Albania vs Italy: Why Some Expats Choose Albania Instead!

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:01]Hello and welcome back to the channel.

[00:00:02]Today we're going to talk about Albania and Italy and why some expats choose Albania instead if they're looking at those two countries. Now I'm a huge fan of Italy. Been there several times. Love it. Love it. Love it. Every part of Italy I have loved that I have visited and I plan to go back a lot. Now one of the things my wife and I have always daydreamed about is what it would be like one day retiring in Italy. It'd be very nice. And I've run across a lot of expats coming in and out of our coffee shop here at Cafe 1912 that have those same plans. They're planning to live in Italy. They do live in Italy. So they've been able to give me a lot of good things to think about when comparing both countries, especially if plan A is Italy and it doesn't work out, can you use Albania as a very good plan B? So the first comparison I'd like to make between the two countries, and this is going to be a big one for a lot of people, is the cost of living. The cost of living is going to be a lot higher as one would expect in a European Union country such as Italy. Where here in Albania the costs are a lot less. Yes, Albania is trying to be part of the European Union. The earliest it could possibly happen maybe 2030. They're saying between 2030 to 2032.

[00:01:31]If at all, who knows? That's all in the future. But as things stand right now, Albania is a much cheaper solution for cost of living between the two countries. So if you're somebody who's trying to live off retirement and you're wanting to get the most bang for your buck, well that's going to go to Albania. Yes, you're going to get have to give up some things. For one, it's not Italy. it's Albania. Totally different culture, totally different architecture, everything you can think of. However, it is a very solid choice.

[00:02:07]Now, since we're still talking about cost of living, I do want to bring up taxes. This is probably the number one deterrent for me when I heard about it.

[00:02:16]It is Italy's policy on taxes and taxing on your social security income. We're not going to talk about the percentages and the rules and all this other things, the exceptions. You really need to look that up yourself. And again, these are things that change over time. But if you are looking to retire in Italy and retire there, you may want to take a good look at how much you would be taxed for living in Italy versus living in Albania, which would be a lot less. Next would be a huge hurdle, and that is your residency visa qualifications.

[00:02:57]It is not that easy for, let's say, Americans to stay in Italy long-term.

[00:03:04]And the people who, let's say, the Americans that have ancestry that's is from Italy, they're tightening up on that a lot. It's in the news. People are talking about that here a lot. So, make sure you're researching that and see if you're even research it, see if it's even possible for you in your current condition to be able to stay in Italy long-term. It's getting more and more difficult. However, in Albania, you could show up as an American unannounced, show up, and you have a year that you could stay here in Albania. You could also work on your residency. You could also get a long-term residency. You could also have that residency and maybe lead up to citizenship if you wanted to. My point is is that there's a lot more opportunity for long-term stay here in Albania versus Italy. Next, we're going to talk about healthcare. This is where Italy will shine in this comparison like a silver dollar because comparing these two countries, Italy will win this one hands down. So, if you are living here in Albania, you can get healthcare. It just isn't as good as surrounding countries such as Greece and Italy. So, my suggestion would be if there was something serious that you needed to get done or you want to have a very intensive checkups, things like that yearly, is go to another country. Meaning, if you go to Turkey, they even have medical vacations you can do there where they have a whole package of things that they could go over, tests. We've met some expats that live here that went over to Italy, had it done.

[00:04:56]The man found out he had a 70% clogged artery, I think it is, heart valve, something, and he had that cleared, and the woman actually had stage one breast cancer. This is just off of going to get checkups over where it's affordable and good quality in Turkey. You can also get good quality healthcare, of course, in Italy or Greece. The point is, comparing these two countries, Italy will win if you want to live in a country with good accessible healthcare that's within driving distance. Next, we're going to talk about language, and this is just the accessibility of speaking English.

[00:05:41]Believe it or not, as many people travel to Italy, a lot of places in Italy do not speak English. It's not very prevalent. My wife and I visited Venice, Italy back in 2012.

