$150,000 in Boston ≈ €147,986 in Rome
Boston vs Rome: cost of living, compared
Equivalence is solved so household net cash matches across both cities, with taxes, housing, childcare, healthcare, food, and travel all included.
What changes: Boston → Rome
- ▴ 5 more vacation days per year in Rome (statutory)
- ▴ 8 more paid parental-leave weeks (18 vs 10)
- ▴ Universal healthcare in Rome (no premium / minimal OOP)
- ▾ Income + payroll tax runs 46.9% in Rome vs 25.6% in Boston
- ▴ Housing runs about 36% less in Rome
- ▴ Groceries and dining runs about 23% less in Rome
The headline math
| Boston household gross | $150,000 |
| Boston taxes (25.6%) | −$38,374 |
| Boston living costs | −$67,018 |
| Boston net cash | $44,608 |
| ≈ | |
| Rome household gross needed | €147,986($168,742) |
| Rome taxes (46.9%) | −€69,336 |
| Rome living costs | −€39,528 |
| Rome net cash | €39,122 |
Computed at the city-median tech-worker salary, Boston (typical professional) · effective tax rates: 25.6% vs 46.9%
The bottom line
- →$150,000 in Boston leaves about the same net cash as €147,986 in Rome for this scenario, after real taxes and living costs.
- →Taxes take 25.6% of gross in Boston versus 46.9% in Rome.
- →The biggest non-cash swing: 5 more vacation days per year in Rome (statutory).
These numbers use one scenario's assumptions. Plug in your own salary, family size, and lifestyle.
Open the interactive calculator to run your own →No signup. Your salary stays in your browser — we never see it.
Moving from Boston to Rome
$150,000 in Boston is worth €147,986 in Rome on a household net-cash basis. That is the equivalence figure this tool solves for: the Rome gross salary whose take-home, after taxes and local costs, lands in the same place as your Boston take-home. Most people are surprised by how large the number is. Most of the gap is taxes.
The effective tax rate goes from 25.6% in Boston to 46.9% in Rome. That 21.3-point jump is what the equivalence solver is working against when it finds the matching gross salary.
Healthcare in Rome is universal. Boston households pay $4,361 in premiums and out-of-pocket costs per year, and that spending disappears in Rome. It won't show up in a take-home comparison, but it's real money.
Rome workers get 20 vacation days per year. Boston averages 15. That 5-day gap does not appear in any salary comparison, but at a typical professional's daily rate it represents thousands of dollars of time that stays in your life rather than being bought back by your employer.
Living costs (housing, food, transit, discretionary) total $62,332 in Boston and €37,508 in Rome at these scenario defaults. The breakdown table shows each line item separately, with source citations and last-updated dates available on hover.
Understand what's behind these numbers
Common questions
How much do you need to earn in Rome to match a $150,000 salary in Boston?
About €147,986. cityparity solves for the Rome gross salary whose net cash (after taxes, housing, childcare, healthcare, and the rest) equals what you keep in Boston. It's an equivalence, not a raw conversion.
Is healthcare free in Rome?
Rome has universal healthcare, so there are no US-style premiums or large deductibles. cityparity counts that as real money you don't spend, which is part of why the equivalent salary is lower than the raw number suggests.
How much vacation and parental leave do you get in Rome?
Rome has about 32 paid days off a year (vacation plus public holidays) and 22 weeks of parental leave. cityparity surfaces these as deltas rather than dollars, because time off is part of the real comparison.
Run your own numbers in the interactive calculator →