United States
Northern America
The world's deepest job and capital markets, top universities and an EB-5 investor green card, offset by costly healthcare, citizenship-based worldwide taxation and a hard work-visa lottery.
Pros
- Highest salaries & venture capital
- EB-5 investor green card
- World-leading universities
Cons
- Taxed on worldwide income as a citizen
- Expensive healthcare
- H-1B lottery & long green-card queues
Best for
Score profile
Status & mobility
Passport
Rules change often and depend on your situation. Confirm any travel or visa decision with a qualified professional, or do your own research, before acting.
Passport-index style mobility for the United States passport. The score above is its world reach: the share of 198 destinations reachable without a prior visa.
- Visa-free137
- On arrival40
- eTA8
- Visa required13
Passport Index style mobility data (2024–2025 estimate). Placeholder figures; verify current entry rules with each destination’s authority before travelling.
Citizenship
Rules change often and depend on your situation. Confirm any citizenship decision with a qualified professional, or do your own research, before acting.
| Years required | 5 years as a green-card holder (3 if married to a US citizen) |
|---|---|
| Dual allowed | true |
| Language | Basic English + US civics/history test |
| Residence | Permanent residence (green card) with continuous physical presence |
| Notes | The US taxes citizens and green-card holders on worldwide income for life; renouncing can trigger an expatriation (exit) tax. |
Residence
Rules change often and depend on your situation. Confirm any residence / visa decision with a qualified professional, or do your own research, before acting.
Our 0–100 score combines how international the population already is (migrant stock at 45%), governance quality (regulatory quality at 25%), and the curated residence-pathway signal (30%). Available indicators are reweighted; the published values are shown below.
| Student | F-1 visa; on-campus work + OPT/CPT practical training. |
|---|---|
| Work | H-1B (annual lottery), O-1 for extraordinary ability, L-1 transfers. |
| Self-employed | No simple founder visa; routes via O-1, E-2 treaty investor, or EB-5. |
| Permanent | Green card via employment, family, or EB-5 ($800k+ investment). |
Money & business
Taxes
Rules change often and depend on your situation. Confirm any tax decision with a qualified professional, or do your own research, before acting.
| Personal | 10–37% federal, plus 0–13.3% state income tax |
|---|---|
| Corporate | 21% federal + state corporate tax |
| Capital gains | 0/15/20% long-term + 3.8% net investment income tax |
| Dividends | 0/15/20% qualified dividends + NIIT |
| Exit tax | Yes: mark-to-market expatriation tax for covered expatriates |
| Foreign cos | Extensive CFC (Subpart F / GILTI) and PFIC rules |
Personal tax
Rules change often and depend on your situation. Confirm any tax decision with a qualified professional, or do your own research, before acting.
| Personal | 10–37% federal, plus 0–13.3% state income tax |
|---|---|
| Freelance | Sole proprietor / LLC; self-employment tax ~15.3% |
| Capital gains | 0/15/20% long-term + 3.8% net investment income tax |
| Dividends | 0/15/20% qualified dividends + NIIT |
| Exit tax | Yes: mark-to-market expatriation tax for covered expatriates |
Corporate tax
Rules change often and depend on your situation. Confirm any tax decision with a qualified professional, or do your own research, before acting.
| Corporate | 21% federal + state corporate tax |
|---|---|
| Capital gains | 0/15/20% long-term + 3.8% net investment income tax |
| Dividends | 0/15/20% qualified dividends + NIIT |
| Foreign cos | Extensive CFC (Subpart F / GILTI) and PFIC rules |
Business
Our 0–100 score leans on the two things founders ask about most: the tax burden (headline corporate rate at 20%, broader tax friendliness at 15%, and freedom from exit-tax / CFC rules at 10%) plus the regulatory and bureaucratic environment (regulatory quality 15%, government effectiveness 15%), on top of the curated company-rules signal (25%). Available indicators are reweighted; the values are shown below.
| Foreign co. | Yes: no nationality limit on owning a US LLC/C-corp |
|---|---|
| Local co. | LLC or C-corp (Delaware popular) online in days |
| Freelance | Sole proprietor / LLC; self-employment tax ~15.3% |
| Corporate tax | 21% federal + state corporate tax |
| Capital gains | 0/15/20% long-term + 3.8% net investment income tax |
| Exit tax | Yes: mark-to-market expatriation tax for covered expatriates |
| Foreign cos | Extensive CFC (Subpart F / GILTI) and PFIC rules |
Investment
Rules change often and depend on your situation. Confirm any investment / tax decision with a qualified professional, or do your own research, before acting.
