Dubai has been named in the top three cities in the world for expats to live and work.
According to the Expat City Ranking 2021 by InterNations, the world’s largest expat community with over 4 million members, Dubai was beaten only by Kuala Lumpur and Malaga.
All three rank very well in the Getting Settled Index — expats feel at home there and find it easy to make friends. Dubai and Málaga are also appreciated for their high quality of life, while Kuala Lumpur and Málaga outperform Dubai in terms of cost of living, as well as finances and housing.
According to InterNations, Dubai is the easiest city in the world to live in without speaking the local language while 81 percent of expats describe the local people as generally friendly towards foreign residents (vs 67 percent globally). The survey also said that expats feel at home in Dubai (75 percent vs 65 percent globally) and find it easy to make new friends there (59 percent vs 48 percent globally).
Dubai also performs very well in the Quality of Urban Living Index (11th) while expats said they are happy with the political stability (90 percent vs 64 percent globally), and 97 percent feel safe (vs 84 percent globally).
However, Dubai falls behind in the Urban Work Life Index (38th) and even ranks among the bottom 10 for job security (51st). Expats are also unhappy with their work-life balance (22 percent vs 17 percent globally), and only 65 percent are
satisfied with their job in general (vs 68 percent globally).
Dubai gets mixed results in the Finance & Housing Index (21st). It ranks well in the Housing subcategory (12th) with 86 percent saying that housing is easy to find (vs 60 percent globally) but 41 percent find it unaffordable (vs 39 percent globally).
The city also scores poorly in the Finance subcategory (49th) with 31 percent saying that their disposable household income is not enough (vs 23 percent globally).
Elsewhere in the rankings, Doha was placed 15th, Abu Dhabi (16th), Muscat (17th) and Riyadh (44th).
At the other end of the list, Rome (57th), Milan, and Johannesburg are the worst cities worldwide, according to expats.
The Expat City Ranking is based on the annual Expat Insider survey by InterNations, which is one of the most extensive surveys about living and working abroad, with 12,420 respondents in 2021.
This year, 57 cities around the globe are analyzed in the survey, which offers in-depth information about five areas of expat life – Quality of Urban Living, Getting Settled, Urban Work Life, Finance & Housing and Local Cost of Living.
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