[00:05:55]We had a very rough time at a lot of places speaking English. We're in Albania, English is a second language for a lot of people in Albania. So, the winner on this one, and I checked with AI to see what would be the winner between these two countries for ease of speaking English, which is Albania, strangely enough. Now, we'll talk a little bit about renting an apartment, just comparing the two. We talked a little bit about cost of living. Italy is going to be higher for monthly rent, where Albania will be a lot cheaper.

[00:06:33]However, you got to know there's a big difference between the architecture and the beauty of properties in Italy versus Albania. But, since we're comparing it and we're talking about prices at this point, just know that between the two countries, it is a lot cheaper to rent something here in Albania. Now, how about safety? Who do you think would win doing a comparison between Italy and Albania? A lot of people who have never been to Albania think it's a scary place, that it's not safe. You could not be any further from the truth, and I'm getting this from tons of expats that I see every day in our coffee shop, single women, guys, you name it. Everyone feels extremely safe here. They say they find it safer than the where they lived in the United States, and we've had Italians come in here and say it depends on what city you're in in Italy, but let's just take Rome. They say that here in Albania it is a lot safer than a lot of the bigger cities in Italy. So, we're going to say for safety, the winner's going to be Albania. So, the point of this video is just to show you if you were looking at Italy and it's not working out for you, you may want to think about making a home here in Albania. Let me explain why. So, I'm right now coming to you from a city in Albania called Vlorë. Vlorë is right on the coast, right by the sea. There are ships that leave from here and go to Brindisi, Italy every day. It's a 7-hour journey. It's an overnight type of ship.

[00:08:20]You can get a cabin if you want. You can not get a cabin. You can bring your car.

[00:08:24]You can bring your motorcycle on that ship. It goes back and forth every day.

[00:08:29]If you did want to make your base hub here in Albania and visit Italy, you can easily do that. I've taken a flight with my wife from the capital of Albania to Pisa, Italy and it cost around in US dollars about $35 round trip for my wife and same for me to do round trip from Pisa, Italy. We wanted to visit the Tuscany region.

[00:08:57]We can also take the ship here and go within 7 hours, we can be in Brindisi, which is extremely nice. So, Italy is very accessible from Albania. Now, we have some customers that come into the coffee shop. We met them at the couple. They had just bought a house in an area of Italy and they're renovating it right now. They're still working on that red tape bureaucracy for getting a visa or a long-term resident permit in Italy, which they're really having a rough time with. They had to come out of the EU.

[00:09:35]They had been there too long, so they came here to Albania. The nice thing about Albania is that it's not in the European Union, it's not part of the Schengen, so it's a good place to do your time outside of that region because you can only stay in the European Union for so long as an American. So, these people came here and fell in love with Albania. Now, I think their plans are I know they rented here for a year, but I think they're going to do several months in Italy at their other house, then come back over here to their apartment, and go back and forth. So, they found the best of both worlds. Albania is a really good choice if Italy does not work out for you, or you want your money to go further, but you still want quick access, of course, to Italy. If anything, I hope this video just got your mind thinking, well, if my heart was on Italy, but if that doesn't work out, maybe I should check out Albania.

[00:10:38]Albania is not for everybody. I would suggest coming here and spending at least a month, check the place out, go to different cities, see if it's going to be a match for you, and if your dream is to one day be in Italy, maybe that will happen one day. Maybe this country will also be part of the European Union, which would allow you to be, if you're a citizen, said let's say you've been here 7 years, you become a citizen, and do all the paperwork, and it becomes part of the European Union, you could then possibly move to Italy, depending on how things are at that time. So, I hope this just gives you a little bit more options in your head for things that you could do if Italy may not work out for you. Thank you for watching. If you haven't subscribed, please consider subscribing.

[00:11:27]If you feel so inclined, buy us a coffee, there's a link down in the description. If you are somebody who's looking at moving to Albania, we do have a step-by-step guide to moving here to Albania. You can click on the buy me a coffee link in the description, and then look for the button that says extras.

[00:11:45]Click on that. You can also see at that same spot where if you want to do a one-on-one video chat with me to discuss your personal situation to see if Albania may be right for you, you can also book it right there. So, thank you for watching, and I'm going to end this by saying thank you in Albanian, which is faleminderit.