The American Exit — Compare 10 countries built for people who actually want to leave

I'm Naji. I grew up a 90s kid, catching the last stretch of an America that actually worked — where wages and cost of living still made sense together. I watched that gap widen for two decades, but it didn't fully hit me until the 2020s, once cost of living became something you couldn't ignore.

Before I ever looked outside the US, I spent three years — just out of curiosity, in my free time — comparing states to move to. Every region, every angle: no-income-tax states, healthcare access, airports, population size, real cost of living once you factor in property tax, sales tax, tolls, insurance. I learned the obvious answer is usually wrong. The cheapest state on paper rarely stays cheap once you add everything up. I landed on Indiana — a good state, by American standards.

Then 2025 happened. Watching the country shift that fast made me ask a question I'd never seriously entertained: what if home base isn't in America at all?

So I ran the same process again, at a bigger scale — this time against every country with a US Social Security totalization agreement. Thirty countries. I filtered them against four hard requirements: a real long-term visa for people who earn online, a genuine path to permanent residency, that totalization agreement (it saves you from paying 15.3% self-employment tax twice), and no wealth requirement to qualify.

Narrowing that list meant digging through visa rules, tax treaties, and cost-of-living data for country after country — Italy, Greece, Spain, and Portugal especially, since they share a climate I love but differ in every legal and financial way that matters.

What started as personal research became a system worth building for everyone asking the same question I was. The data exists — it's just scattered, inconsistent, and sometimes wrong. This app is that research, done once, done right, and kept current.