Property Guides
The Cost of Living Overseas Index 2024
As interest rates soared to new highs in 2023, we ask, have you ever considered moving abroad for a simpler, cheaper, and sunnier life?
Property Guides is the sister company of Your Overseas Home and is dedicated to supplying you, as aspiring buyers, with the resources and information you need to buy abroad safely and securely.
We know that thousands of Britons are considering moving abroad – more so than ever! UK natives are looking to jump ship to avoid high energy costs and the never-ending price rises, which resulted in UK food prices rising at their fastest on record.
But if you’re moving under the assumption that you’ll be getting more for your money, you could very well be jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Prices have shot up across the globe, but there’s one country that comes out much more affordable.
So, is it really cheaper to live abroad in 2024?
The Cost of Living Overseas Index from Property Guides has the answers. The 2024 index compares the prices of these items across 13 countries. Including the UK, Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Please note, that this index provides a topline overview of prices and costs of things across six categories. We’ve added them together to gain an idea of what the cost of living is in each country, but that is quite hard to determine as you wouldn’t typically buy a new flatscreen TV or air fryer each month.
The cost of living abroad, not just visiting
It’s all about setting up a proper home abroad and not just looking at the cost of a short trip. While other cost of living surveys focus on holidays and travelling, ours goes that little bit further to cover the everyday expenses that a holiday home buyer, expat, or retiree will realistically be shelling out day-to-day.
Our “basket of goods” includes staples like a litre of milk and a loaf of bread, but adds a few British favourites like the all-important English breakfast teabags and a bottle of gin.
We’ve also looked at and compared the cost of actually setting up your new home, including decorating materials and a new TV, or the identical Ikea furniture bought in both Malaga and Manchester. We’ve even looked into the cost of a week’s car hire (and a tank of petrol to go in it).
Many property buyers are looking for a more laid-back and relaxed lifestyle, so we’ve also checked the prices of popular leisure items and activities – from paperbacks and video games to running shoes and a Spotify subscription. And because some things are just weirdly expensive abroad, such as paracetamol in Cyprus or a bestselling paperback in France.
In the supermarket…
When it comes to cupboard and fridge staples like bread, butter, milk, apples, dog food, chocolate and laundry detergent, shopping in Spain is far cheaper than in any other country we looked at. To fill your basket with the 17 basic items we analysed, you should expect to pay around £52.23.
It probably comes as no surprise that the UK is 53% more expensive. When it comes to the average supermarket shop, it’s the most expensive country on our list. Most notably fish, chocolate and gin are more than double the price in the UK compared to Italy. It turns out that the UK does have the cheapest lettuce… but we’re sure you’ll agree that we’d prefer cheap chocolate and booze!
Getting out and about…
The UK has seen a steep rise in the price of fuel over the last year, but this has been felt across the world too. The USA currently has the lowest fuel prices among the countries we’ve examined*. To buy 50 litres of unleaded petrol, you’ll be shelling out around £38* in the USA, £59 in Spain and £77 in the UK.
We also looked at the cost of hiring a car, and the price of a return train ticket if you were travelling to another town around an hour away. Overall, New Zealand is the most expensive in terms of travel as trains aren’t an option and buses typically cost more, closely followed by Australia and then the UK. Travel costs are the lowest in Greece and Italy.
*Correct as of December 2023
**rounded to the nearest pound
In the home…
Once you’ve found your overseas home and have made the move, you’re probably going to want to decorate it to your taste. So, we’ve looked at the average price of buying standard furniture and electricals, paint to decorate your new home, and even the price of hiring a domestic cleaner to keep your property spick and span.
Here’s an overview of our findings:
- Electricals – like a standard 55” Samsung TV and an Amazon Alexa Echo Dot – are the cheapest to buy in Italy and the most expensive in Australia.
- Decorating supplies are 95% more expensive in New Zealand, compared to the average price across the board.
- Hiring a domestic cleaner costs the most in the USA. A two-hour house clean in the USA costs the equivalent of around £76, compared to £30 in the UK, £17 in Italy and only £13 in Greece.
- The price of the same standard IKEA Billy bookcase can vary by as much as £53 from country to country! In the UK, the furniture staple costs £55, whereas in New Zealand it costs the equivalent of £95.
Off the back of the energy crisis and hike in energy bills across the UK, we also decided to look at the price of electricity across Europe. Surprisingly, whilst we’ve certainly not got it cheap in the UK, electricity is still more expensive in Cyprus, the USA and Canada, whilst it’s significantly cheaper in Spain and Italy. To work this out, we took the standard price per kilowatt-hour in each country and multiplied it by 100 to give a rough representative cost to heat and power a flat or small house for one week.
Hobbies and leisure…
Whether you’re moving abroad to work or retire, the price of socialising and having fun will always need to be factored in.
