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Cajamarca, Peru
Photo: Euyasik · CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Cajamarca

Peru · Latin America · 201,329 people · America/Lima · PEN

Cajamarca scores 53.8/100 for digital nomads under balanced weights, ranking 1088 of 1501 cities. Expect about $1,350 per month (country-level estimate), no dedicated nomad visa, and a measured median download speed of 17.2 Mbps.

Cajamarca is a colonial town at about 2,750 m in Peru's northern Andes, where Pizarro captured the Inca emperor Atahualpa in 1532. It has a stone-built centre, Inca hot springs a short ride out, a famous February carnival and a dairy economy, along with the large Yanacocha gold mine. Costs are very low, but internet and services are basic, Spanish is essential and the rainy season runs from November to April.

  • Inca Ransom Room
  • Baños del Inca hot springs
  • Carnival and dairy cheeses
  • Gold mining tensions
Cost of living: 6.6 of 54 points (scores 60/100)Safety: 4.9 of 54 points (scores 44/100)Healthcare: 8.1 of 54 points (scores 73/100)Internet: 6.4 of 54 points (scores 57/100)Visa ease: 8.4 of 54 points (scores 75/100)Getting there & around: 2.2 of 54 points (scores 20/100)Climate: 1.9 of 54 points (scores 17/100)Air quality: 9.1 of 54 points (scores 82/100)Quality of life: 6.3 of 54 points (scores 57/100)54
Balanced score
out of 100
Vibe check
  • Cost6.6
  • Safety4.9
  • Health8.1
  • Internet6.4
  • Visa8.4
  • Mobility2.2
  • Climate1.9
  • Air9.1
  • QoL6.3

Rank 1,088 of 1,501 · its cost is a national estimate, so Top 10 lists rank it after cities with a local price

For US nomads

  • US passport entry
    180 days visa-free
    no visa needed for a visit
  • Time vs New York
    same time as New York
    9h of a 9–6 day overlap with Eastern time
  • Time vs Los Angeles
    3 hours ahead of Los Angeles
    6h of a 9–6 day overlap with Pacific time
  • Non-stop from the US
    0 US airports
    Wikipedia, 2026-07

Prices are in US dollars. US citizens are taxed on worldwide income; the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion and state residency rules are worth a look before a long stay.

Eating out

OpenStreetMap, 2026-1116

53restaurants within 3 km

Mapped around the centre of Cajamarca: few restaurants mapped, which can also mean thin map coverage. A count of what is on the map, not a rating, and it does not affect the score.

How Cajamarca scores, factor by factor

Superscripts link to the source list at the bottom. Country-level figures apply to all of Peru.

Cost of living

Monthly cost for one person (log-scaled, cheaper is better).
60
  • Monthly cost, one person: $1,3502 · country-level, 2026-09
  • Central one-bedroom rent: no data3 · city-level, 2026-09 — no city-level rent row in the WhereToEmigrate dataset

Safety

Homicide rate and political stability (country-level).
44
  • Homicide rate: 8.6 per 100k4 · country-level, 2021
  • Political stability: 56.9/1005 · country-level, 2025

Healthcare

WHO universal-health-coverage index and life expectancy (country-level).
73
  • UHC service coverage: 68/1006 · country-level, 2023
  • Life expectancy: 78.4 years7 · country-level, 2023

Internet

Median measured download and upload speed (M-Lab, city-level; the province or country aggregate where the city has too few tests).
57
  • Median download: 17.2 Mbps8 · city-level, 2024
  • Median upload: 13.4 Mbps8 · city-level, 2024
  • Tests measured: 5,8708 · city-level, 2024
  • Starlink: Available9 · country-level, 2026-10, not scored

Visa ease

How easily your passport gets in and stays: visa-free days, eTA, visa on arrival, e-visa or consular visa, plus a nomad visa and how affordable its income threshold is. Averages US, EU and UK passports until you pick yours.
75
  • Nomad visa: none listed10
  • Entry, US passport: 180 days11 · country-level, 2026-02
  • Entry, EU passport: 90 days11 · country-level, 2026-02
  • Entry, UK passport: 180 days11 · country-level, 2026-02

Getting there & around

Non-stop airport destinations (hub size) plus editorial walkability and transit ratings.
20
  • Non-stop destinations from CJA: 112 · city-level, 2026-07
  • Walkability: 4/513 · editorial, 2026-09
  • Public transit: 2/513 · editorial, 2026-09

Climate

Share of months that are comfortable: 59–82°F (15–28 °C) mean, at most 5.9 in (150 mm) rain, at most 85% humidity.
17
  • Comfortable months: 2 of 1214 · city-level, 2001–2020 normals

Air quality

Annual mean PM2.5 on a fixed scale: 5 µg/m³ (WHO guideline) scores 100, 50 µg/m³ or worse scores 0.
82
  • Annual mean PM2.5: 13.3 µg/m³15 · city-level, 2023

Quality of life

Human Development Index and English proficiency (country-level).
57
  • Human Development Index: 0.79417 · country-level, 2023
  • English proficiency: low18 · country-level, 2024

What does Cajamarca cost per month?

