months or years for this realization to set in. So be careful of how much you invest in your move. Panama is a great place to retire, with lush forests, amazing beaches, and cozy mountain getaways and a modern capital city with moderately advanced public transportation for Central America. Since many people already retire in Panama, a lot of people here are specialized in offering services for moving and becoming a resident quickly and efficiently, but you still need to use common sense and compare different offers. If you move to the city, you’ll enjoy a relatively higher quality of life than you would experience in the average Latin American capital, and you’ll only be hours away from either the beach or two volcano craters, which simulate a temperate climate. Also, you can choose between Pacific side beaches (dark water but mainly flat sandy shores) and Atlantic side beaches (crystalline water but some rocky shores). If you want to supplement your income, the economy is growing at around 4%, and there’s always available employment for English speakers. You will need a work permit, though. Finally, you need to temper your patience for the bureaucracy. It really is a disaster. Panamanians suffer from this too, and your tales of woe at public offices will quickly give you something in common with your new Panamanian neighbors. Panama has some of the easiest permanent residency programs in the world. Basically, there are two categories for retirement: The retirement program and the pensionado (pension) program. Both offer permanent residency. I noticed another comment saying that you can just do border runs every few months and not worry. There are a few problems with that. The first is that when you get older or are retired, you might not want to have to go on a trip out of the country every few months. The next is that you can’t guarantee that the immigration laws won’t change concerning this policy. I remembered just a few years ago. People would live in Thailand doing this until immigration put restrictions on border runs to live in the country long term. If you have the means to live in Panama already, in my opinion, it is much better if you just get your permanent residency while you still can, and then you can have peace of mind no matter what changes with immigration. Panama City is the business center of the country where the jobs are and where many people live. The traffic and driving conditions in the City are horrendous. It can take 2 hours during the day in the city to travel a distance that should take 10 minutes. Between the heat, the fighting for parking, and the fighting for traffic, it's exhausting. That's not necessarily unusual for a big city. Public transport is very lacking, with the exception of one functioning metro line (others are being built). The roads in the city often have potholes, so you need to look out for those as well as other drivers. Also, people remove sewer covers, so you have to look out for those. During the rainy season, it gets worse because the drainage infrastructure is not adequate, and people who throw trash in the streets, (quite common) clog up the sewer system. As a result, many parts of the city flood when it gets heavy downpours resulting in general chaos. Also, be prepared for power outages/surges on a semi-regular basis as infrastructure is not adequately maintained. Ironically, electricity can be very expensive, so you need to be careful not to overuse it. In many ways, it's a city whose population has grown while the infrastructure has not kept up. Panama city has also become increasingly expensive over the years, especially where it concerns real estate and food costs. Coming from a major metro area in the US, you might find many things cheaper, but it's not a “cheap” place to live for a lot of people. Also, salaries can be much lower, depending on what you are used to. On the positive side, once you get outside of the city, you have beaches, mountains, and great hiking. Coffee plantations, indigenous villages, paradisic beaches, and islands are within your reach. There are also great, world-class restaurants in Panama City, and if you look hard, you can find great cultural events. There is a very nice park in the city and a rainforest you can hike with a great view of the city. Everything is insanely OVERPRICED in Panama City right now! The country has entered a MAJOR recession, and there are thousands of vacant apartments lying unsold in downtown Panama City right now. It is inevitable that real estate prices in Panama City will PLUNGE within the next couple of years. There are a couple of dubious online publications trying to trick Americans and Canadians by touting Panama as a wonderful place to buy property, retire overseas, and invest in BOGUS agricultural projects. If you follow their advice and invest in any of their recommended SCAMS, you will LOSE a lot of your money very soon! This Was The Atlantis Report. Please Like. Share. And Subscribe. Thank You.











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