How your US retirement income is actually taxed here.
Straight from the same profile Glidepath's engine taxes against - not a marketing summary of it.
Territorial: US-source retirement income is NOT taxed by Panama.
USD-pegged economy (balboa 1:1). No wealth/estate tax.
No US income-tax treaty.
What could change this.
Panama's public CSS is effectively closed to retirees who never contributed locally, so you rely on MINSA out-of-pocket or private/international insurance. Local plans carry age caps (~64–70) and pre-existing exclusions; international cover climbs steeply with age, so your real health cost can exceed the modeled figure later in retirement.
When: Cost escalates with age
Compliance traps that catch US retirees here.
Local investment wrappers that look ordinary to a local resident can be a US tax trap for a US citizen - these are the ones specific to Panama.
Panama Private Interest Foundation = foreign trust to the IRS
The Fundación de Interés Privado is the standard estate-planning wrapper sold to expats. For a US settlor/beneficiary the IRS generally treats it as a foreign grantor trust - Forms 3520/3520-A with steep penalties, plus look-through PFIC reporting if it holds non-US pooled funds. Get US tax advice before signing one despite local lawyers routinely recommending it.
Locally domiciled Panamanian investment funds are PFICs
Panamanian 'fondos de inversión' and other non-US pooled funds sold to new residents are each a PFIC (annual Form 8621, punitive default tax). Ordinary Panama bank/brokerage accounts are not PFICs but are FBAR/Form 8938 items. Because Panama uses the US dollar, there is no FX reason to buy local funds - keep investments US-domiciled.
FATCA reporting is real here
Panama has a FATCA Model 1 IGA, so Panamanian banks report US-person accounts to the IRS. Local 'banking secrecy' marketing is obsolete for US citizens - report all Panama accounts on FBAR/Form 8938 normally.
Healthcare as a retiree.
No automatic public coverage for foreign retirees: the contributory CSS is generally closed to those who never worked in Panama, so retirees use MINSA public hospitals out-of-pocket (subsidized, variable quality) or buy private/international insurance (the norm). Pensionado holders also get legally mandated discounts (~20% consultations, 15% hospital, 10% medication).
Local Panamanian plans run ~$600–1,800/yr for a healthy younger retiree but carry age caps (~64–70) and pre-existing exclusions; international plans that travel and accept older entrants commonly run ~$3,000–8,000/yr per person, so ~$5,000 is realistic for an older US retiree on international cover.
Models a couple in their 70s on hospital-tied senior plans (~$5,500-7,000/yr all-in, pa.md). Arriving past ~65 without local cover forces international plans at $2,800-5,700/yr per person; MINSA remains the catastrophic floor.
The retirement visa route.
Visa de Pensionado: lifetime pension ≥ $1,000/mo (or $750/mo + $100k Panamanian property), +$250/mo per dependent; grants permanent residency. No health-insurance mandate, but private/international cover is strongly advised since public CSS is unavailable to non-working retirees.
What could this actually cost you?
A fast, illustrative estimate for Panama - no login, nothing stored. Every country page carries its own, tuned to that country's tax treatment.
Your monthly spending power in Panama on about $1M
A lean lifestyle in Panama
Day to day, that looks like a small apartment in a lower-cost town, transit or one older economy car, cooking at home with the odd cheap meal out. For health, the public health system, with out-of-pocket costs a real worry.
As a US citizen, you keep filing US taxes wherever you live.
Panama: Pensionado (discounts, not a tax rate)
This is a fast estimate, not the full simulation, and not financial advice. It only flags the tax question. The full plan works out what you'd actually owe on each side of the border. It also models real balances, every account type, and healthcare, year by year.
The terms you'll actually run into.
- Visa de Pensionado
- Panama's flagship retiree residency: permanent residency on proof of a ≥ $1,000/mo lifetime pension, which also unlocks legally mandated discounts (Law 6 of 1987) on medicine, medical bills, restaurants, transport and more.
- Renta territorial
- Only Panamanian-source income is taxed; a resident’s foreign pensions, US Social Security and offshore investment income fall entirely outside the Panamanian tax net.
- Caja de Seguro Social (CSS)
- Panama's contributory public social-security/health system; retirees who never contributed locally generally cannot buy in, so MINSA hospitals or private insurance fill the gap.
- MINSA
- The Ministry of Health public hospital network, open to any resident (including pensionados) on a subsidized out-of-pocket basis; cannot legally deny care, though quality and wait times vary.
- Fundación de Interés Privado
- A Panamanian estate-planning vehicle widely marketed to expats that the IRS generally treats as a foreign (grantor) trust for a US settlor/beneficiary.
Nothing on this page is invented.
Confidence: verified. Last verified June 1, 2026. Every figure above comes from one of the sources below - the same profile the paid engine uses to actually compute your projection.
See the full country-by-country build sheet on the coverage page.