Cost of Living Comparison for Europe
Most cost-of-living comparisons online are crowdsourced — strangers reporting what they think a coffee costs. This one uses Eurostat's official price level indices and net wage statistics for 27 European countries.
It answers the question people actually have: what would I need to earn there to live the way I live now?
Pre-filled with the average net wage in Germany.
To live the same way in Spain, you would need
€25,772 a year
Spain is 17% cheaper overall than Germany
The average take-home wage in Spain is €25,263. That is €509 short of what you need, so an average local salary would be a step down from your current standard of living.
Where the difference actually is
Price levels in Spain compared with Germany, by category
Cite or embed this: Cost of Living Comparison, Portofelo. Source: Eurostat price levels and net earnings, 27 countries. Last updated 30 August 2026.
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Cheaper does not mean better off
This is the trap the tool is built to expose. Romania is roughly 47% cheaper than Germany, which sounds like an easy win. But the average German take-home wage is €31,000 against Romania's €13,233 — a 57% drop. Prices fall, wages fall further, and the move leaves you worse off.
It works the other way too, and less obviously. Someone on the average Polish wage moving to Germany needs about €25,100 to hold their standard of living, and the German average is €31,000 — so the move is a genuine upgrade despite Germany being far more expensive.
The group that gains most is anyone whose income does not move with the location: remote workers keeping a northern European salary while living in the south, pensioners, and people with income from abroad.
What travels and what doesn't
Break the comparison into categories and a clear pattern appears. Clothing barely varies across Europe — Romania sits only about 13% below Germany — because the same garments are shipped to the same shops everywhere. Traded goods converge.
Housing does the opposite. It runs from 38.1 in Bulgaria to 187.3 in Ireland, close to a five-fold spread, because you cannot import a flat. Restaurants behave similarly, since you are largely paying for local labour. So the honest headline is that moving south or east mostly buys you cheaper housing and cheaper services — your jeans and your laptop will cost about the same.
What this does not include
National averages hide a great deal. Living costs in Munich and rural Saxony are not the same, and no country-level index can capture that — city versus countryside is often a bigger difference than country versus country.
The figures also assume you spend like an average household in each country, which nobody exactly does. Tax treatment, healthcare, childcare and pension entitlements differ enormously and are not modelled here. Treat the result as a well-grounded first estimate, not a relocation decision — and if you are seriously considering a move, knowing your own numbers first matters more than any index.
Frequently asked questions
How do you compare the cost of living between two countries?
Divide the destination's price level by your current country's price level, then multiply by your take-home pay. Eurostat publishes price level indices where the EU average is 100, so Spain at 90.7 and Germany at 109.1 means Spain is about 17% cheaper — someone on €31,000 net in Germany would need roughly €25,800 in Spain to live the same way.
Which is the cheapest country to live in Europe?
On Eurostat's overall price level index, Bulgaria is the cheapest of the 27 countries here at 56.9, followed by Romania at 57.4 and Hungary at 68.3 — all a little over half the EU average. Luxembourg is the most expensive at 150.7, then Denmark at 142.8 and Ireland at 141.2.
Does a lower cost of living mean I will be better off?
Not automatically, because wages usually fall alongside prices. Romania is 47% cheaper than Germany, but the average Romanian net wage is €13,233 against Germany's €31,000 — a much bigger gap than the price difference. Moving to a cheaper country only helps if your income does not fall by more than prices do, which is why remote workers keeping a foreign salary benefit most.
Why is housing so much more variable than other costs?
Because housing cannot be traded across borders while most goods can. Clothing barely varies across Europe — Romania is only about 13% below Germany — since the same garments are shipped everywhere. Housing and utilities range from 38.1 in Bulgaria to 187.3 in Ireland, nearly a five-fold spread, because you cannot import a flat.
Where does this data come from?
Two Eurostat datasets. Price level indices by consumption category come from prc_ppp_ind for 2024, with the EU27 average set to 100. Average net earnings come from earn_nt_net for 2025, for a single person without children on the national average wage. Both are official statistics rather than crowdsourced user submissions.
Sources
- Eurostat — price level indices by consumption category (prc_ppp_ind, 2024, EU27 = 100)
- Eurostat — annual net earnings (earn_nt_net, 2025, single person without children, 100% of average wage)
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