cityparity

The real cost of living, city to city

Take-home pay, childcare, healthcare, and social safety net, priced in dollars for true comparison.

Two city skylines side by side: modern towers on the left, old-world cathedrals on the right
· Data:
Both sides are set to . A city compared to itself matches on every line, so there is nothing to weigh up. Pick a second city to get an answer.
Median local costs for your selections above.
Equivalence mode · Target salary is solved so target net cash equals source net cash. Answers "what salary would I need in to match my life?" Per-city partner toggles affect the solved number; switch to other tabs for direct apples-to-apples comparison.

Overview. The headline equivalence + non-cash lifestyle deltas (vacation, healthcare, leave) that aren't captured in dollars.

Direct comparison · Each city computed independently, so the two net-cash figures will differ; that's the point.

Take-home. Side-by-side waterfall: gross income − taxes − costs + government benefits = net cash.

Direct comparison · Each city scored independently using its own cost structure, so a city with subsidized childcare gets credit for it and a city without doesn't.

Score. A subjective view: you tell the calculator what matters to you (drag the weight sliders), and it gives each city a 0–100 score based on those priorities. Useful if you've internalized that the financial picture is one input among several. Hover any dimension label for its formula.

Direct comparison · Both columns are real per-city numbers; they don't need to match.

Breakdown. Every line item, side by side. Hover any row label for the formula and data source. Cash flows on top (annual, in each city's local currency); non-cash benefits in the table below.

Corrections? If something looks off, please help us fix it. Click the ⚑ next to the row below to submit feedback.

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From people weighing a move

  • This is a really amazing tool for international people. Used it for an upcoming move I have and it gave some great perspective. Thank you!
    Francesca Ling Francesca Ling Verified on LinkedIn
  • You've built such a wonderful tool, with great design considerations! It takes into account all the important factors needed when moving, and I love the additional helpful links at the bottom for anyone actually considering the move. Keep up the great work!
    Shweta Patil Shweta Patil Verified on LinkedIn
  • This is awesome. Very awesome.
    JV Pinto JV Pinto Verified on LinkedIn
  • An essential tool for the mobile and ambitious. Like speaking with a friend who made the move, and that friend happens to be in wealth management and a CPA at the same time. Hard to get lowballed or delusional when you know the math.
    Yaman Harut Yaman Harut Verified on LinkedIn

Why we built cityparity

The standard cost-of-living calculator tells you whether a city is cheaper or more expensive than another, based mostly on rent and groceries. That's the easy half, and it's almost never what people actually want to know. The harder half is the social safety net, and nobody puts it in dollars: US childcare runs about $1,200 a month per kid where Germany caps it at a fraction, a US family can spend more than $20,000 a year on healthcare where most of Europe is near zero, and paid vacation and parental leave swing by weeks. cityparity is built around the question that actually matters: "If I take this offer in another country, what salary do I need over there to keep my life roughly the same?"

It started with someone we knew weighing an Oslo offer, a 30% pay cut on paper, who was nervous about it. Once the math was done properly, counting the state-covered childcare, healthcare, and parental leave the US offer was never going to match, the Oslo number came out equivalent or better depending on family size. We wanted that math transparent, defensible, and free: no premium tier, no signup wall.

Read the full methodology → how the equivalence is solved (net cash matched by bisection), what goes into it, and what it leaves out. If a number looks wrong, push back via the contact page and we'll take another look.

Comparisons people are already running

Most people show up with one specific move in mind, not a browsing mood. Someone sitting on a London offer wants to know whether their New York salary actually holds up once it's run as a software engineer, or stretched across a whole family. A couple weighing Seattle against Oslo usually cares less about the headline number than about what childcare and parental leave do once there are kids in the house. Same question, new cities: San Francisco to Amsterdam, or to Berlin on an engineer's salary.

We've worked dozens of these out ahead of time at a salary typical for each, so you can read the answer first and run your own numbers second. The newest batch opens up five more countries: San Francisco to Zurich, Seattle to Vancouver, New York to Paris, San Francisco to Singapore, and San Francisco to Sydney, next to earlier ones like New York to Berlin and Seattle to Copenhagen. The full set lives on the comparisons page.

If you think about a move in terms of purchasing power, the purchasing power parity calculator frames the same math directly: what $150,000 in Seattle is worth in Oslo once taxes and the safety net are counted, alongside four more US-to-abroad pairs.

And if a recruiter just dangled an expat tax break at you, we worked out what the 30% ruling and its cousins are actually worth before you bank the raise.

And if you've been sizing a move off a cost-of-living index, we took apart what every cost-of-living calculator gets wrong: the five lines a price basket can't see, one of them enough to flip a whole family's move.

For the family version of that math, we added up what it really costs to raise kids in the US vs Europe: daycare after subsidy and family healthcare, about $50,300 a year of swing before leave even counts for a New York household running the Berlin numbers.

And because time off never makes it onto an offer letter, we priced what five weeks of vacation and paid parental leave are actually worth at a real salary. The leave line alone can run six figures for one child.

The tax side has its own hub: how countries actually tax your salary, the same $150,000 run through fifteen real systems. And for the destination-level view there are country money guides, computed at real rates: the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, Canada and more.

And if you'd rather scan every country at once, the rankings line them up head to head: take-home pay, child benefit, childcare cost, parental leave, and vacation days.

Frequently asked questions

How does cityparity calculate cost of living?

It compares two cities on take-home pay after taxes, then layers in the costs and benefits a normal calculator ignores: childcare (net of government allowances), healthcare, housing, transit, food, and travel home. The headline is the salary you would need in the target city to match your current net cash, not a percentage index.

Does it include taxes, childcare, and healthcare?

Yes. Income tax uses each country's actual progressive brackets plus payroll contributions. Childcare uses city daycare costs minus per-child government benefits. Healthcare separates universal-coverage systems from US-style premium-plus-deductible plans. Those three are usually what flip a comparison.

How current is the data?

Every figure carries a source and a last-updated date, visible on hover in the Breakdown view. We refresh annually because most of the underlying data (tax brackets, median rents, benefit levels) changes on that schedule. Currency rates are live, with a 24-hour cache.

Is cityparity free? Does it track me?

Free, no signup, no premium tier. The calculator does not track you: no analytics cookies and no account. There is an optional email list for data updates, and joining it is never required to use anything here. The only things stored in your browser are a 24-hour currency-rate cache and your recently viewed cities, never your salary or anything you type.

From the blog

Longer reads on the money math behind the move.