Itu vs Loja

Loja is the quiet overachiever of Ecuador: a 203 thousand person city at 2100 m where a one-bedroom downtown runs $238/mo and a single adult can live on a budget tier of $296/mo. The catch is that local salaries average $505/mo, so if you are earning locally the math is brutal, while remote workers on foreign income get a cost of living index of 42 and a FIRE score of 81. English proficiency is limited and the expat community is small, concentrated in San Sebastián, so come for the temperate climate and cheap living, not for a built-in social scene.

A one-bedroom near the city center runs $372.58 a month, less than a parking spot in most US downtowns, and covers you well below the $1,446 monthly income the Jubilado visa requires. That gap is the whole pitch: cheap, legal, permanent residency within reach on modest Social Security income. But the Safety Index sits at 37.5 with a Safety Index of 37.5, so this works only if you vet neighborhoods hard and skip the flashy expat compounds.