Cost of living is one number that answers a simple question: what does a normal month cost here? We add up rent, food, getting around, and the everyday bits for one person — in US dollars, so any two places sit on the same ruler.
What's inside the number
It's a real monthly budget, not a vague "index." Every figure is built from the things you actually pay for each month:
- Rent — the biggest slice, for a modest one-bedroom.
- Food — groceries at home, plus a few meals out.
- Getting around — a transit pass, fuel, the odd taxi.
- Utilities and the everyday — power, internet, phone, and a small buffer for the rest.
Add them up and you get the cost of a normal month for one person.
It changes with how you live
The same city costs very differently depending on your lifestyle. Someone who cooks at home and takes the bus lives on a fraction of what someone eating out four nights a week spends — in the exact same city.
So we show three lifestyles — Minimalist, Balanced, and Comfort — and Budget Lab lets you build your own, category by category, for any city.
One city, or a whole country
You'll see this number in two places, and they mean slightly different things.
- On a city page, it's that exact city — the number you'd actually live on.
- On a country page, it's a summary of all its cities: the typical one, plus the gap from cheapest to priciest.
We show that range because a country isn't one price — a capital can cost nearly double a quiet town, so the city you pick moves your budget as much as the country does.
Why it matters
Money is the first filter most people apply — but a city that's cheap on paper is useless if it's wrong for you in every other way.
That's why cost never sits alone. In your diagnostic it's weighed against everything else you care about, so a cheap city that doesn't fit won't rise to the top.
What it doesn't capture
- It's a careful estimate, not a quote. Treat it as a starting budget — your rent, habits, and health needs move the real number.
- One person, one lifestyle. Couples, families, and very frugal or very fancy lives all land somewhere different.
- City, not street. Rent swings from one neighbourhood to the next, more than a citywide number can show.
- Dollars drift. Exchange rates nudge the figures even when local prices don't budge.
Where the data comes from
National statistics offices, international bodies like the OECD and Eurostat, and open price datasets. We use official numbers wherever they exist and fill the gaps with open, structured data — never a single crowd-sourced website on its own.
Coverage is strongest in Europe and thinner where a country publishes less — see coverage & data tiers.
Build a monthly budget for any city in Budget Lab — pick a lifestyle and see every category.
Or see how the cost stacks up across a whole country:
New here? Take the 5-minute diagnostic to see cost weighed alongside the other 14 things that shape where you'd actually thrive.