United States

United States Overview

The United States is a federal constitutional republic of 50 states under English common law (with Louisiana's French civil-law exception), founded in 1789 and run today as the world's largest economy at $28.8 trillion GDP. The country holds a permanent UN Security Council seat, leads the G7, anchors NATO and the OECD, and issues the global reserve currency — the dollar settles roughly 60% of foreign exchange reserves worldwide and US-listed equities account for over half of global public-market capitalisation. The legal and tax framework runs under the Internal Revenue Code, the Securities Act of 1933, the Bank Secrecy Act, and a federal-state regulatory split that varies materially by jurisdiction.

Quick Facts

• Passport Rank: 10
• Visa-Free Destinations: 179
• Capital: Washington, D.C.
• Population: 335 million
• Area: 9,833,517 km²
• Currency: US Dollar (USD)
• Official languages: English
• Religions: Protestant 43%, Catholic 20%, Other Christian 6%, Jewish 2%, Muslim 1%, Unaffiliated 26%, Other 2%

Key Indicators

• GDP (Nominal): $28.8 trillion
• Unemployment Rate: 4.1%
• Human Development Index: 0.927 (Very High)
• GDP per Capita: $85,373

Safety & Governance

• Global Peace Index (IEP): 2.44 (Rank: 132, GPI 2024)
• Press Freedom Index (RSF): 66.59 (Rank: 55, RSF 2024)
• Corruption Perception (TI): 69/100 (Rank: 24, CPI 2024)
• Gini Coefficient (WB): 39.8

Health & Environment

• PM2.5 Air Pollution: 7.18 µg/m³
• Air Quality Category: Good
• ND-GAIN Adaptation Index: 67.2 (Rank: 17, ND-GAIN 2024)
• Life Expectancy: 77.5 years

The proposition for an investor or operator is unusually clean: the world's largest market, English-language jurisdiction, top-decile WRI Business (91.0) and Investment (89.0), the deepest capital markets and venture-capital pool globally, and the most-used investor-residency route in the world via the EB-5 Programme from $800,000 in a Targeted Employment Area. The cost is also unusually clean: citizenship-based worldwide taxation that follows the passport-holder anywhere on earth, an estate-tax regime that caps non-citizen exemptions at $60,000 versus $13.6M for citizens, multi-year EB-5 processing with country-specific visa retrogression, and a healthcare system that is the most expensive in the developed world. The United States does not try to be for everyone — it is clear from the start who it is for.

How Does United States Compare?

Summary

The United States (WRI 72.9, global rank 13) sits between France (74.2) and El Salvador (72.4) in the live peer group, with Hungary (73.5) and Japan (70.2) completing the comparison. The country tops the peer group decisively on Business (91.0) and Investment (89.0), and ranks second on Education (88.0). The structural lags are on Residency (55.0, the lowest in the group) and Citizenship (52.0), reflecting the absence of any sub-$800k investor route and the 5-year naturalisation timeline plus civics requirement.

How United States stacks up against its closest peers on the WRI 2026:

Where United States wins: Business (91.0) tops the peer group by a clear margin: 13 points clear of Hungary (78), 19 ahead of France (72), El Salvador (72), and Japan (72). The combination of 24-48-hour Delaware incorporation, the world's deepest venture-capital pool, and the EB-5 investor-residency programme makes the US the strongest business-environment peer in this group. Investment (89.0) also leads decisively (vs El Salvador 75, France 74, Hungary 70, Japan 65) — NYSE/NASDAQ liquidity and the largest concentration of capital allocators globally anchor the score. Education (88.0) sits second only to Japan's 90, with Harvard/MIT/Stanford and 50+ universities in the global top 200.

Where United States lags: Residency (55.0) is the weakest in the peer group, trailing every peer (El Salvador 74, Hungary 74, Japan 60, France 70) — the absence of a sub-$800k investor visa, no dedicated lifestyle visa, and the EB-5 backlog for high-volume origin countries pull the score below peer levels. Citizenship (52.0) is also second-weakest (only Japan's 40 below) — 5-year green card plus 30-month physical presence plus civics produces a meaningfully longer path than El Salvador's CBI route or France's 5-year naturalisation. Safety (66.0) trails Japan (89), Hungary (87.5), France (75.8), and El Salvador (71.6);homicide rate around 6 per 100,000 (10× EU average) is the structural driver. Retirement (62.0) trails France (80), El Salvador (76), and Japan (74) on the same tax-and-lifestyle metrics.

Who does United States fit?

Summary

The United States fits HNW EB-5 investors, founders building global businesses on US capital markets, senior international executives moving on employment-based visas, and corporate transferees on intra-company moves. It is a poor fit for lifestyle relocators wanting easy long-term residency, foreign retirees relying on territorial taxation, fast-citizenship seekers, applicants seeking a sub-$800k investor route, and asylum applicants from high-volume backlogged origin countries.

