Cost of Living for Expats
What drives expenses abroad, and how to build a realistic picture.
What you'll learn on this page
- • Why cost of living data is often misleading
- • Which expense categories matter most (and vary most)
- • How housing, healthcare, and lifestyle shape real spending
- • Hidden costs: taxes, currency, and banking fees
Cost of living comparisons are everywhere — and most of them are misleading. National averages obscure the enormous variation between cities, neighborhoods, and individual circumstances. What one person spends in Barcelona has little to do with what another person spends in the same city, let alone what either of them would spend somewhere else.
The variables that actually shape costs aren't always obvious. Housing is the biggest factor, but it's entangled with location, lifestyle, and access. Transportation costs depend on whether you need a car. Food spending varies with how you eat. Even utilities behave differently depending on climate, building quality, and local infrastructure.
This page explains what drives cost of living — the structural factors that create variation, the categories that tend to matter most, and why building a realistic picture requires more than looking up averages.
What Actually Drives Cost of Living
A few categories account for most of what people spend, but how much they matter varies by situation. Housing is almost always the largest expense — and the one with the widest range. The difference between central and peripheral locations, or between furnished and unfurnished, or between short-term and long-term contracts, can be larger than the difference between entire countries.
Healthcare access affects costs in ways that aren't captured by price lists. Whether you qualify for public healthcare, whether private insurance is required, and what happens when you actually need care — these determine real spending more than any table of copay amounts. Transportation depends on where you live and how the city is structured. Some places require cars; others make them unnecessary.
Fixed costs behave differently from variable costs. Rent, insurance, and utilities recur predictably. Food, entertainment, and travel flex with decisions. Understanding which costs you can control and which are locked in by your situation helps with realistic planning.
Taxes, currency effects, and banking fees add layers that basic cost comparisons usually ignore. Someone earning in one currency and spending in another faces exchange rate exposure. Tax obligations depend on residency status and often apply in multiple jurisdictions. These factors aren't visible in typical "cost of living" data but affect real budgets significantly.
Common Questions
These guides cover the expense categories people ask about most often: housing, transportation, food, utilities, and taxes. If you're trying to understand what goes into a budget abroad and how each category typically works, start here.
Creating a realistic budget for your move
Understanding rental and property markets abroad
What to expect for electricity, water, internet, and more
Getting around in your new city or country
Eating well on different budgets abroad
Understanding tax obligations in multiple countries
Deep Dives
Once you understand the basic categories, the nuances start to matter. These guides explore where cost expectations tend to break down: what typical cost data misses, the upfront costs that surprise people, and why two people in the same city can spend very differently.
What Cost of Living Numbers Miss
Gaps in typical cost data and what to research beyond averages
Rent Deposits and Fees: What Surprises People
Upfront costs, agency fees, and guarantor requirements
Utilities, Internet, and Contracts: What Breaks
Setup friction, documentation, and contract terms
Budgets: Why Two People Spend Differently
Lifestyle factors that create wide spending variation
Explore Options
These breakdowns provide context for specific countries — not definitive numbers, but an overview of how costs typically structure themselves. Actual spending varies significantly by city, neighborhood, and lifestyle choices within each country.
Country Deep Dives
These guides explore the structural factors that shape costs in specific countries — what tends to vary most, where regional differences matter, and what patterns expats commonly encounter.
Spain Cost of Living: What Changes Most
Regional variation, housing markets, and lifestyle factors in Spain
Portugal Cost of Living: What Changes Most
Lisbon vs elsewhere, housing pressure, and what drives variation
Italy Cost of Living: What Changes Most
North vs south, regional economies, and bureaucratic costs
France Cost of Living: What Changes Most
Paris vs provinces, social charges, and the mutuelle factor
Mexico Cost of Living: What Changes Most
Expat areas, peso economics, and city-level variation
Provider Overviews
Some people hire help with relocation — finding housing, handling logistics, navigating bureaucracy. These overviews explain what different service categories typically offer, without recommending specific providers.
How People Build a Realistic Cost Picture
Most people don't have an accurate sense of costs before they arrive — and that's normal. Cost of living is one of those things that becomes clearer through experience, after a few months of actually spending money in a place and seeing how the patterns settle.
City-level research matters more than country-level averages. Within any country, costs vary dramatically between cities, and within cities, between neighborhoods. Someone planning to live in Barcelona is researching a different reality than someone planning to live in a small town in Andalusia.
Country and city pages become useful once you've narrowed down where you're going. The general patterns on this page provide orientation; the destination-specific pages explain how those patterns play out in particular places.
How Cost of Living Connects to Other Decisions
Cost of living doesn't exist in isolation — it's entangled with visa requirements, healthcare access, and banking decisions. Many visas require proving income or savings thresholds, and those thresholds are often set relative to local cost of living assumptions. Understanding what you'll actually spend helps with understanding whether you meet those requirements.
Healthcare affects real costs significantly. Whether you have access to public healthcare, need private insurance, or face gaps between enrollment and actual access — these determine medical spending in ways that basic cost data doesn't capture.
Banking and currency add another layer. Exchange rate exposure, transfer fees, card fees abroad, and the practical friction of managing money across borders all affect day-to-day costs. Someone earning in dollars and spending in euros faces different realities than someone earning locally.
Related Country Guides
Cost patterns vary significantly by country and even more by city. What shapes expenses in one place — housing markets, transportation infrastructure, healthcare systems — behaves differently elsewhere. These guides cover how costs typically work in specific destinations.