More Americans are moving to central and eastern Europe. Here’s why

Kraków's Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage site. (Omar Marques/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

When New Yorker Antoni Scarano visited Romania in 2019, the trip marked his first return to his country of birth since the 1990s.

As a newborn, Scarano, now 34, was among tens of thousands of Romanian children adopted by US families following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. But around 2017, with the help of a Facebook group, Scarano reconnected with his Romanian family, including his birth mother, siblings and grandmother.

Two years later, Scarano and his wife, Samantha Attaguile, arrived in a small village in the Transylvania region on a sunny spring day to meet those relatives — who rolled out “the Eastern European red carpet” for the couple, as he describes it.

“It was like a party,” Scarano says. “It turned into a big love fest, really. We really hit it off, and it felt like we picked up where we left off, you know, all those years ago.”

Over the next several years, the couple travelled to Romania three more times, feeling increasingly drawn to the country’s close-knit communities and relaxed pace of life — a striking contrast to the “60-to-90-hour weeks” demanded by their full-time jobs in the U.S., Scarano says.

In May 2024, following months of packing and paperwork to secure identification cards and residence permits and reclaim Scarano’s Romanian citizenship, the couple moved from New York to a small village in Sibiu county, in the Transylvania region. “It’s idyllic, with mountains, ancient forests, churches — a place that’s truly magical and has a spirit and energy to it,” Scarano says.

The couple, both of whom are musicians, share their new chapter abroad with tens of thousands of social media followers as “This Rromerican Life”, which is also the name of their band — the extra “r” reflects Scarano’s Roma ancestry.

“Now that we’ve been here for a year and a half, we realize that living in a country is very different than visiting a country,” Scarano says. “So perhaps we did romanticize quite a few things about it. But as we’ve gotten deeper into it, it really has continued to exceed our expectations.”

Beyond Europe’s Big Four

The desire among Americans to move abroad is reaching record numbers: One in five say that, ideally, they would like to emigrate if given an opportunity, according to a 2025 Gallup poll — with the number of young women wanting to leave quadrupling from a similar 2014 poll. Scarano and Attaguile are among the growing wave of those who have actually made the move, with safety, affordability and a better quality of life as key factors for many.

Countries within the 27-member European Union are, not surprisingly, a top choice, especially France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, sometimes known in immigration circles as the Big Four. But experts also report a growing interest in lesser-trodden European destinations — especially eastern European, central European and Baltic countries including Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Poland, Albania and Estonia.

Jean-Francois Harvey, global managing partner of Harvey Law Group, a prominent immigration law firm, tells CNN that inquiries to his company from the U.S. about non-Big Four countries have risen as of late: “from one or two per month” about 18 months ago to “10 to 12 leads per week.”

“People do their homework,” Harvey notes. “In the last few months, we’re seeing people that write to us (have done) their research already. They have their family tree, they find documents in archives. And they say, ‘What do you think? Do you think it’s feasible for me to claim my Romanian ancestry, or my Hungarian ancestry?’ It’s very, very interesting to see.”

While some perennially popular countries, such as Italy, Portugal and France, continue to tighten immigration regulations, others in eastern Europe are offering enticing options for relocation, such as tax incentives and more flexible requirements for obtaining citizenship, experts note.

“In terms of welcoming ancestral claims, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia and Lithuania stand out,” Ted Baumann, global diversification chief for International Living, a monthly magazine and website that focuses on living abroad, tells CNN via email. “Their policies have no generational cap. Applications for great-grandparents and beyond are routinely approved.”

Dragoș Poede, CEO of Door to Romania, which assists individuals and businesses in relocating to the former eastern Bloc country, has witnessed that surge firsthand. He tells CNN his Bucharest-based firm has seen a five-fold increase over the last 18 months in the number of US clients — from about 200 to about 1,000 — looking to move.

“When people ask us, ‘Why (do) your clients choose Romania?’ many expect a complex answer or some hidden secret,” Poede says. But in reality, the answer is “everyday factors, like essential elements without which it is difficult to enjoy your life, like safety in public spaces, access to a high-quality healthcare system, education, taxes, business environment, a very low cost of living.”

Many U.S. clients also speak of feeling a lack of security or safety in their home country “due to political reasons.”

“They understand the American dream, it’s not like it used to be,” says Poede.

That’s a sentiment Scarano and Attaguile can relate to. The couple, who met in opera school in 2012, found themselves increasingly disillusioned by life in the U.S., Attaguile says, from its “work to live” culture to the high cost of living, compounded by a constant fear of gun violence.

“When we got (to Romania), we went to a festival outside, and I turned to him, and I was like, ‘there’s no chance of us getting shot here,’” she says. “I didn’t realize that was even something that I lived with on my shoulders.”

The couple plans to eventually purchase a home in Romania, and in the meantime, is enjoying the freedom allowed by their less hectic work schedules: Scarano is a full-time musician and festival organizer, while Attaguile teaches English. They’re also leaning more into their shared love of music, and they recently appeared on the popular TV show “Românii au Talent” (”Romania’s Got Talent”): Scarano on guitar and Attaguile as vocalist.

“In the States we didn’t even have the time to think about pursuing those passions, and here we actually get paid to perform, which is such a gift and a privilege,” Attaguile says.

The pull of Poland

Like Scarano, Natalie Boruk recently made a reverse migration of sorts: In May 2025, she and her husband moved from northern Virginia to Poland, where her parents were both born and raised before immigrating to the U.S. in 1981.

As with Scarano, Boruk’s ancestry made the process of relocating to Poland, which the couple had visited numerous times, more straightforward. She and her sister both have dual U.S./Polish citizenship through their parents. They “were very passionate about us understanding our roots and having the connection to Poland,” explains Boruk, who has had a Polish passport since around age 10. “And I’m so, so grateful for that.”

