Most expats weighing "stay" against "leave" are comparing the wrong numbers. The gap between the back-of-the-envelope answer and the real answer is usually bigger than expected - and the cheaper-looking option is often the more expensive one once the missing categories are added.
We see this every quarter. A couple is convinced returning home will be cheaper, runs the numbers properly, and discovers the move they have been planning would cost them six figures over the next decade. Or the opposite: the move they ruled out years ago is now the financially right one.
This framework was built by advisers who run this comparison every week with expats in their 50s and 60s. It covers the nine cost categories we routinely see missed: pension and retirement-account access, exit taxes and CGT crystallisation, currency lock-in, property disposal timing, inheritance and estate exposure, healthcare equivalence, cost-of-living inflation, family travel, and re-entry friction. Each is illustrated with a worked example.
If your conclusion shifts after reading this, that is not a problem - that is the framework doing its job. From there, an adviser conversation translates the framework into a personalised stay-or-go decision you can act on with confidence.
