Top 10 Places to Retire in Canada (2013)

Submitted by Carolyn B. Heller on April 15, 2013 – 10:20 am

When you’re think­ing about where to retire, are you think­ing about Canada?

Canada may not come to mind as read­ily as, say, Mexico, Costa Rica, or the south of France, but plenty of peo­ple do retire to Canada from other coun­tries.

And many oth­ers, par­tic­u­larly Americans, choose to live in Canada part-​​time dur­ing their retire­ment years.

A rea­son­able cost of liv­ing, good weather (yes, really!), and of course, readily-​​available health care are all advan­tages of choos­ing Canada as a retire­ment destination.

MoneySense mag­a­zine con­sid­ers these fac­tors and more — includ­ing low taxes, low crime rates, ease of get­ting around on foot, and afford­able homes — in their annual rank­ing of Canada’s Best Places to Retire.

According to the MoneySense 2013 rank­ings, the two top Canadian retire­ment des­ti­na­tions are on BC’s Vancouver Island — per­haps not unex­pected, since BC over­all, and Vancouver Island in par­tic­u­lar, has the country’s mildest climate.

Many of the other top retire­ment spots for 2013 are in Ontario, which scores par­tic­u­larly high for cul­tural activ­i­ties and (at least out­side of Toronto) for mod­er­ate liv­ing costs.

Here’s the 2013 MoneySense Best Places to Retire list:

1. Victoria, BC
2. Saanich, BC
3. Kingston, ON
4. Burlington, ON
5. Ottawa, ON
6. Toronto, ON
7. Joliette, QC
8. Saskatoon, SK
9. Stratford, ON
10. Winnipeg, MB

MSN Money recently weighed in with their own list of the Top 10 Canadian Cities to Retire. They’ve made some of the same picks as MoneySense, but their list includes more larger cities:

1. Owen Sound, ON
2. Calgary, AB
3. Victoria, BC
4. Ottawa, ON
5. Quebec City, QC
6. Halifax, NS
7. Vancouver, BC
8. Fredericton, NB
9. Toronto, ON
10. Stratford, ON

Are you plan­ning to retire to Canada?

Are you plan­ning to retire to Canada?

In eval­u­at­ing your immi­gra­tion options, a major deci­sion for retirees is whether you plan to live in Canada for more than six months a year.

Do You Need a Visa?

If you’re a cit­i­zen of the U.S., the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the Republic of Korea, France, Italy, Spain, or a long list of other European or Caribbean coun­tries, and you want to stay in Canada for less than six months within a one-​​year period, you can come to Canada as a vis­i­tor. No visa or other spe­cial paper­work is required. Many Americans who sum­mer on Vancouver Island, for exam­ple, and win­ter in Phoenix or Palm Springs, live in Canada as vis­i­tors, head­ing south every year before their six months are up.

If you’re a cit­i­zen of another coun­try (see the list on the Citizenship and Immigration Canada web­site), you can still come to Canada for up to six months a year, but you must apply for a Temporary Resident Visa.

Parent and Grandparent “Super Visa”

Do you have a child or grand­child liv­ing in Canada who is a Canadian cit­i­zen or per­ma­nent res­i­dent? Then you may be eli­gi­ble for the Parent and Grandparent Super Visa.

The Super Visa will allow you to remain in Canada for up to two years.

Even if you’re from a coun­try that doesn’t require a visa to visit Canada, you can apply for the Super Visa if you meet the cri­te­ria and you want to remain in Canada for more than six months.

Permanent Residence in Canada

To live in Canada per­ma­nently or for more than six months a year, you usu­ally must apply for per­ma­nent res­i­dent sta­tus. As a retired per­son, it can be more dif­fi­cult to qual­ify for per­ma­nent res­i­dence, since the gov­ern­ment con­sid­ers your abil­ity to work – and sup­port your­self – an impor­tant factor.

The good news is that edu­ca­tion counts. If you’re well edu­cated, you speak flu­ent English and French, and your spouse also has a uni­ver­sity degree, you’re more likely to qual­ify. A retired pro­fes­sor with a PhD is more likely to be accepted than a retired truck dri­ver with a high-​​school education.

Another fac­tor is the amount of sav­ings you have. Even though you’re retired, if you can demon­strate that you have ample finan­cial resources to take care of your­self and your fam­ily, Canada will usu­ally look more favor­ably on your appli­ca­tion. And if you have funds to invest in Canada, that’s another plus.

You can learn more about the process of apply­ing for per­ma­nent res­i­dence from Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

Family Sponsorship

If you have a fam­ily mem­ber who is already liv­ing in Canada, either as a per­ma­nent res­i­dent or cit­i­zen, they may be able to “spon­sor” you, which will expe­dite your appli­ca­tion for per­ma­nent residence.

However, give care­ful thought to fam­ily spon­sor­ship. Your spon­sor must agree to pro­vide finan­cial sup­port for you, if nec­es­sary, for a period of three to ten years.

Also note that Canada has tem­porar­ily stopped accept­ing fam­ily spon­sor­ship appli­ca­tions for par­ents and grand­par­ents, at least until November 2013. If you have a child or grand­child in Canada, you may want to con­sider the Parent and Grandparent Super Visa instead.

When to Apply to Come to Canada

If you’re con­sid­er­ing retir­ing to Canada, plan ahead. Canada is more likely to give more favor­able con­sid­er­a­tion to younger peo­ple who are still in the workforce.

Immigration lawyer David Aujla sug­gests that prospec­tive retirees should apply for per­ma­nent res­i­dent sta­tus before you’ve actu­ally retired.

And it’s a good idea to spend time in Canada before you retire to fig­ure out where you’d like to live and become com­fort­able with your new country.

Finding a Home

Visitors to Canada are allowed to pur­chase prop­erty and to rent out that prop­erty when they are not using it.

The British Columbia Real Estate Association has a use­ful guide to Buying and Selling Canadian Property for Non-​​Residents, and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation offers a free Newcomer’s Guide to rent­ing and buy­ing prop­erty in Canada.

Update: Considering where to retire in Canada? Check out this post on the Top 10 Places to Retire in Canada.

Photo ©Alan Albert