Total, one person$1,350country estimate
One-bedroom rent, centreno datacity-level rent unavailable
Country cost index (US = 100)37country

Can you stay legally?

Long-stay route · Peru

Tourist stay (digital nomad status not yet operational)

Not yet reviewedSubmit a review →

Peru has no digital nomad visa; this is the route remote workers use.

Income
no fixed minimum
Initial stay
3 months, renewable up to 6 months
Apply
In the country
Read the Peru tourist stay guide →for Cajamarca
Nomad visanone listed
Minimum income—
US passport180 days
EU passport90 days
UK passport180 days

Visa rules change often. Verify with the issuing government before you book.

Do you pay tax here on income from abroad?

Tax status · Peru

Remote work done in Peru is taxable from day one; residents pay 8%–30% on worldwide income

Worldwide income

Work you physically do in Peru is Peruvian-source income even when the employer or client is abroad: 30% flat while you are non-resident, 8%–30% progressive once you are resident. A foreigner becomes resident after more than 183 days in any 12 months, from the following 1 January, and is then taxed on worldwide income. Foreign dividends, interest, gains, rent and pensions join the 8%–30% scale. There is no wealth or inheritance tax.

  • Remote work income

    Salary from a foreign employer or fees from foreign clients

    Taxed

    30% flat while non-resident; 8%–30% progressive once resident (2026: 30% above S/ 247,500)

  • Investments and pensions

    Dividends, interest, gains, rent and pensions from abroad

    Taxed

    8%–30% progressive on foreign-source income once resident; not taxed before then

  • Wealth

    Net wealth and inheritance

    No wealth tax

    No inheritance tax

Tax resident after
183 days a year
Top income tax rate
30%

On the nomad visa

Peru has no working nomad visa. Decreto Legislativo 1582 of 14 November 2023 added a 'nómada digital' status to the migration law for people employed remotely by a company based outside Peru, for up to 365 days, extendable, provided they carry out no paid activity that generates Peruvian-source income. It is a migration rule with no tax provision: it does not change article 9(f) of the income tax law, which still treats work done in Peru as Peruvian-source, and Migraciones' 2023 statement that such nomads earn no Peruvian-source income is not a tax ruling. The status was never regulated, and none of Migraciones' 71 listed procedures covers it. Remote workers use the tourist stay of up to 183 days a year; staying longer on a residence permit makes you resident under the ordinary 183-day test.

Not yet reviewed by a person · compiled from official pages read on 2026-10-27

General information, not tax advice. Tax treaties, your citizenship and your home country's exit rules can change the answer. US citizens are taxed by the US wherever they live.

Airports and nonstop flights

Cajamarca is served by one airport.

AirportNonstop destinationsInternationalFrom US airports
CJAMayor General FAP Armando Revoredo Iglesias Airport100

Wikipedia airport pages as of 2026-07: seasonal routes included, charters and announced-but-not-started routes excluded.

What is the weather like through the year?

Comfortable months by our rule: Sep–Oct. Rank cities for Sep–Nov →

MonthJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Mean °F585857585857575960595858
Rain in2.31.93.12.10.80.20.30.10.41.51.91.7
Humidity %747678767267646061656772

Green temperatures mark months that meet the comfort rule (59–82°F, ≤5.9 in rain, ≤85% humidity). NASA POWER 2001–2020 climatology at the city coordinates.

Where can you stay in Cajamarca?

Three ways to live here, and what each does to the monthly budget. Rents are the one-bedroom figures from the cost table; hotels and short lets are priced per night and cost more, most of all in high season.

OptionRent per monthMonthly totalNotes
One-bedroom outside the centre——No city-level cost here; the total is a national estimate.
One-bedroom in the centre——No city-level rent figure for this city.
Hotel or short let——For the first weeks or a stay under a month. Compare hotels on Navoy →

Monthly rents assume an unfurnished lease of six months or more; furnished monthly lets usually cost 20 to 50 percent more.

