---
title: "Is Malawi a Good Place to Live? — Geo-Parity"
description: "Malawi (Lilongwe): 22.2 Mbps internet, safety 89/100, healthcare 52/100 — essentials ≈ $617/month, so $3k lives \"like royalty\". Full quality-vs-cost breakdown."
canonical: "https://geo-parity.com/livability/malawi/"
json: "https://geo-parity.com/api/livability.json"
generator: geo-parity markdown twin
---
Livability · rank 96/167

# Is 🇲🇼 Malawi (Lilongwe) a good place to live?

Quality score **57/100** against essentials of **$617/month**.

## The five metrics

Internet 9 22.2 Mbps median broadband, 19% online

Safety 89 1.8 homicides/100k (2012)

Healthcare 52 UHC service coverage 52/100 (2023)

Air quality 78 PM2.5 14.8 µg/m³ (2023)

## Beside the score, not inside it

Neither of these is part of the composite above, deliberately. Folding governance into a quality-of-life number would bury a political judgement where you could not see it or argue with it, and connection *price* is a different question from connection *speed* — somewhere fast and expensive and somewhere slow and cheap are different trade-offs, not one average.

- **Rule of law**: middling
- World Bank WGI estimate -0.15 · corruption control -0.65 · stability -0.38 (2024). Scale −2.5 to +2.5, higher is better.
- **What connectivity costs**: $8.57 /mo broadband
- Mobile 10GB $3.43/month. ITU price basket. The speed above is scored; this price is not.

## What your budget buys

| Monthly budget | vs essentials ($617) | Verdict |
| --- | --- | --- |
| $2,000 | 3.2× | like royalty |
| $3,000 | 4.9× | like royalty |
| $5,000 | 8.1× | like royalty |

Essentials from the [Pint & Property basket](https://geo-parity.com/expenses/?tab=prices). Rank countries by your own priorities in the [interactive matrix](https://geo-parity.com/livability/).

## Similar value-for-money

- [🇧🇩 Bangladesh](https://geo-parity.com/livability/bangladesh/) — quality 44.6, essentials $484/mo
- [🇧🇴 Bolivia](https://geo-parity.com/livability/bolivia/) — quality 65.9, essentials $717/mo
- [🇧🇬 Bulgaria](https://geo-parity.com/livability/bulgaria/) — quality 76.9, essentials $842/mo
- [🇯🇴 Jordan](https://geo-parity.com/livability/jordan/) — quality 77.4, essentials $852/mo

See also: [everyday prices](https://geo-parity.com/ppp/malawi/) · [retiring in Malawi](https://geo-parity.com/fire/malawi/)

## Frequently asked questions

- **Is Malawi a good place to live for remote workers?**: Malawi scores 57/100 on our equal-weighted livability composite (internet 22.2 Mbps, safety 89, healthcare 52, air quality 78; English not scored) — rank 96 of 167.
- **How fast is the internet in Malawi?**: Median fixed broadband is around 22.2 Mbps.
- **What does $3,000/month get you in Malawi?**: Single-person essentials run about $617/month at local prices, so $3,000 lives "like royalty" (4.9× essentials).

Safety, healthcare and air quality are objective figures from the World Bank (homicide rate, life expectancy) and WHO (PM2.5); internet speed and English are curated. City variation is real — verify locally. Agents: GET /api/livability.json?budget=3000.

---

Source: Geo-Parity — https://geo-parity.com/livability/malawi/ · JSON: https://geo-parity.com/api/livability.json