Right fit:

• HNW EB-5 investors — direct investor-residency route from $800,000 in a Targeted Employment Area (rural / high-unemployment) or $1,050,000 elsewhere under the EB-5 Reform Act 2022, with conditional 2-year green card on I-526E approval and permanent residency on I-829 conversion.
• Founders and operators building global businesses — top WRI Business score in the index, 24-48-hour Delaware incorporation, 100% foreign ownership, 21% federal corporate tax with effective rates of 13-19%, the world's deepest venture-capital pool, and English common law jurisdiction with predictable contract enforcement.
• Senior international executives and specialists — L-1 intracompany transfer, H-1B specialty occupation, O-1 extraordinary ability, and E-2 treaty investor routes provide multiple work-authorisation paths for senior talent moving from a foreign employer or with a US-domiciled business.
• Corporate transferees on intra-company moves — L-1A (manager/executive) and L-1B (specialised knowledge) routes inside the US employment framework, supported by 60+ double-taxation treaties and the most developed payroll, withholding, and benefits infrastructure globally.

Wrong fit:

• Lifestyle relocators wanting easy long-term residency — no dedicated lifestyle visa, no digital-nomad visa, and no sub-$800k investor route; long-term residence requires EB-5 ($800,000+), employment-based EB-1/EB-2/EB-3, treaty E-2 (renewable, no direct GC path), or family sponsorship.
• Foreign retirees relying on territorial taxation — the US is citizenship-based worldwide-tax, with no dedicated pensioner regime; foreign pensions remitted to the US are fully taxable, and there is no NHR-equivalent new-resident incentive.
• Fast citizenship seekers — naturalisation requires 5 years of Lawful Permanent Resident status plus 30 months of physical presence, an English-language exam, and a civics test; spouses of US citizens face a 3-year track on the same conditions.
• Applicants seeking a sub-$800k investor route — there is no comparable route below the EB-5 threshold; treaty E-2 (~$100,000+) is renewable but delivers no direct path to a green card.
• Asylum applicants from backlogged origin countries — affirmative-asylum and defensive-asylum dockets carry multi-year backlogs (USCIS asylum office wait times in the 4-6 year range for some offices); applicants from high-volume origin countries face the longest waits.

Pros and Cons of Relocating to United States

United States leads on Business — WRI 91.0 / 100

The United States' Business score of 91.0 reflects the deepest, most liquid, most capital-rich operating environment globally, and the reason is not subtle: a private limited company can be incorporated in Delaware in 24-48 hours, with 100% foreign ownership, no minimum capital, and a long-standing corporate-law jurisprudence that contract drafters worldwide treat as the reference point. Federal corporate tax is a flat 21%, but effective rates land in the 13-19% range once depreciation, R&D credits, and state-level deductions apply; state corporate income tax adds 0-12% depending on state of operation. The US has 60+ double-taxation treaties, the world's deepest venture-capital pool (roughly $200 billion in annual deployment), and well-developed M&A, IP-licensing, and securities-issuance markets. The Employment Pass-equivalent stack runs through H-1B specialty occupation, L-1A/L-1B intracompany transfer, O-1 extraordinary-ability, and E-2 treaty-investor visas; the EB-1A and EB-2 NIW (National Interest Waiver) routes deliver green cards for top operators and researchers. The trade-off is regulatory complexity: federal plus state plus municipal layers, SEC/CFTC dual oversight on financial activity, state-level licensing for many sectors, and class-action litigation exposure that is materially higher than in any peer jurisdiction.

United States leads on Investment — WRI 89.0 / 100

The United States' Investment score of 89.0 reflects the world's deepest capital markets (NYSE and NASDAQ combined market capitalisation around $60 trillion), an AA+ sovereign rating from S&P (since the 2011 downgrade) with AAA from Moody's and Fitch, and unmatched secondary-market liquidity for any size of capital deployment. The EB-5 Immigrant Investor Programme from $800,000 in a Targeted Employment Area (rural or high-unemployment areas, with 32% of EB-5 visas set aside for these categories under the EB-5 Reform Act 2022) or $1,050,000 elsewhere delivers a conditional 2-year green card on I-526E approval, followed by I-829 conversion to permanent green card. The family office and private wealth infrastructure is the deepest in the world, concentrated in New York, Greenwich (Connecticut), Palm Beach, and Silicon Valley, with institutional access to direct deal flow, private equity, hedge funds, and venture capital that has no peer globally. The trade-off is the dollar-cost and timeline of EB-5: 12-36 months for I-526E processing plus 2 years conditional GC plus 12-24 months for I-829 conversion; investors from countries with visa retrogression (China-mainland historically, India at times) face multi-year additional waits in unreserved categories.

