Cost-of-living comparison · Eurostat PLI 2024

🇳🇴 Norway vs 🇬🇧 United Kingdom

How the cost of living compares between Norway and United Kingdom - overall and across rent, groceries, transport, healthcare, utilities and dining, weighed against local income.

Cheaper overall
United Kingdom
Price gap
4%

Planning a move? Scale your income from Norway to United Kingdom in the calculator, then save the pair to come back to it.

Cost by category - Norway vs United Kingdom

Norway - price level by category

Overall cost134

United Kingdom - price level by category

Overall cost129

Side-by-side

Category (EU-27 = 100) 🇳🇴 Norway 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
Overall cost 134 129

Highlighted = lower price level (or higher affordability). Affordability = median net income ÷ cost index, higher is better.

What the Norway vs United Kingdom comparison shows

On Eurostat's comparative price-level scale (EU-27 = 100), United Kingdom is the cheaper of the two overall at index 129, against 134 for Norway - a difference of about 4% in everyday prices. Because the same standardised basket is priced in both countries, that gap is directly comparable and not an artefact of exchange rates.

The category table above shows the gap is rarely uniform. Housing usually drives most of the difference because rent cannot be traded across borders, so weight the rent row most heavily, a country that is cheaper on groceries but dearer on rent often works out more expensive in practice, since the rent gap is larger in absolute euros than the savings on smaller categories.

For a complete picture, weigh these prices against local income: the cheaper country is not automatically the one where a typical income goes furthest.

Frequently asked questions

Is Norway or United Kingdom cheaper to live in?

United Kingdom is cheaper overall, its Eurostat cost-of-living index is 129 versus 134 for Norway (EU-27 = 100), a difference of about 4%.

Which has cheaper rent, Norway or United Kingdom?

Rent price levels are shown in the category table above.

Does cheaper mean better value in Norway vs United Kingdom?

Value depends on both prices and income; see the affordability figures above.

Source: Eurostat, comparative price levels (prc_ppp_ind) and median equivalised net income Price-level indices, EU-27 = 100, 2024.