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Sources

Data sources and credits

Where the numbers come from, and who to thank for them.

Tax rules

Income tax, social security, company, dividend and capital gains rules for 54 countries, researched in October 2026 mainly from official government publications and PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries.

Exchange rates

Rates By Exchange Rate API. Taken from the open.er-api.com service on 18 October 2026, and used to turn local prices and taxes into pounds.

Cost of living

The monthly cost adds up rent, utilities, internet, a transport pass, 30 meals out and groceries. Lines marked "est." are estimates (from national price levels, or for rent from our model) rather than a price for the city itself. Every figure and its source is listed in our data notes.

Rent for a one-bedroom flat in the centre is an official figure where one is published, read in October 2026. "Approx." means an official figure for a nearby city, or for flats of every size; "est." means our model's estimate. Gibraltar and Longyearbyen, which have no official figure, use the model with the UK's and Norway's price levels. Monaco has no usable figure, so its monthly cost leaves rent out and says so, and it gets no credit for cost in its match score.

Meals out start from the average price of a restaurant main course in the Office for National Statistics' consumer price quotes for August 2026: the London average for London, and the UK average scaled by each country's restaurants and hotels price level from the World Bank's ICP 2021 everywhere else. Source: Office for National Statistics, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Utilities are electricity, heating, cooling and water for an 85 m² flat. Where official household energy prices are published, we multiply them by a stated yearly use (from Ofgem's typical consumption values, the UK government's Energy Consumption in the UK and the U.S. Energy Information Administration's Residential Energy Consumption Survey), adjusted for each city's climate:

Elsewhere the whole UK figure is scaled by the country's housing, water, electricity and gas price level from ICP 2021, and shown as an estimate.

Internet for EU cities is the cheapest standalone 30 to 100 Mbps home broadband offer in the European Commission's broadband price study, published by Eurostat as isoc_pbo (2024), converted to local currency with Eurostat's purchasing power parities. Elsewhere it is the published price of the main operator's cheapest home plan of 50 Mbps or more, read from the operator's own website in October 2026. Where no price could be read, the UK price is scaled by the country's communication price level (ICP 2021) and shown as an estimate.

Transport is the monthly pass published by each city's transit operator or transport authority, read in October 2026. Where no monthly pass is sold we use the weekly fare cap times 4.33, or the single fare times 44 journeys; where residents ride free the line shows "Free". Where no fare could be read, it is estimated from other cities' passes and the country's transport price level (ICP 2021).

Groceries

The monthly groceries estimate starts from what one adult in the UK spends on food and non-alcoholic drinks: £40.30 a week, from the Office for National Statistics' Family spending in the UK, April 2024 to March 2025 (one-person, non-retired households). Source: Office for National Statistics, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

That figure is scaled by each country's price level for food and non-alcoholic beverages from the World Bank's International Comparison Program 2021 (ICP), licensed under CC BY 4.0. We rebased the index so the UK is 100. Barbados and Russia, which the 2021 round doesn't cover, use the 2017 round; Gibraltar, Monaco and Forest City use the UK, France and Malaysia. The same ICP price levels, for restaurants, housing and utilities, communication and transport, scale the other estimates above.

Weather

Current weather and forecasts: Weather data provided by OpenWeather.

Safety, healthcare, climate, demographics and visas

Safety and healthcare scores, average temperatures, religion and ethnicity figures and visa rules were compiled from public sources for the first version of the site and have not yet been re-checked this year. Treat them as a rough guide, and see the disclaimer.

Fonts and software

Corrections

Spotted something wrong or out of date? Email [email protected].