El Cangrejo, Panama

Here’s the truest thing we can tell you about the cost of living in Panama City: It can be as little or as much as you want it to be, within broad ranges.

Most importantly, the biggest part of any budget is given over to housing (that is, rent), which is also typically the most variable budgeting factor. Nowhere is this more true than in Panama City.

Which is why we focus not on Panama City, but on El Cangrejo. This is our first point: It’d be impossible to produce a useful report on the cost of living in Panama City.

Compact as this city is, it’s home to many diverse neighborhoods, from Costa del Este to Casco Viejo and from Marbella to San Miguelito. The cost of living one to another is dramatically changeable, primarily because the cost of renting one to the other can vary so much.

Taking all this into account, we’ve chosen El Cangrejo. Not only because this is an appealing place to call home, but also because it’s middle of the road. It’s not this city’s most costly place to live (that’d be Costa del Este or certain areas of Marbella, for example), and it’s not the most affordable either.

Certainly, you could rent in Panama City for less, and we know many people who do. But you’d be living in a more out-of- the-way neighborhood—Arraijan, for example, or La Chorrera.

We at Live And Invest Overseas have read reports from other sources suggesting that expats and foreign retirees looking for more affordable Panama City options consider neighborhoods like these, but it’s not ideal.

The average person that retires in Panama isn’t going to feel comfortable in these working-class barrios. 

For the purposes of our reporting, we assume that you want to stretch your retirement dollars as far as possible, sure, but also that you want to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle.

In Panama City, it is one of the top choices right now for enjoying a comfortable expat lifestyle. A couple can live well on US$2,115 per month.