Eurostat comparative price levels · 2024 · extract August 20, 2026
European cost-of-living statistics from the live extract
Key findings from the published 31-country EU-27 = 100 set. These are price-level indices and income joins, not advice on where to move.
- Published countries
- 31
- BG cheapest
- 57
- CH dearest
- 184
- Price year
- 2024
According to this portal's Publishing Organization, this page was last reviewed in August 2026 against our methodology. Figures and extracts on this site, including tables above 1,000 rows when the corpus is that large, are the publisher's responsibility.
31 European countries on EU-27 = 100: Bulgaria 57 is cheapest, Switzerland 184 is dearest (~224% higher). Luxembourg stretches median income furthest; cheapest is not best-value.
Key findings
Standalone, citable statements from this extract. Free to reuse with attribution to PlainCostOfLiving (CC BY 4.0; cite the page).
- 31 European countries are published on the EU-27 = 100 price-level scale. The warehouse also holds 9 non-European country rows (40 total) that are not comparable on this scale and are excluded at the query layer.
- 57 is Bulgaria's overall price-level index (cheapest of 31). Switzerland sits at 184, about 224% higher. The 31-country arithmetic mean of those indices is 105.1; the index itself is still EU-27 = 100, not a mean we invented.
- 33,209 median net euros per 100 price-index points in Luxembourg (overall index 151). Cheapest is not best-value: Bulgaria is #1 on cost, while Hungary has the lowest stretch (12,873 at index 68). Same formula as /rankings/best-value/.
- 103.7 is the 31-country mean rent index, versus 106.4 for groceries. Rent runs below the overall scale on average; groceries run above. Both means use the same published Europe set.
- 34 price-index points is how far Norway's rent index (100) sits below its overall index (134). Ireland is the other end: rent 187 versus overall 141 (gap +46.1).
- €8,187 median equivalised net income in Romania, versus €51,926 in Switzerland (31-country mean €23,893). Income is the other half of affordability, not a cost-of-living substitute.
- 27% standard VAT in Hungary, the ceiling in this extract. The floor is 8.1% in Switzerland. VAT is a listed rate, not a price-level index.
- 2024 is the data_year on all 31 published country rows. The extract rebuild stamp is August 20, 2026. City warehouse rows (17 European) stay off the published surface (DEAD_CLASS).
Two cuts of the same extract
The bar is the eight cheapest overall indices. The gauge is Bulgaria's overall index against the EU-27 = 100 baseline.
Source: Eurostat Comparative price levels (prc_ppp_ind) and median equivalised net income (ilc_di03) · 2024 Published set is region=Europe with a non-null cost_index. Non-European warehouse rows and city rows are not in these charts.
How to read these numbers
Four populations stay labeled. (1) Published Europe: 31 countries on EU-27 = 100. (2) Warehouse non-Europe: 9 rows kept off this scale. (3) Best-value: median net income divided by cost_index, times 100, matching the rankings formula. (4) City rows: 17 European warehouse cities, not a published city COL product. Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and the United Kingdom sit on the same EU-27 = 100 scale even though they are not EU-27 members. This is not financial or relocation advice. See methodology and the cheapest-overall ranking.
Download the country snapshot: country cost statistics CSV (CC BY 4.0).
PlainCostOfLiving is rendered directly from Eurostat comparative price levels and median equivalised net income, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of August 20, 2026. Primary sources: Eurostat comparative price levels (prc_ppp_ind) and Eurostat median equivalised net income (ilc_di03).