After at least 15 years of the latest significant emigration wave, an important part of Ecuadorians living in Europe are planning where they will retire. International agreements, Ecuadorian diaspora policies, and European welfare regimes shape migrants’ access to formal social protection in destination countries. This paper deals with the intricacies of overlapping, complementary and contradictory formal frameworks at the national and sub-national level, the available resources at local level, and the agency of migrants to guarantee a decent old age. The local cases of the study are Madrid and Vienna.