Livability · rank 107/167
Is 🇿🇲 Zambia (Lusaka) a good place to live?
Quality score 54/100 against essentials of $610/month.
The five metrics
Internet 12 29.3 Mbps median broadband, 17.1% online
Safety 69 5.2 homicides/100k (2015)
Healthcare 62 UHC service coverage 62/100 (2023)
Air quality 74 PM2.5 16.6 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
- weak
- World Bank WGI estimate -0.56 · corruption control -0.46 · stability -0.1 (2024). Scale −2.5 to +2.5, higher is better.
- What connectivity costs
- $3.54 /mo broadband
- Mobile 10GB $4.95/month. ITU price basket. The speed above is scored; this price is not.
What your budget buys
| Monthly budget | vs essentials ($610) | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| $2,000 | 3.3× | like royalty |
| $3,000 | 4.9× | like royalty |
| $5,000 | 8.2× | like royalty |
Essentials from the Pint & Property basket. Rank countries by your own priorities in the interactive matrix.
Similar value-for-money
- 🇲🇪 Montenegro — quality 71.1, essentials $804/mo
- 🇫🇯 Fiji — quality 67.4, essentials $766/mo
- 🇰🇪 Kenya — quality 53.5, essentials $608/mo
- 🇦🇲 Armenia — quality 64.4, essentials $715/mo
See also: everyday prices · retiring in Zambia
Frequently asked questions
- Is Zambia a good place to live for remote workers?
- Zambia scores 54/100 on our equal-weighted livability composite (internet 29.3 Mbps, safety 69, healthcare 62, air quality 74; English not scored) — rank 107 of 167.
- How fast is the internet in Zambia?
- Median fixed broadband is around 29.3 Mbps.
- What does $3,000/month get you in Zambia?
- Single-person essentials run about $610/month at local prices, so $3,000 lives "like royalty" (4.9× essentials).