Living in Palau

Almost everything in Palau arrives by ship, and that single fact runs through the money. Pay is respectable by world standards and tax takes almost nothing of it, yet the cost of an ordinary life runs high and little remains once it is covered. English is widely spoken, which helps, though hiring is hard and tends to open mainly through hospitality and tourism, the part of the economy built around visitors. The pay reads better than the room it actually leaves.

Immigration into Palau leans heavily on a single origin: of the country's 5.1K foreign-born residents — 29% of the population — the large majority, about 3.1K, come from the Philippines, with China a distant second. The foreign-born count has grown 6% over the past decade.