World News for Students of English

19-10-2026 07:00

In a new global retirement index, Uruguay ranked as the best place in the world to retire abroad, and took the top spot from Portugal.

The study compared 46 retirement and passive-income programs across several areas, including quality of life, travel freedom, citizenship routes, taxation, and costs. While Uruguay leads overall due to balanced scores, Europe remains the most represented region. Six spots are in the top ten, including Spain, Portugal, Latvia, Andorra, Italy, and Greece.

European nations excel in living standards, strong passports, and safety, but often lose points for higher taxes and complex rules. For example, Spain ranks high for quality of life but lowest for taxes, while Portugal slipped to fifth place after increasing its citizenship requirement to ten years. Meanwhile, other regions offer different perks, such as tax benefits in Mauritius and the Middle East, or great affordability and fast citizenship across the Americas.

Difficult words: taxation (the system of collecting taxes from citizens and businesses by the government), excel (to be extremely good at something or perform much better than others), perk (an extra advantage or benefit given in addition to regular pay or status).

You can watch the video news lower on this page.