The pathway for Boruk’s husband, a U.S. citizen, has been more complex, she says. After arriving in Poland, the couple, who married in a civil ceremony in the U.S. and have a more elaborate wedding celebration planned in Poland this spring, were separately and thoroughly interrogated by immigration authorities about their relationship.

“I was like, this feels like the movies, all these questions, and I don’t remember all the details — we’ve been together for like eight years,” Boruk says with a laugh.

Boruk’s husband recently received his short-term residency card as part of the multi-year process to obtain long-term residency and eventually citizenship. Both are leaning hard into the language; Boruk estimates her level of Polish is at a middle-school level. “It’s hard for me to gauge,” she says. “I’m very much fluent, but I don’t have all the lingo you’d have just from living here, or like the names of chronic diseases — which just happened to me last week.”

Adjusting to the country’s long, dark winter has also been a challenge. But Boruk notes that any hurdles have been far outweighed by the benefits that life in Poland offers, including much cheaper rent and groceries — the latter of which, at about US$400/month, is about one-third of what the couple used to pay in the US. They love the walkability of Polish cities, too; in Kraków, they live in a refurbished one-bedroom apartment in an artsy neighborhood.

Boruk, a wellness consultant who’s developing a community of female entrepreneurs across Europe, also appreciates Poland’s red-hot startup scene as one of central and eastern Europe’s hubs for technology and innovation.

In 2024, nearly 37 per cent more foreigners acquired Polish citizenship than in 2023, according to government data — a figure that’s likely to continue to grow as more Americans discover the destination. “I have this theory that started, I don’t know, a couple of years ago: I feel like Poland is gonna be one of the next places that really blows up from an awareness standpoint,” Boruk says.

Word already may be starting to spread, at least in Hollywood circles: In early 2025, actor Jesse Eisenberg, whose ancestors were Polish Jews, received his Polish citizenship in a ceremony attended by then-President Andrzej Duda.

‘Just pack a bag and go’

Another eastern European country gaining traction among American expats: Albania, located on the Balkan Peninsula in southeastern Europe. According to data from Albania’s Institute of Statistics, the country had nearly 22,000 foreigners with residence permits at the end of 2024, more than 3,000 of whom were from “America, Africa or Oceania” — up by nearly a quarter from 2023.

Jen Barnett, co-founder of Expatsi, which specializes in relocation scouting tours and assistance, points to flexible residency requirements for U.S. citizens, who are not required to obtain a visa or residency permit for stays of up to one year. In addition, Albania’s cost of living also is significantly lower than in some other European countries.

“Just pack a bag and go,” Barnett, who is based in Mérida, Mexico, tells CNN via email. “You can live on $1k/month, so it’s a great place to go to start a remote work business and stretch your money. If you decide to stay longer, you can apply for a digital nomad visa.”

Another country on Barnett’s “personal underrated list” for U.S. citizens considering a move to Europe: Estonia, “a draw for Americans for its high-tech environment,” she says, with a highly digitized government and plenty of enticing programs for startups. The Baltic country also uses a flat tax rate for both citizens and foreigners, which at 24 per cent (a recent increase from 22 per cent) is much lower than in some other EU countries, including the Netherlands.

Several Scandinavian and Nordic countries, meanwhile, have rolled out talent recruitment programs designed to attract highly skilled international workers, especially Stateside. In September 2025, Work in Finland, a government-backed initiative founded in 2022, launched a campaign specifically aimed at attracting U.S. talent in the high-tech, health care and defence sectors. Finland also offers an option for “fast-track” residence permits for eligible entrants.

Laura Lindeman, senior director of Work in Finland, tells CNN Travel that the high salaries in the U.S. compared to those in Finland have traditionally made recruiting more challenging. However, organizers have discovered newfound traction by emphasizing Finland’s numerous social benefits, Lindeman notes.

“You get lots of different things from society: education for children and health care, and all that comes with taxes,” she says. “So we thought, ‘Let’s try it out and see how this resonates,’ and now we have been very happily surprised, actually, with how well it has been received.”

‘An impossible choice’

As sought-after countries like Portugal and Spain grapple with the downsides of rising foreign arrivals — perhaps most notably, higher rents and gentrification — Americans who settle in destinations less discovered by their fellow countrymen and women may find an upside: a more authentic, local way of life.

Mike Dunphy, a writer and educator who moved to Prague in late 2025 from Salem, Massachusetts, counts “the relatively few Americans living here” as one of the many perks in the Czech capital, along with a much lower cost of living and better work opportunities than in the States.

“I did not move all the way from America to spend time with Americans,” says Dunphy, a U.S. citizen who has lived in Prague twice prior, in 2001 and again in 2016. “At the same time, I don’t avoid them either. And since the Velvet Revolution, Czechs have embraced many aspects of American culture, including businesses, media, music, technology and such. So there’s plenty on tap when I’m hankering for a taste. But I like that it’s my choice.”

While Boruk has connected with a few fellow American expats in Kraków, she and her husband also make it a priority to embrace their new community and get to know its locals. “We’re here, and I want to be immersed in the culture of Poland,” she says.

Wherever they’ve landed, many Americans who have relocated to lesser-known European locales still keep a close eye on news out of the States. Especially as it relates to dual citizenship, a topic that Bernie Moreno, Ohio’s Republican senator, has brought to the forefront with an “Exclusive Citizenship Act” that would ban Americans from holding any other citizenship.

Jordan Blake Banks, a U.S. citizen who moved to Finland for her master’s degree in energy technology in 2019, later married a Finn and recently earned Finnish citizenship, can’t imagine being confronted with that scenario. Says Banks: “It would be an impossible choice.”

By Blane Bachelor, CNN