Cost of living comparison calculator
Find out what salary you'd need in a new city to maintain the same standard of living.
Your numbers
You'll need a cost-of-living index for both cities. Numbeo and the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER) both publish these free — search "[city name] cost of living index" to find current figures.
What you'd need to earn
The salary number that actually matters when you’re relocating
A job offer that pays 15% more sounds like a raise, right up until you find out rent in the new city runs 40% higher. This calculator exists for exactly that gap — it takes your current salary and a cost-of-living index for both cities and tells you what salary in the new location would actually match what you have now, not what sounds impressive on paper.
The math itself is simple once you have the two index numbers: your current salary times the new city’s index, divided by your current city’s index. The hard part isn’t the math, it’s finding accurate index numbers, which is why this tool doesn’t try to guess them for you.
Where to actually get those numbers
Numbeo and the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER) both publish cost-of-living indexes that get updated regularly and are free to search. Most use 100 as a baseline — sometimes the national average, sometimes a specific reference city like New York — so make sure whatever two numbers you’re comparing came from the same source and the same baseline. Mixing an index from one source with a different source’s baseline will throw off the comparison in ways that aren’t obvious just from looking at the output.
What this number doesn’t capture
A cost-of-living index is a blended average across housing, groceries, transportation, healthcare, and a handful of other categories. It won’t tell you that your specific situation — say, you don’t drive and take public transit everywhere, or you’re renting a one-bedroom instead of raising a family — might weight those categories completely differently than the index assumes. Treat the output here as a solid starting estimate for negotiating a job offer or planning a move, not a guarantee of what your actual budget will look like once you’re there.
Should I ask for exactly the calculated number in salary negotiations? It’s a strong opening anchor, but relocation packages, remote work flexibility, and the actual role itself all factor in too — use this as your floor for “what maintains my current lifestyle,” not necessarily your full ask.
Does this account for state and local taxes? No — cost-of-living indexes are generally about everyday expenses, not tax rates. If you’re moving between states with meaningfully different income tax rates, that’s a separate calculation worth running alongside this one.