27 cities around the world where expats are happy, rents are affordable, and jobs are plentiful

Madrid, Spain took the third spot on the list of best cities for expats.Flickr/ajgelado

• InterNations recently released its 2017 list of best cities for living and working abroad.
• City rankings are based on survey responses from nearly 8,000 people in 40 countries.
• For each city, we also compiled cost of living estimates from Numbeo’s database.

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If you’re thinking about living abroad, the best people to ask for tips might be the people who have already done it: expats.

Expatriate network and global guide InterNations put together a list of the best international cities for living and working abroad, according to expats they surveyed.

To compile the data, InterNations surveyed 7,985 expats living across 40 countries. At least 45 respondents were required for a city to be included in the list. City rankings were determined based on the quality and cost of urban living, quality of work life and finances, and ease of settling into the city.

Below, the overall best cities for expats in 2017. We also noted how much basic necessities (and beer) would cost there, based on figures from Numbeo. All amounts are in US dollars and are current as of November 2017.