Cities with a similar profile

Also in Latin America: Acapulco, Aguascalientes, Americana, Antigua Guatemala, Antofagasta, Arequipa

Ready to see Cajamarca for yourself?

Nostos tells you where. Navoy, the AI travel planner behind it, builds the trip: itineraries, places to stay and what to book before you land.

Opens on navoy.io.

The vibe

What people post about living in Cajamarca, read for its mood. It is a reading of opinions, not a fact, and it is not part of the score.

Mixed · 52Thin evidence: commenters mostly praise Cajamarca's history, dairy and scenery as a visit, with almost nothing on living there long-term.

People praise
  • local dairy and cheese
  • history and heritage sites
  • scenic Andean landscape
  • cultural pride
People warn about
  • few green areas
  • no cost-of-living detail
  • no internet or remote-work info
  • Good destination for food and history, as a visit
  • Long-term living conditions are not covered by this content
  • Little evidence either way for remote workers

Read from 8 videos, 31 comments and 0 posts on 2026-11-07; the summary is written by a language model and can misread sarcasm.

Frequently asked

How much does it cost to live in Cajamarca as a digital nomad?
A single person typically spends about $1,350 per month in Cajamarca (a country-level estimate for Peru). That is a 60/100 cost score, where 100 is the cheapest city in the dataset.
Is Cajamarca safe for digital nomads?
Cajamarca scores 44/100 on safety. Peru records 8.6 homicides per 100,000 people per year (WHO, 2021) and a political-stability score of 56.9/100 (World Bank WGI). Both figures are national, so neighbourhood-level risk can differ.
Does Peru have a digital nomad visa?
No dedicated digital nomad visa was listed for Peru as of 2026-10-13. Visitors from the US can stay 180 days visa-free. The long-stay routes that do exist are in the Peru visa guide: https://nostos.navoy.io/visas/peru
How fast is the internet in Cajamarca?
Measured median download speed in Cajamarca was 17.2 Mbps (upload 13.4 Mbps) across 5,870 M-Lab tests in 2024. Measured speeds run below advertised plan speeds everywhere, so compare cities rather than reading the number as a plan.
Is Starlink available in Cajamarca?
Yes. Starlink's availability map lists residential service as available in Peru (checked 2026-10), so a dish can serve as a backup line in Cajamarca. Check the exact address on starlink.com before ordering, since capacity varies by area.
Which airports serve Cajamarca and how many nonstop flights are there?
Cajamarca is served by Mayor General FAP Armando Revoredo Iglesias Airport (CJA) with 1 nonstop destinations, of which 0 are international. 0 US airports have a nonstop link. Source: Wikipedia, 2026-07.
When is the best time of year to be in Cajamarca?
The most comfortable months are Sep, Oct. Mean temperatures range from 57°F (14°C) in Jun to 60°F (15°C) in Sep (NASA POWER 2001–2020 climatology).
Cajamarca or Arequipa: which is better for digital nomads?
Arequipa is the city with the closest factor profile to Cajamarca in this dataset. Which one wins depends on your weights; the comparison page puts every factor side by side with the numbers behind them.

Sources

Dataset 2026.11.2, published 2026-11-09. Download the full dataset or read the methodology.

