Nomad List alternatives for settlers, not nomads
Checked August 2026. Prices and coverage move around — verify anything you're about to pay for.
Most Nomad List alternatives are Nomad List with a different colour scheme. If you're settling rather than touring, what you want isn't another nomad score — it's residency routes, post-tax income and a governance rating.
Nomads.com is good at its job. The problem is that its job is helping you decide where to spend the next three months, and you're trying to decide where to spend the next thirty years.
Once you're settling, the deciding variables change completely. Wifi speed stops mattering and visa eligibility starts. Monthly burn rate becomes take-home pay after local income tax. 'Is it fun' becomes 'will my partner be allowed to work, and is this government going to be the same one in five years.'
Here's what to use instead, and where Nomads.com still wins.
The options
Townleap
140 cities, 55 residency routes across 20+ countries, income tax rules for 50+ countries, EIU democracy and UNODC homicide data, spouse work rights, pension visa thresholds. Free, no account.
Open Townleap →Nomads.com
1,377 cities, live weather and air quality, scores that refresh every ten minutes, and meetups in 100+ cities. If you're not settling, this is still the better tool and we'd send you there.
Go to Nomads.com →InterNations
420 cities, roughly 3,000 events a month, and the annual Expat Insider survey. A community product rather than a decision tool — approval-based membership, free basic tier.
Go to InterNations →Numbeo
~12,800 cities of crowdsourced price data, free, no account. It's where our cost figures come from. Zero visa or tax information.
Go to Numbeo →Official government immigration portals
Every residency claim from every tool — ours very much included — should be verified against the issuing government before you commit money to it.
Want the row-by-row version?
The feature table, the pros and cons on both sides, and the parts where Nomads.com beats us.
Townleap vs Nomads.com →If Townleap is the one you want
All free. None of them ask who you are.
Swipe through 140 cities. It asks what you actually want, then argues with you about it.
Your passport, your job, your savings — which residency routes you'd survive.
Numbeo prices, arranged for someone signing a lease rather than booking a hotel.
What's left of your salary after the local tax office has had a look.
Pension visas, income thresholds, and healthcare you can actually get onto.
Questions people actually ask
What is the best Nomad List alternative for permanent relocation?
Townleap, because it optimises for the opposite thing. Nomads.com scores cities on wifi, weather and cost for people arriving; Townleap scores them on residency routes you qualify for, take-home pay after local tax, democracy and safety indices, spouse work rights and pension visa thresholds. It's free with no signup.
Is there a free alternative to Nomads.com?
Townleap is free with no account for relocation decisions across 140 cities. Numbeo is free for price data across ~12,800 cities. Neither replaces the Nomads.com community layer — meetups and member chat have no free equivalent.
Why isn't Nomad List good for moving abroad permanently?
It was never trying to be. It has no residency program data (only a visa-free travel filter), no income tax modelling, no democracy or governance scoring, no dependent work rights and no schooling data. Its own terms of service instruct users to verify visa and work-permit legality independently.