A single “cost of living” number is close to useless. Whose lifestyle? Which month? Says who? So we do not publish one. We price the same fixed list of things a nomad actually pays for each month, at three lifestyle tiers, and we show our work on every line.

The basket

Ten line items, the same for every city, each with a defined quantity so the number is checkable rather than vibes.

• RentFurnished 1BR on a monthly lease, in a nomad-friendly area
• UtilitiesElectricity, water, gas, and trash for a small 1BR
• Home internetStandard home broadband, 60 Mbps or better
• Mobile dataLocal prepaid SIM, roughly 10 to 20 GB
• GroceriesA fixed weekly grocery basket for one person
• Eating outAbout 10 casual meals and 4 mid-range dinners a month
• Local transportMonthly transit pass, or a fixed number of rideshares
• CoworkingA hot-desk day pass, about 8 days a month
• GymOne monthly gym or fitness membership
• Everything elseVisa runs, laundry, the small stuff that always shows up

The three tiers

The tiers are the range. Lean is the low end, premium the high end, and comfortable is the headline figure you see on a city card.

• Lean. Budget-conscious. A cheaper area, cooking more than eating out, watching the extras. Doable, not luxurious.
• Comfortable. The headline number, and what most nomads actually spend: a private place, eating out regularly, a coworking desk, a real social life.
• Premium. Higher-end. A better neighborhood, more dining out, fewer compromises.

Where the numbers come from

For each line we build our own estimate from public references we can link you to: public cost-of-living pages, live rental listings, and coworking directories. Every line carries the source we checked it against and the month we recorded it, so you can verify or argue with any figure. We show our estimate, not anyone else’s dataset.

Each line is tagged one of two ways. Measured means we found a real, current price for it. Estimated (shown as an “est” tag) means we interpolated from nearby or regional data because the city is thin on live data. Cities with a lot of estimated lines get a Limited data confidence badge and a deliberately wider lean-to-premium spread. We would rather show an honest range than fake precision.

Freshness

Prices move with season and neighborhood, so every breakdown shows a “verified” date and we refresh the basket over time. Treat any number as a well-sourced starting point for your own planning, not a quote. Couples sharing a place typically add 30 to 50 percent rather than doubling; shared housing and home cooking can run 20 to 30 percent under.

Found something off?

If a line looks wrong for a city you know well, tell us and we will recheck it against the source. Accuracy beats being right the first time.