  1. 1.City population (latest census or official estimate), Wikipedia (citing national statistics offices). CC BY-SA 4.0. Retrieved 2026-09-22. City-proper figures; the per-city source URL is stored with the seed row.
  2. 2.2026 Cost of Living Index (country level), WhereNext. CC BY 4.0. Retrieved 2026-09-22. Country-level monthly estimate used only where no city-level figure exists; cost_index kept for every city.
  3. 3.Cost of Living Global 2026 (city rows), WhereToEmigrate. CC BY 4.0. Retrieved 2026-09-22. monthly_cost_single_eur and rent_1br_center_eur, converted to USD at the ECB reference rate on the retrieval date (see ecb-frankfurter).
  4. 4.Victims of intentional homicide per 100,000 population (national data, latest year), United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, dataUNODC. UNODC data, free to reuse with attribution. Retrieved 2026-10-12. Police- or statistics-office-recorded rates reported to UNODC's crime-trends survey, latest year per country (2024 for most), both sexes, all ages; the United Kingdom uses England and Wales. Replaces the WHO modelled estimate wherever UNODC has a figure from 2018 or later; WHO's 2021 estimates ran several times above recorded figures for El Salvador and Honduras. Workbook data_cts_intentional_homicide.xlsx (July 2026) reduced by scripts/build-dataset/inputs/convert-unodc-homicide.py.
  5. 5.Worldwide Governance Indicators — Political Stability and Absence of Violence (score 0–100), World Bank. CC BY 4.0. Retrieved 2026-09-22.
  6. 6.UHC service coverage index, World Health Organization, Global Health Observatory. CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO (WHO data policy). Retrieved 2026-09-22.
  7. 7.Life expectancy at birth (years), both sexes, World Health Organization, Global Health Observatory. CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO (WHO data policy). Retrieved 2026-09-22.
  8. 8.M-Lab NDT statistics (city aggregates, 2024), Measurement Lab. CC0 1.0. Retrieved 2026-09-22. Median of daily median download/upload throughput over 2024 for the city aggregate; sample count is the number of tests. Speeds reflect user-initiated tests, not advertised plans.
  9. 9.Starlink availability map, SpaceX (Starlink). Factual status cited from starlink.com. Retrieved 2026-10-07. Residential service status per country from the file Starlink's map loads. Grouped as on the map: launched or available = available; coming soon, pending regulatory approval or test = coming soon; blacklisted = not offered; unknown or excluded = unknown. Shown on city pages and as a ranker filter; not part of any score. Roaming and maritime plans can work in more places.
  10. 10.Nostos long-stay visa guides, Navoy. CC BY 4.0. Retrieved 2026-10-04. One record per country in data/manual/visas/<iso2>.json, compiled into data/visa-guides.json. Each guide lists the official government pages it was compiled from with retrieval dates. A guide's `verification` field is set only when a named person has re-read every source; until then pages say the guide is not yet reviewed by a person.
  11. 11.Passport Index dataset (visa requirements, 199 passports × 199 destinations), Ilya Ilyankou (compiled from passportindex.org). MIT. Retrieved 2026-09-22. Days per visit where stated; 'visa free' without a limit is credited as unlimited; eTA, visa on arrival, e-visa and visa required are credited 0 days for scoring but shown by kind. The default US/EU/UK figures use the US, German and British passports.
  12. 12.Airport destinations (Wikipedia airline and destination tables), Wikipedia contributors; countries via Wikidata. CC BY-SA 4.0. Retrieved 2026-09-24. Distinct destination airports listed in each airport article's passenger table, resolved through Wikidata. Seasonal routes count; charters and routes announced but not yet flying are excluded. The as-of date is the newest article revision among the city's airports. Falls back to the OpenFlights snapshot when an airport has no article or table.
  13. 13.Walkability and transit ratings (editorial), Navoy. CC BY 4.0. Retrieved 2026-09-22. Judgment ratings, not measurements. Explained on /methodology.
  14. 14.NASA POWER climatology (2001–2020 monthly means), NASA Langley Research Center. Public domain (US Government). Retrieved 2026-09-22. T2M, PRECTOTCORR and RH2M at the city coordinates (0.5° grid). Monthly precipitation = mm/day × days in month.
  15. 15.SatPM2.5 satellite-derived annual PM2.5 (V6.GL.02.04), Atmospheric Composition Analysis Group, Washington University in St. Louis. CC BY 4.0. Retrieved 2026-10-07. Annual 2023 PM2.5 for the 0.1° grid cell at the city centre, from satellite aerosol retrievals combined with a chemical transport model and ground monitors. Used only for cities with no WHO database row. Where the same country has WHO-measured cities, values are scaled by the median measured/satellite ratio there (corrects desert-dust overestimates in the Gulf). Across 811 cities with both, log-correlation with WHO values is 0.89 and the median difference 2 µg/m³.
  16. 16.OpenStreetMap restaurants (Overpass API), OpenStreetMap contributors. ODbL 1.0. Retrieved 2026-10-02. Count of OpenStreetMap elements tagged amenity=restaurant within 3 km of the city centre coordinate. Measures how many restaurants are mapped, which tracks real density well where OpenStreetMap is well maintained (Europe, the Americas, East and Southeast Asia) and under-counts where it is not (parts of Africa and Central Asia).
  17. 17.Human Development Index (HDR 2025, HDI 2023), United Nations Development Programme. CC BY 3.0 IGO. Retrieved 2026-09-22.
  18. 18.EF English Proficiency Index 2024 (band), EF Education First. Proprietary; band cited as a fact with attribution. Retrieved 2026-09-22. Only the proficiency band is stored, transcribed by hand from the public ranking.