Cost of Living Calculator

How much does it actually cost to live somewhere? Not the tourist version. Not the average that mixes luxury penthouses with student housing. The real monthly cost for a normal person leading a normal life. That is what this calculator answers.

Pick a city from our database of more than 5,000 cities worldwide. Get a complete monthly breakdown: rent for a one-bedroom apartment, groceries and dining out, a monthly transport pass, utilities including electricity and water, internet, and entertainment covering everything from coffee to gym memberships and nights out. Every number is sourced from real pricing data, not estimates or surveys about how people feel about prices.

The default numbers represent a moderate lifestyle. Not counting pennies, not splurging either. A furnished apartment, eating out a few times a week, using public transit, and having a social life. If that does not match your style, toggle between three lifestyle modes. Budget mode cuts costs to 0.6x of baseline, reflecting shared housing, cooking at home, and relying entirely on public transport. Comfortable mode scales up to 1.5x, representing a one-bedroom in the city center, regular restaurant visits, ride-hailing instead of buses, and a fuller entertainment budget.

Each cost category shows its monthly amount, what percentage of your total it represents, and a visual bar so you can instantly see where your money goes. Rent dominates in expensive cities. Food takes a bigger share in affordable ones. These proportions tell you more than the raw numbers alone.

We also show how the city compares to the global moderate average of roughly $1,200 per month and flag whether it sits in our budget-friendly, moderate, expensive, or very expensive tier. All data is sourced from Numbeo indices, Expatistan comparisons, and local pricing reports, covering 246 countries and thousands of cities across every continent.

Cost of living data is aggregated from multiple sources: Numbeo (cost indices relative to New York City = 100), Expatistan (consumer price comparisons), local government statistics, and expat community reports. Our database covers 5,000+ cities with cost indices and 283 cities with granular cost breakdowns.

Base costs represent typical monthly spending for a single person. Rent figures are for furnished apartments: budget uses shared/outside-center pricing, moderate uses studio/1BR outside center, and comfortable uses 1BR city center. Food combines grocery spending and dining frequency appropriate to each lifestyle tier. Transport ranges from exclusively public transit (budget) to mixed transit and ride-hailing (comfortable).

Lifestyle multipliers are applied to base costs: Budget is 0.6x (reflecting shared housing, home cooking, minimal going out), Moderate is 1.0x (baseline), and Comfortable is 1.5x (reflecting premium housing, regular dining out, fuller social life). These multipliers are calibrated against real-world spending patterns reported by expat communities across multiple cost tiers.

Data updates on a rolling basis as new releases become available. Most cost indices update quarterly; granular city breakdowns update monthly. We clearly mark cities where complete data is unavailable and show what we have.