If you’re looking for a cheap pint, then Portugal is the place for you. A half-pint of beer in a Portuguese bar costs the equivalent of around £1.72, compared to £2.39 in the UK. It’s a similar story for coffee buffs too – in Italy and Portugal, you can expect to find a medium cappuccino in a local independent coffee shop for around £1-1.50. In the UK, the same coffee will cost you around 260% more!
For those who enjoy fine dining, treating yourself to a meal out costs the most in Germany. A three-course meal in a mid-range restaurant will set you back about £38. It’s cheapest to dine out in Spain, where you can get the equivalent for about £15.
Bookworms will probably want to steer clear of France, where paperbacks cost around £21 on average. Your home library will be cheaper to build in Greece, where books are around £9.45 by comparison.
Healthcare…
We’ve kept this simple and to the point by looking at the price of healthcare essentials that you’d have to pay for, no matter where you live in Europe. In this case, we’ve looked at the price of a pack of paracetamol and a basic check-up at the dentist.
Keeping your pearly whites, well, pearly white, seems to cost the most in the USA with an average check-up costing around £47, while it’d cost just £17 in Germany.
And you might want to stock up on paracetamol before you leave the UK, as they’re far cheaper here than anywhere abroad. You can pick up a pack of 16 x 500 mg paracetamol pills for as little as 39p here, but expect to pay as much as £23.49 in Canada! It’s worth noting that it’s quite common outside the UK for pain killers and other non-prescription drugs to be limited to pharmacies, so don’t expect to find any in your local Aldi!
The conclusion…
For those considering emigrating to Europe, the results bode well, with Spain being revealed as the most affordable country to live in, closely followed by Italy, Portugal, Greece and Germany, making up the five of the most affordable countries for the cost of living.
The prices for everyday items have increased worldwide due to the cost of living crisis but this was heavily felt in France, where homeowners felt the bite, especially in early 2023 when inflation was over 7%. The current inflation rate for the euro area is 2.9% and is expected to decline in 2024.
There are also a few miscellaneous essentials we included in our tally, like the cost of a pair of jeans and a haircut, to give us a well-rounded picture of how much it costs to live abroad for a sustained period. The numbers speak for themselves!
Despite there being a few cities and towns that have reputations for being expensive destinations, Spain is by far the cheapest place to live long-term when you’re not spending like a traveller.
Of course, we acknowledge the fact that the true cost of living will vary significantly from region to region, but to live in a run-of-the-mill town or village outside the usual tourist hotspots, Spain is the most reasonable.
We found Spain to have the lowest cost of living compared to the other countries analysed. To put that into context for UK buyers, the same ‘basket of goods’ that cost £1,996 in the UK cost just £1295 in Spain – that’s a huge saving of £701*!
Overall ranking (vs. UK prices*)
- Spain (1,295 – £701 cheaper than the UK)
- Italy (£1,451 – £553 cheaper than the UK)
- Portugal (£1,486 – £510 cheaper than the UK)
- Greece (£1,490 – £506 cheaper than the UK)
- Germany (£1,694 – £288 cheaper than the UK)
- Ireland (£1,714 – £281 cheaper than the UK)
- Canada (£1,781 – £215 cheaper than the UK)
- Cyprus (£1,809 – £187 cheaper than the UK)
- USA (£1,829 –£167 cheaper than the UK)
- France (£1,851 – £145 cheaper than the UK)
Two countries in our survey came out more expensive than the UK. They were:
- Australia (£2,162 – £166 more than the UK)
- New Zealand (£2,307 – £310 more than the UK)
Please note, this saving was for 55 items, split across six categories and the saving wouldn’t be limited to a specific period, but to a more general overview of the cost of living in each country.
For those considering emigrating to Europe, the results bode well, with Spain being revealed as the most affordable country to live in, closely followed by Italy, Portugal, Greece and Germany, making up the five of the most affordable countries for the cost of living.
The prices for everyday items have increased worldwide due to the cost of living crisis but this was heavily felt in France, where homeowners felt the bite, especially in early 2023 when inflation was over 7%. The current inflation rate for the euro area is 2.9% and is expected to decline in 2024.
Spain is by far the cheapest place to live long-term when you’re not spending like a traveller.
Methodology and notes on the research
All prices were recorded in December 2023. It’s worth noting we have considered tax where appropriate, in the USA and Canada.
To ensure like-for-like measures, researchers abroad were given strict criteria on the kind of shops to use, your regular supermarket, per se.
Please note:
- Petrol prices are for a tankful (50 litres) of unleaded, as of 10th December.
- Car hire was a small car, booked at a regional airport or city for one week, 11-15 December 2023.
- The train fare was based on a distance equivalent to London to Brighton return, off-peak, booked on the day.
- The TV was a 50” Samsung QLED, 4K HDR.
- Electricity is per kilowatt hour, for 100 hours, which is roughly the cost of a flat or small house for one week.
*: rounded up to the nearest pound
**: correct at the time of publication
If you would like any more information or details on the research, please contact us at [email protected] or call us on 020 7898 0549.
Head to Property Guides for more information.