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Compare housing, rent and utility costs across major cities.

Explore public-data benchmarks for housing prices, rents, electricity, gas and water, with source links, periods and methodology notes.

Interactive map Click pins to inspect city benchmarks.
Source-linked data Values include period, source and context.
Compare and rank Use rankings and side-by-side comparisons.
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Blue pins = current dataset
Dataset: v1.0
Coverage: EU capitals in v1.0
Last updated: May 2026
Side-by-side

Compare two cities

Choose two capitals and compare housing, rent and utilities side by side. Each available value includes its period and source or methodology context.

Rankings

City ranking

Select a metric to rank the available capitals. Values marked as N/A are placed at the end because no validated comparable value is available.

Open the ranking and scroll down to view the results.
Open the ranking and scroll down to view the results.
Methodology

How to read the data

City Cost Atlas uses public-data benchmarks to compare housing, rent and utility costs across European capitals. Each value should be read together with its source, period and methodology note.

Geography

Values follow the geography used by the original source.

  • Municipality: the administrative city.
  • Greater city area: a wider urban area.
  • Commune: a local administrative unit.

Source quality

Labels show how direct, official or comparable each value is.

  • Eurostat Harmonised EU statistical source, preferred where available.
  • Official / state National, municipal, regulator or public-authority source with a direct published value.
  • Official national proxy Official national benchmark used as an approximation for the city. Currently used mainly for water prices where a clean city-specific tariff was not used.
  • Official local proxy Local, municipal or regulated utility tariff converted into a comparable €/m³ benchmark. Currently used mainly for water prices.
  • Market Public real-estate market source, used when no official comparable city value exists.
  • N/A No validated comparable public value is currently available.

Metric assumptions

Values are normalised where needed so cities can be compared.

  • Housing €/m²: published sale-price benchmarks per square metre. Eurostat values refer to average buying prices per m² for apartments or houses sold during the reference year. Eurostat includes VAT for new dwellings where applicable, excludes transfer taxes for existing dwellings, and excludes real estate agency fees. Other official or market-labelled values follow the methodology of their original source. City Cost Atlas does not add purchase taxes, stamp duty, notary fees, registration fees or other acquisition costs to the published €/m² values.
  • Rent: monthly rent benchmarks, generally excluding utilities, service charges and other running costs unless stated by the source.
  • Electricity and gas: household energy-price benchmarks, usually shown as €/kWh. Eurostat electricity values use household consumption band DC, meaning annual consumption from 2,500 kWh to 4,999 kWh. Eurostat gas values use household consumption band D2, meaning annual consumption from 20 GJ to 199 GJ, displayed in €/kWh. In both cases, values use euro as the currency and include all taxes and levies. These are country-level household benchmarks, not city-specific tariffs.
  • Water: effective household water-service benchmark in €/m³. Where possible, City Cost Atlas includes water supply, wastewater/sewerage, treatment charges and VAT. When local tariffs include fixed recurring charges, meter fees, stormwater charges or service fees, these are converted into a comparable €/m³ value using a standard 120 m³/year household-consumption assumption. One-off connection fees, installation costs or exceptional charges are not included.
Data feedback

Found an outdated or incorrect value?

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