$150,000 in Seattle ≈ CA$177,640 in Vancouver
Seattle vs Vancouver: 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: Seattle → Vancouver
- ▴ 21 more paid parental-leave weeks (28 vs 7)
- ▴ Universal healthcare in Vancouver (no premium / minimal OOP)
The headline math
| Seattle household gross | $150,000 |
| Seattle taxes (21.4%) | −$32,129 |
| Seattle living costs | −$69,556 |
| Seattle net cash | $48,315 |
| ≈ | |
| Vancouver household gross needed | CA$177,640($125,098) |
| Vancouver taxes (27.0%) | −CA$47,937 |
| Vancouver living costs | −CA$61,096 |
| Vancouver net cash | CA$68,607 |
Computed at the city-median tech-worker salary, Seattle (typical professional) · effective tax rates: 21.4% vs 27.0%
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 Seattle to Vancouver
$150,000 in Seattle is worth CA$177,640 in Vancouver on a household net-cash basis. That is the equivalence figure this tool solves for: the Vancouver gross salary whose take-home, after taxes and local costs, lands in the same place as your Seattle take-home. Most people are surprised by how large the number is. Most of the gap is taxes.
The effective tax rate goes from 21.4% in Seattle to 27.0% in Vancouver. That 5.6-point jump is what the equivalence solver is working against when it finds the matching gross salary.
Healthcare in Vancouver is universal. Seattle households pay $10,644 in premiums and out-of-pocket costs per year, and that spending disappears in Vancouver. It won't show up in a take-home comparison, but it's real money.
Vacation entitlement is similar: 15 days in Seattle, 15 in Vancouver.
Living costs (housing, food, transit, discretionary) total $57,512 in Seattle and CA$59,496 in Vancouver at these scenario defaults. The breakdown table shows each line item separately, with source citations and last-updated dates available on hover.
Common questions
How much do you need to earn in Vancouver to match a $150,000 salary in Seattle?
About CA$177,640. cityparity solves for the Vancouver gross salary whose net cash (after taxes, housing, childcare, healthcare, and the rest) equals what you keep in Seattle. It's an equivalence, not a raw conversion.
Is healthcare free in Vancouver?
Vancouver 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 Vancouver?
Vancouver has about 26 paid days off a year (vacation plus public holidays) and 50 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 →