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Methodology & Data Sources
How the salary calculator works
The salary equivalent calculator adjusts your current budget using relative cost-of-living indices between your origin and destination cities.
Equivalent = Your budget × (Destination index ÷ Origin index)
For example, if Paris has an index of 82 and Lisbon has 58, a budget of 3,000 in Paris becomes approximately 2,122 in Lisbon — a 29% reduction.
Data sources
United States
Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) — Regional Price Parities (RPP). Published annually. Covers metropolitan areas.
Europe
Eurostat — Purchasing Power Parities and Comparative Price Levels. Published annually. City-level data for major EU capitals, regional for others.
Canada
Statistics Canada (StatCan) — Consumer Price Index by CMA. Published monthly. City-level for Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal.
United Kingdom
Office for National Statistics (ONS) — Regional Consumer Price Indices. Published quarterly.
Rest of world
World Bank — International Comparison Program (ICP). Published periodically. Country-level data, adjusted for major cities using supplementary urban indices.
Precision levels
Each result includes a precision badge indicating the granularity of the underlying data:
Index derived from city-specific price surveys (e.g., BEA metro RPPs, Eurostat capital indices).
Index from a broader region or state that includes the city. Less precise but still more accurate than national averages.
National average index. Used when no city or regional data is available. May differ significantly from specific cities within the country.
Known limitations
- Cost-of-living indices represent average spending patterns. Your actual costs depend on your lifestyle, housing choices, and consumption habits.
- Indices do not account for income tax differences between countries. Two identical gross salaries may yield very different net incomes.
- Exchange rate fluctuations can significantly affect comparisons between different currency zones. Our tool converts at approximate rates.
- Data is updated periodically. The most recent source year is shown for each result.
- For cities where only country-level data is available, actual costs in the specific city may vary significantly from the national average.
Budget calculator methodology
The detailed budget calculator combines cost-of-living indices with household-specific multipliers to estimate spending across categories (rent, groceries, transport, utilities, etc.). Rent estimates use a separate rent index that may diverge from the general cost-of-living index.
All budget amounts are editable — use the estimates as a starting point and adjust based on your personal knowledge or research.