What is the Nomad Score?

Nomad Score is a 0-100 composite that ranks cities for long-term-base digital nomads (12+ months). It is the weighted average of 5 sub-scores: cost (30%), productivity (25%), sustainability (20%), lifestyle (15%), tax (10%). Tier brackets: S (≥85), A (75-84), B (65-74), C (55-64), D (<55).

Why a new formula?

NomadList and similar indexes are weighted toward the 1-3 month traveler — they reward cheap Airbnb pricing, nightlife scenes, and tourist-area cafés. Those metrics are wrong for someone planning a 12-month base.

Long-term nomads care about different things:

Long-term lease cost beats Airbnb cost (because you'll sign a 1BR, not stay in vacation rental)
Visa pathway clarity beats border-runs
Healthcare + tax structure matter (border-run nomads ignore them)
Productivity infrastructure (coworking quality, internet stability, gym access) beats tourist amenities

Nomad Score reweights the formula for that profile.

The 5 sub-scores

### Cost (30 %) Composite of long-term lease + local food + part-time coworking + transit pass + amortized nomad visa + SIM. Anchored against the 30-city dataset:

$400/month → 100
$4,000/month → 0

### Productivity (25 %)

Coworking value (price-per-month) — 30 % of sub-score
Internet speed (when ingestion fills it; default neutral) — 25 %
Mobile data plan price — 15 %
Gym affordability — 15 %
Healthcare proxy by city tier — 15 %

### Sustainability (20 %) "Can you actually live here for 12 months?"

Nomad-visa quality (50 %) — explicit whitelist of countries with good nomad-visa programs (PT, ES, GE, CO, MX, ID, EE, GR, AE, etc.)
Long-term-vs-Airbnb friction (30 %) — ratio between Airbnb monthly and long-term lease. A small premium = healthy market. >2× = tourist tax.
Foreigner banking access proxy (20 %) — easier in mid-tier cities than expensive Western capitals.

### Lifestyle (15 %)

Coffee affordability — 20 %
Food variety (Western/local price ratio) — 20 %
Transit affordability — 15 %
English proficiency (EF EPI hook) — 20 %
Air quality (AQI hook) — 25 %

### Tax (10 %) Hard-coded per-country flag based on PwC tax summaries + official nomad-visa pages.

Top tier (90+): UAE (0% income tax), Georgia (1% IE regime), Paraguay/Panama (territorial). Mid (60-80): Portugal (NHR), Mexico, Colombia, Indonesia E33G, Estonia. Bottom (30-40): US, France, Germany, Australia (worldwide income, high rates).

Tier brackets

| Score | Tier | Meaning | |---|---|---| | 85-100 | S | Top tier — exceptional across most categories | | 75-84 | A | Great — strong primary base candidate | | 65-74 | B | Solid — works as a 3-6 month rotation | | 55-64 | C | Mediocre — serious tradeoffs | | <55 | D | Avoid for long-term — visit only |

Where to see scores

/scores/ — full 30-city leaderboard with sub-scores per city.
/city/[id]/ — ScoreCard widget on every city page.

Methodology + transparency

Formula source: lib/scoring.ts (open in the GitHub repo). Weights and anchors are in code, not hidden. When ingestion modules add fields like internet speed (Speedtest Global Index), English proficiency (EF EPI), and air quality (WAQI/OpenAQ), the corresponding sub-score components automatically use real data instead of neutral defaults.

/scores//cities/