Some expats are on a brief adventure, while others never plan to come home and pension figures tend to show the ‘stay for life’ destinations

A good sign of a country’s long-term attractiveness to expats is how many of them opt to sign up for pensions in their host country.

Doing so demonstrates an intention to stay once a career has ended  and Canada leads the way with the highest number of British expats (86%) who have taken out pensions, according to HSBC’s Expat Explorer Survey 2013.

The second highest is Australia (80%) with the third being the US (75%). All three countries are popular destinations for emigrating Brits and enjoy high standards of living for retirees. They were all well above the global average of 45%, calculated by HSBC.

Supporting the pension figures are statistics that show expats tend to stay longer-term in Canada, Australia and the US than other destinations. All three countries have a high number of “expat lifers” those who relocated more than 10 years ago.

Nearly eight in every ten expats (79%) moved to Canada before the year of 2000, and the same in Australia (61%) and the US (67%). The global average is just 39%.

Elsewhere, more than half of expats living in countries such as Russia (63%), Germany (57%), Switzerland (55%) and New Zealand (53%t) have decided to retire in their home country.

When it comes to having the world’s best state pension scheme, Denmark sits on top of all other countries, according to the Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index, which compares 20 countries with major retirement schemes.

Australia, which runs a national pension fund called Superannuation (or Super for short), comes third. The US slipped out of the top 10 for the first time in the five-years while Canada’s pension plan (CPP) is ranked sixth.