Residence

US tax residency runs on a three-test framework: US citizenship (worldwide tax for life — the only major economy with this), green card status (Lawful Permanent Resident, worldwide tax), or the Substantial Presence Test (a 183-day weighted average across 3 years). Citizens and LPRs file Form 1040 on worldwide income; non-resident aliens use Form 1040-NR on US-source income only. The Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE) of $126,500 in 2025 and the Foreign Tax Credit (FTC) blunt double taxation but do not eliminate the filing obligation. FBAR reporting (FinCEN Form 114) applies to aggregate foreign-account balances above $10,000 in any year; FATCA Form 8938 applies above higher thresholds. Citizenship-based taxation is the single most consequential structural element of the US tax system: it follows the passport-holder anywhere on earth and survives renunciation in the form of the Expatriation Tax under Section 877A for covered expatriates with net worth above $2 million.

Safety is the other half of the residency case, and the gap shows up clearly in the numbers. The US sits at rank 132 of 163 on the Global Peace Index with a score of 2.44, materially below most G7 peers. The homicide rate is around 6 per 100,000, roughly 10x the EU average, with firearm-related incidents (firearm homicide ~5/100k) driving most of the gap; the opioid crisis remains an active US public-health issue. Petty crime is concentrated in urban centres; women's safety varies sharply by city and time of day. The structural drivers — open firearm ownership across most states, an active opioid epidemic, and persistent racial and economic inequality — are not subtle issues, and they pull the safety composite well below the country's other strengths. For relocators who plan a lifestyle in low-crime suburban or college-town zones (Cambridge MA, Boulder CO, Princeton NJ, Palo Alto CA, Ann Arbor MI), day-to-day experience is unremarkable; in major-city urban cores, urban-safety practice matters.

Taxes on Personal Income

The US federal personal income tax is a seven-band progressive structure: 10/12/22/24/32/35/37%, with the top bracket starting at $609,350 for single filers in 2025. State income tax adds 0% (Texas, Florida, Washington, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Wyoming) to 13.3% (California) and 10.9% (New York). Long-term capital gains run 0/15/20% federal plus a 3.8% Net Investment Income Tax on incomes above $200,000 (single) or $250,000 (married). Qualified dividends are taxed at LTCG rates. Estate tax is set at $13.61M exemption for citizens and Lawful Permanent Residents in 2024; only $60,000 exemption for non-citizen non-resident aliens on US-situated assets, which is a critical structural issue for non-US holders of US real estate, US-stock portfolios, or US-domiciled funds. There is no federal VAT; state sales tax runs 0-9.5%. A US resident earning $500,000 in California faces an effective combined rate near 45%, in line with high-tax European peers; in Florida or Texas, the same income lands closer to 32%.

Cost of Living

The US is the developed world's reference point for cost-of-living range, and there is no single answer because state and metro variation is wider than between most countries. A single professional in central Manhattan should plan around $5,500/month for a comfortable life; the same in central San Francisco closer to $5,000/month; in Austin or Nashville around $3,200/month; in Pittsburgh or Cincinnati around $2,400/month. A 1-bedroom in central Manhattan runs $4,500-$6,000/month at current rates; central San Francisco $3,300-$4,800/month; Boston $3,000-$4,000/month; Austin $1,800-$2,500/month. A family of three lands $8,000-$12,000/month in coastal-city zones and $4,500-$7,000/month inland (excluding private school fees). Vehicle ownership is moderate ($30,000-$50,000 for a new mid-range sedan, with $1,800/year gas and $1,500-$3,000/year insurance) and effectively necessary outside the top-15 metros. Comprehensive private health insurance for a single expat runs $400-$800/month. Full-time daycare for one child in coastal metros runs $20,000-$30,000/year.

Healthcare System

US healthcare is the most expensive in the developed world per capita at $13,500/year, and there is no point pretending otherwise. The structural reality is a private-insurance-dominated model: employer ERISA group plans cover most working-age adults; the federal Affordable Care Act marketplace covers individual buyers; Medicaid covers low-income individuals (with state-level eligibility variation); Medicare covers those 65 and older. Out-of-pocket cash prices land in a different range from any peer system: a specialist consultation runs $200-$500, an inpatient day $3,000-$7,000, an uncomplicated appendectomy $25,000-$40,000, a cardiac bypass $100,000-$200,000 retail (insurer-negotiated rates can be 30-50% of these). Comprehensive expat insurance for a family of three: $800-$1,500/month. The US holds the largest concentration of leading research hospitals globally — Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, Cleveland Clinic, Massachusetts General, Memorial Sloan Kettering — and access to oncology, transplant, and advanced specialty care is unmatched for those who can pay. Wait times for specialists are short in private practice (1-2 weeks); emergency-room care is universally accessible regardless of insurance, with billing follow-up.