Our 0–100 score is mostly the investor-tax signal (capital-gains treatment, broker access, wealth tax, and ETF or other taxes on investment, 70%), lightly contextualised by equity-market depth (market cap / GDP at 18%) and credit depth (domestic credit to the private sector / GDP at 12%). Available indicators are reweighted.
| Capital gains | 0/15/20% long-term; deepest brokerage & ETF ecosystem |
|---|---|
| Dividends | Data not available yet |
| ETFs & funds | Data not available yet |
| Wealth tax | None federally |
| Brokers | Best-in-class: Fidelity, Schwab, Interactive Brokers, Vanguard |
| Foreign access | Data not available yet |
| Tax-advantaged | Data not available yet |
Economy
Our 0–100 score combines income level (GDP and GNI per capita, output per worker), growth momentum (real GDP growth), price stability (inflation) and labour utilisation (unemployment). Available indicators are reweighted; the sector split and industry profile below are descriptive, not scored.
| Type | High-income, services- and innovation-led |
|---|---|
| Key sectors | Big Tech & software, Wall Street finance, Healthcare & biotech |
| Summary | The world's largest economy, led by technology, finance and services with deep capital markets. |
| Currency | US dollar (the world's primary reserve currency) |
Wealth building
Rules change often and depend on your situation. Confirm any tax / investment decision with a qualified professional, or do your own research, before acting.
How favourable United States is for building wealth: earnings and business/investment upside, tax drag, and how much a typical income keeps after living costs. Estimated from the factors below.
Living, study & work
Education
Our 0–100 score combines attainment (expected schooling at 30% and mean schooling at 25%) with participation (tertiary enrolment at 25%) and public investment (government education spending at 20%). Available indicators are reweighted; tuition and study rules remain separate profile fields below.
| Tuition | $10,000–60,000 / yr |
|---|---|
| Public uni | In-state public ~$10–12k; out-of-state & private far higher |
| Languages | English |
| Student work | On-campus work; OPT (12 mo, 36 mo STEM) after graduation |
Salary & work
Our 0–100 score combines output per worker (a proxy for wage potential at 40%), unemployment (35%) and labour-force participation (25%). Available indicators are reweighted; the curated profile fields remain below.
| Freelance | Vast 1099 contracting market; highest global day rates |
|---|---|
| Job market | Silicon Valley, NYC, Seattle, Austin hubs; visa is the main hurdle. |
Cost of living
Our 0–100 affordability score is derived from the local consumer price level (World Bank, US = 100): the cheaper everyday prices are, the higher it scores. Lower price level means your money goes further here.
| Rent | $1,800–3,500 (1BR major city) |
|---|---|
| Monthly | $2,500 |
| Cities | New York, San Francisco, Austin, Miami |
Buying power
Our 0–100 score estimates how far money goes for the typical person here. It combines GNI per capita at PPP (30%) and actual household consumption per person at PPP (15%) with a price-advantage term from the local price level (25%) that rewards lower prices, then adjusts for income equality via the Gini index (20%), so unequal economies don't ride a high average, plus price stability via consumer inflation (10%). Available indicators are reweighted; it is a comparison, not a personal budget estimate.
Quality of life
Safety
Our 0–100 score combines personal safety (intentional homicide rate at 35%), institutional quality (rule of law at 25% and control of corruption at 20%), and political stability and absence of violence (20%). Available indicators are reweighted; the published values are shown below. Always check current government travel and security advice before relocating.
Healthcare
Our 0–100 score combines health outcomes (life expectancy at 25% and under-5 mortality at 20%) with system capacity (physicians at 20% and hospital beds at 15% per 1,000 people) and health spending per capita (20%). Available indicators are reweighted; the published values are shown below.
| System | Private, employer-based; no universal coverage |
|---|---|
| Insurance | No mandate; insurance essential (very high out-of-pocket costs) |
| Avg cost | $400–700 / mo individual premium (plus deductibles) |
Infrastructure
The score combines digital access, resilience and download performance (30%), electricity access and network losses (30%), and transport infrastructure covering rail, logistics and aviation (40%). Available inputs are reweighted, but a country needs both digital and transport data to receive a score.
Sources: World Bank World Development Indicators · Internet Society Pulse Internet Resilience Index
HDI
The UN Human Development Index is the geometric mean of three dimension indices (a long and healthy life, knowledge, and a decent standard of living), shown on a 0–100 map scale (HDI × 100). The 2023 UNDP inputs behind each dimension are listed below.
Resources
Official references and quick links for United States. Always confirm against the primary source before acting.
Rules change often and depend on your situation. Confirm any immigration, tax or legal decision with a qualified professional, or do your own research, before acting.
Mock data for demonstration only. Not legal or tax advice.