Retiring abroad is increasingly common - for the cost of living, the lifestyle, family, or all three. The planner gives you two ways to model it, aimed at different needs: Passport for a fast, guided estimate of a supported destination, and a manual international relocation for full control over any country.

The two approaches at a glance.

• Passport - a guided tool that duplicates your current plan into a new one and applies a destination's cost-of-living, tax, and healthcare assumptions for you. Best for quick exploration and side-by-side comparison. Covers a curated list of vetted destinations. See Passport.
• Manual international relocation - you add a relocation to any country yourself on the Milestones & Events page. Nothing is scaled automatically; you decide every expense. Best for power users, countries Passport doesn't cover, or multi-country moves. Covered below.

What Passport does. Passport is the fast path. Pick a destination and it generates a new, independent plan with the destination's cost of living, state-tax exit, and a private-insurance estimate already applied, so you can answer "roughly, could we afford Portugal?" without hand-tuning anything. The numbers are deliberately rough and it only offers destinations that do not tax US retirement income. It produces a real plan you compare against your current one. Passport is great for exploration; when you want precision, build the move by hand. See Passport.

What a manual international relocation does. On the Milestones & Events page, add a Relocation Event, choose Another country, and pick the destination. From the move year on, the plan drops US state income tax - you are no longer a resident of any US state - starting January 1 of that year. That is the only thing the event changes automatically: no cost-of-living scaling, no new expenses, no healthcare assumptions, and no change to your federal tax. See Milestones & Events.

Model the rest yourself with expense Location tags. Once your plan has a relocation, the Recurring Expenses grid gains a Location column. Tag each row with where it applies - your home state, or the country you moved to - and the engine applies it only during the years you live there. Tag your US "Property tax" row to your home state so it stops when you leave, and add abroad rows (rent, local health insurance, trips back to the US) tagged to the destination. This is how you build, by hand, the cost-of-living picture Passport would otherwise estimate. See Recurring Expenses.

Multiple moves are fine. Add several international Relocation Events, or mix US and international ones, to model a path like "Portugal at 65, back to Florida at 75." Each move switches residence on January 1 of its year, and each destination becomes a taggable location for your expenses, so the right costs apply in the right years automatically.

What the plan does not model. Just like Passport, a manual international relocation does not estimate the destination country's own taxes on your US retirement income - some countries tax worldwide income, many do not, and the rules vary by visa and residency status. It also does not change your federal US tax: US citizens are taxed on worldwide income, and the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion generally does not apply to retirement income (though the Foreign Tax Credit may offset some foreign tax you pay). Treat the projection as the US-side picture, and verify the destination's tax, visa, and healthcare rules with a qualified professional before acting.

Healthcare abroad. Medicare generally does not cover care outside the US. Dropping or pausing Part B while abroad saves the premium but triggers a re-enrollment penalty on return; keeping it means paying for coverage you cannot use overseas. Decide your approach on the Healthcare pages and add a private-insurance expense row tagged to the destination. Passport walks you through this trade-off; a manual move leaves the choice to you.

Which should you use? Start with Passport for a quick, low-effort read on a supported destination. Switch to a manual international relocation when you want a country Passport doesn't cover, precise control over every expense, or a multi-country itinerary. The two aren't exclusive - explore with Passport, then build the version you'll actually track by hand.