Education System

US education runs on three parallel tiers. The K-12 public system is free at the point of use and tied to property-tax-funded school districts: quality varies dramatically by district, and the "good school district" effect is the single biggest driver of suburban property pricing in most metros. Private K-12 schools include top boarding and day schools (Phillips Andover, Phillips Exeter, Lawrenceville, Walt Whitman, Sidwell Friends, Choate Rosemary Hall) at $40,000-$70,000/year; mid-tier private day schools $25,000-$50,000/year. The International Baccalaureate network is concentrated in metro magnet programmes and a smaller private network. University level is the country's headline education asset: Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Caltech, Yale, Columbia, the University of Chicago, and roughly 50 institutions in the global top 200 — the deepest single-country concentration of leading universities globally. Tuition runs $55,000-$90,000/year for private undergraduate programmes; $15,000-$50,000/year for public flagship universities (with material in-state-resident discounts). Graduate STEM programmes routinely fully fund qualified PhD candidates. Need-based aid at top private universities makes the headline price misleading for low-income admitted students — at Harvard, families with income below $85,000 pay nothing.

Banking & Finance

Opening a US bank account requires a Social Security Number (SSN) or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN); tourist visa holders can open accounts at most major banks with passport and US address, with stricter KYC. The big-four retail banks are JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citi; private wealth and family-office banking concentrate at Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Private Bank, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, Northern Trust, and Bank of New York Mellon. Foreign credit history does not transfer: most newcomers wait 12-24 months of US credit-card and utility records to build a FICO score; until then renting requires a landlord workaround or local guarantor. Mortgages for foreign buyers are available at moderate down payments (25-40%) at rates currently around 7-8% on a 30-year fixed term, with foreign-national mortgage programmes at most major lenders. There are no exchange controls; outbound transfers above $10,000 trigger Currency Transaction Reports under the Bank Secrecy Act. The US is FATCA's origin jurisdiction and the largest CRS non-signatory: the US operates its own bilateral FATCA-IGA network. The Federal Reserve is the central bank; the OCC, FDIC, and state regulators split bank supervision; the SEC and CFTC regulate securities and derivatives.

Cryptocurrency Regulation

US crypto regulation is the most-watched globally because the SEC and CFTC have spent five years contesting jurisdictional boundaries. Cryptocurrencies are treated as property for federal tax purposes under IRS Notice 2014-21: each disposition (sale, trade, payment, even a token swap) is a taxable capital-gains event. The Bank Secrecy Act covers crypto via FinCEN Money Service Business registration and AML reporting. Crypto exchanges face state-level money-transmitter licensing in every state of operation (New York's BitLicense is the most stringent regime); Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini, Bitstamp, and Circle hold the broadest US licensing footprint. The Securities Act of 1933 applies to crypto offerings the SEC determines to be securities; case law from SEC v. Ripple, SEC v. Coinbase, the spot-Bitcoin ETF approvals in January 2024, and the spot-Ether ETF approvals in May 2024 mark the operational boundary. There is no federal VAT or sales tax on crypto-to-fiat; state sales tax may apply on crypto-paid retail in some jurisdictions. Self-custody is unrestricted at the federal level; institutional adoption (BlackRock, Fidelity, Bitwise spot-Bitcoin ETFs) has been the dominant trend since January 2024.

Real Estate Market

Foreign buyers can purchase US real estate freely at the federal level: there is no foreign-ownership cap on residential or commercial property. State-level restrictions have emerged since 2023 (Florida SB 264 restricts buyers from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and Syria near military or critical infrastructure; Texas SB 147 follows a similar pattern), but these affect a small minority of transactions. The headline number for non-US sellers is FIRPTA (the Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act): a 15% withholding on the gross sale price for non-resident-alien sellers, refundable against the actual tax liability on filing. Property tax is set at municipal level: 0.3-2.5% of assessed value annually, varying by state (Hawaii 0.32% lowest; New Jersey 2.49% highest). Transfer taxes are state and municipal, from 0% (some states) to 4% on New York City's luxury mansion tax tier. Prime Manhattan condominiums average $25,000-$50,000/m²; Los Angeles prime $12,000-$22,000/m²; Miami Brickell $9,000-$15,000/m²; outside the top-5 metros $2,500-$5,500/m² is typical. Gross rental yields run 3-5% in coastal markets and 6-9% inland. Long-term capital appreciation has averaged 4-5% annually nationally over the past decade, with significant metro variation.