$150,000 in San Francisco ≈ €91,007 in Madrid
San Francisco vs Madrid: 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: San Francisco → Madrid
- ▴ 7 more vacation days per year in Madrid (statutory)
- ▴ 4 more paid parental-leave weeks (16 vs 12)
- ▴ Universal healthcare in Madrid (no premium / minimal OOP)
- ▾ Income + payroll tax runs 31.3% in Madrid vs 26.9% in San Francisco
- ▴ Housing runs about 56% less in Madrid
- ▴ Groceries and dining runs about 20% less in Madrid
The headline math
| San Francisco household gross | $150,000 |
| San Francisco taxes (26.9%) | −$40,287 |
| San Francisco living costs | −$81,137 |
| San Francisco net cash | $28,576 |
| ≈ | |
| Madrid household gross needed | €91,007($103,771) |
| Madrid taxes (31.3%) | −€28,441 |
| Madrid living costs | −€37,506 |
| Madrid net cash | €25,060 |
Computed at the city-median tech-worker salary, San Francisco (typical professional) · effective tax rates: 26.9% vs 31.3%
The bottom line
- →$150,000 in San Francisco leaves about the same net cash as €91,007 in Madrid for this scenario, after real taxes and living costs.
- →Taxes take 26.9% of gross in San Francisco versus 31.3% in Madrid.
- →The biggest non-cash swing: 7 more vacation days per year in Madrid (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 San Francisco to Madrid
$150,000 in San Francisco is worth €91,007 in Madrid on a household net-cash basis. That is the equivalence figure this tool solves for: the Madrid gross salary whose take-home, after taxes and local costs, lands in the same place as your San Francisco take-home. Most people are surprised by how large the number is. Most of the gap is taxes.
The effective tax rate goes from 26.9% in San Francisco to 31.3% in Madrid. That 4.4-point jump is what the equivalence solver is working against when it finds the matching gross salary.
Healthcare in Madrid is universal. San Francisco households pay $3,941 in premiums and out-of-pocket costs per year, and that spending disappears in Madrid. It won't show up in a take-home comparison, but it's real money.
Madrid workers get 22 vacation days per year. San Francisco averages 15. That 7-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 $76,896 in San Francisco and €35,496 in Madrid 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 Madrid to match a $150,000 salary in San Francisco?
About €91,007. cityparity solves for the Madrid gross salary whose net cash (after taxes, housing, childcare, healthcare, and the rest) equals what you keep in San Francisco. It's an equivalence, not a raw conversion.
Is healthcare free in Madrid?
Madrid 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 Madrid?
Madrid has about 36 paid days off a year (vacation plus public holidays) and 16 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 →