Cost of Living · Updated June 2026
Cost of living calculator with salary conversion
Most cost-of-living tools hand you an index and leave the math to you. This calculator does the conversion directly: pick two cities, enter your salary, and get the equivalent figure that preserves your purchasing power – built on 2026 rent, grocery, utility, and transport data for 65+ cities, not stale CPI aggregates.
Salary conversion matters more than index browsing because compensation negotiations anchor on a number. Walking into an offer discussion knowing "$120k in Austin = $176k in San Francisco" converts an abstract index gap into a concrete ask.
Cost of living calculator
Equivalent salary
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- Budget A
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- Budget B
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- Rent share of pay A
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- Rent share of pay B
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Line-by-line, monthly
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Composite 2026 index incl. centre rent (NYC = 100). Salary figures are gross – taxes not included; pair with the salary after tax calculator.
Key insights
Key insights
- Equivalent salary = salary × (destination index ÷ origin index).
- Rent-inclusive indexes change answers by 20–40 points vs rent-free ones.
- Always pair the gross conversion with an after-tax check.
- Corporate geo-differentials often lag real market rents.
- 65+ cities, all normalised to USD with 2026 data.
| City | COL index | Single budget /mo | Avg net salary /mo | Power ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York City | 100 | $5,759 | $7,200 | 1.25 |
| San Francisco | 93 | $4,954 | $8,200 | 1.66 |
| Austin | 63 | $2,825 | $6,000 | 2.12 |
| Chicago | 68 | $3,322 | $5,800 | 1.75 |
| Miami | 73 | $3,718 | $5,200 | 1.40 |
| London | 79 | $3,980 | $4,400 | 1.11 |
| Berlin | 56 | $2,526 | $3,300 | 1.31 |
| Lisbon | 50 | $2,126 | $1,700 | 0.80 |
How the conversion works
Each city carries a composite index (New York = 100) weighted toward the costs relocators actually face: centre rent dominates, followed by groceries, utilities, transport, and dining. Equivalent salary = your salary × (destination index ÷ origin index).
The index deliberately includes rent. Rent-excluded indexes (common elsewhere) understate gaps between high-rent coastal metros and the interior by 20–40 percentage points – the single biggest source of relocation budget surprises.
When to override the default answer
Convert salary with the index, then sanity-check three personal factors: housing choice (outer-borough renters should weight the outside-centre rent), taxes (run both locations through the salary after tax calculator), and fixed dollar costs like student loans that don't scale with geography.
If your employer applies a formal geographic pay differential, compare their percentage against the index ratio here – corporate COL adjustments routinely lag market rents by a year or more.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What formula converts salary between cities?
Equivalent salary = current salary × (destination COL index ÷ origin COL index). With New York = 100, $100,000 in a city indexed at 80 converts to $125,000 in New York terms.
Does the conversion include taxes?
No – it preserves pre-tax purchasing power. Taxes shift the net answer, sometimes by a lot (e.g., Texas vs California), so run both cities through the salary after tax calculator as step two.
Why do different sites give different equivalents?
Index composition. Rent weight is the big variable: tools that exclude rent compress the gap between expensive and cheap metros. MovingCal includes centre rent because relocators rent before anything else.
How current is the data?
All city prices are 2026 estimates, refreshed against rental listings and price databases, and normalised to USD.
Can I compare international cities?
Yes – US, European, Asian, Canadian and Australian cities share one USD-normalised index, so New York → Lisbon converts the same way as New York → Austin.
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Plan the whole move, not just one number.
Every MovingCal tool shares the same 2026 dataset – carry your cities, salary, and countries from one calculator to the next.