The same life, priced by country.
One of the oldest freedom hacks: earn or save in one place, live in a cheaper one. The same year of life can cost half as much, or nearly double, across a border. Pick where you’d base yourself and see how far your money moves.
Explain it like I’m five
Money buys more in some places than others. The same flat, the same food: half the price across one border, nearly double across another. And when life costs less, the pot you need is smaller too. This map shows how far yours would go.
New to all of it? Start from zero: ten short lessons that assume nothing.
The Geoarbitrage Map
€30,000 a year in Spain buys the same life for about €10k in India, and as much as €57k in Iceland.
India
Vietnam
Indonesia
Thailand
Malaysia
Philippines
Georgia
North Macedonia
Colombia
Morocco
South Africa
Ecuador
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Türkiye
Brazil
Bulgaria
Romania
Montenegro
Panama
Serbia
Peru
Albania
Poland
Hungary
Croatia
Mexico
Lithuania
Latvia
Costa Rica
Slovakia
Portugal
Greece
Cyprus
Slovenia
Czechia
Spainhome
Malta
Japan
Uruguay
Italy
Estonia
Germany
France
Austria
Netherlands
Belgium
Canada
Finland
Sweden
United Kingdom
Australia
Norway
Luxembourg
United States
Ireland
Denmark
Switzerland
Iceland
Relative price levels (whole-economy, base EU-27 = 100) from Eurostat and the World Bank, 2025, reused under CC BY 4.0. It’s a rough shape, not a budget: country averages hide big regional and rent differences, and they move with exchange rates. Not advice, and definitely not tax or residency advice; see Where You Live for the tax half.
The link carries these exact numbers. Anyone with it can read them, and opening it sends the address to the host.
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Every European country here has a full page in the atlas: the rules, the housing, the way in. The Europe atlas
Moving is one of six roads out of the job. The Six Roads takes one move from this map and shows what it does to your exit date. The Six Roads
Common questions
- Is this what my life would actually cost in that country?
- Treat it as a rough shape, not a budget. It re-prices your spending by a country’s average cost level. But the capital city often costs far more than the national average, and rent varies wildly. It gives you the ballpark, not your bill.
- What is “geoarbitrage”?
- Earning or saving in one place and spending in a cheaper one, so the same money buys a bigger life. This map shows how far your spending would stretch, country by country, compared with where you are now.
- Does this include tax and visas?
- No. It’s cost of living only. Where you’re allowed to live, and how you’d be taxed there, can matter more than the price of groceries; that’s what Where You Live and the Europe atlas are for. Cheap to live in isn’t the same as easy to move to.
- Why is everything compared to Spain?
- Because you set a home country (Spain by default), and every figure is “more” or “less” than there. Change your home and the whole list re-bases. The percentages are relative to you, not a global cheapness ranking, and they shift with exchange rates.
Nothing here is financial, investment, medical or retirement advice: it’s arithmetic and education. The calculators use the numbers you enter, The Exit Rehearsal compares your own Plan and Reality without interpreting either, and The Spare Key prices the fallback you enter without recommending one. Some tools remember work in the browser, some can place a scenario in the page address, and the Rehearsal and the Spare Key stay in this browser unless you print them, download them, or keep them in your account. Each tool tells you what it keeps and where. Decisions about your money are yours, ideally with a licensed adviser. I’m happily not one.
Bring me a challenge.
The Exit Audit, then ninety minutes: a straight verdict, real alternatives with their pros and cons, and your first move. If you want someone to nod along, I’m the wrong person to pay.