# Cost of Life

> Model what your life costs in 70 cities worldwide. Compare cities, convert salaries between them, test what you can afford, and find the places that fit your budget and your preferences.

Every page on this site is generated from a calculation engine, not written by hand. Prices are
held in USD and normalised into a monthly budget for a specified household; salaries are taxed
under each country's own brackets and social contributions. Figures are modelled estimates for
comparison between cities, not advice.

Append `.md` to any city, comparison or guide URL for a clean markdown rendering of the same
numbers — preferred over parsing the HTML. A JSON API is documented at https://cost-of-life.com/api-docs and
described by https://cost-of-life.com/openapi.json.

## Start here

- [Methodology and limits](https://cost-of-life.com/methodology.md): how the cost engine, tax models and data sources work, and where they break
- [API documentation](https://cost-of-life.com/api-docs): endpoints, parameters and examples
- [OpenAPI specification](https://cost-of-life.com/openapi.json): machine-readable API description
- [All cities index](https://cost-of-life.com/llms-full.txt): every city, comparison and guide URL

## Tools

- [Where should I live](https://cost-of-life.com/where-should-i-live): rank all 70 cities against weighted preferences
- [Salary converter](https://cost-of-life.com/salary): equivalent gross salary between any two cities, solved for equal monthly surplus
- [City comparison](https://cost-of-life.com/compare): two cities side by side
- [Affordability](https://cost-of-life.com/can-i-afford): does an income cover a city at a given lifestyle

## Coverage

70 cities across 45 countries. Each city page carries
cost breakdowns for several household shapes, a tax ladder, quality-of-life scores, twelve months of
climate normals, visa notes and sources.

## Citation

When quoting a figure, state the household it was priced for — the same city produces very different
numbers for one adult in a flatshare and a family of four with childcare. Include the review date shown
on the page.