See what your salary is really worth if you relocated — or what you’d need to ask for if you didn’t.
National price levels from the World Bank’s International Comparison Program and the Eurostat–OECD PPP Programme (indicators PA.NUS.PRVT.PP and PA.NUS.FCRF), most recent available year shown with each result. These are national averages, gross of tax, and blind to variation within a country. A conversation starter, not a negotiation guarantee. Full methodology.
How this calculator works
What it does
It converts a salary from one location’s price level to another, so you
can see what an offer is actually worth where you’d be living or what
you’d need to negotiate to stay level.
What you put in
Your current location, the location you’re comparing to, and your
current annual salary. Nothing is stored.
What you get out
Your cost-of-living adjusted salary, the price index for each location,
and the difference between them expressed as the salary required to
maintain the same lifestyle.
The formula
Adjusted salary = current salary × (destination index ÷ origin index)
Indices are expressed relative to a base of 100. A destination index of
80 against an origin of 100 means goods and services cost roughly 20%
less, so €80,000 in the destination supports approximately the
lifestyle €100,000 supports at origin.
Read it in reverse to use it in a negotiation. If your employer
proposes cutting your pay on relocation, the formula tells you the
floor below which your real income falls.
Where the data comes from
Purchasing power parity conversion factors for household final
consumption expenditure, published by the World Bank as indicator
PA.NUS.PRVT.PP. The series is produced jointly by the International
Comparison Program, the World Development Indicators database, and the
Eurostat-OECD PPP Programme.
A PPP conversion factor is the number of units of a country’s currency
required to buy the same basket of goods and services domestically that
one US dollar buys in the United States. It is a spatial price index,
built for exactly this kind of comparison.
Market exchange rates are the World Bank’s official period-average
rates, indicator PA.NUS.FCRF.
Figures are the most recent available for each country, which is
displayed alongside every result. We refresh from the World Bank API
monthly.
What it does not account for
Cities. These are national figures. Lisbon and Porto are the same
number here, as are Manhattan and rural Mississippi. Within-country
variation is often larger than the between-country variation this tool
measures, so treat the result as a floor for reasoning rather than a
precise answer.
Housing weight. PPPs are built from a household consumption basket
averaged across the population. If you spend far more or far less than
average on rent, the adjustment will understate or overstate your
position.
Tax. Gross to gross. Effective rates vary enough between jurisdictions
to reverse the conclusion.
Data lag. PPPs come from periodic ICP benchmark rounds with
extrapolation between them, so the most recent figure is not this
year’s figure.
Higher-income countries systematically show higher price levels, an
effect economists call Balassa-Samuelson. That is a real feature of the
data, not a distortion, but it means a move to a richer country will
almost always show as more expensive even where specific costs that
matter to you run the other way.
What it does not account for
Tax. This is a gross-to-gross comparison. Effective tax rates vary
enormously between jurisdictions and can reverse the conclusion
entirely.
Housing weight. Price indices average across a basket of goods. Housing
is usually the largest single line in a real budget and the most
volatile between cities, so a household spending far above or below the
average share on rent will find the adjustment understates or
overstates their position.
Employer policy. Many companies don’t use location adjustment at all,
and those that do often anchor to their headquarters’ index rather than
yours. See [LINK TO YOUR ARTICLE ON PAY LOCALISATION].
Currency movement, benefits, equity, and pension treatment.
A note on what this is for
Cost-of-living adjustment is a contested practice, not a neutral
calculation. Employers that apply it are making a choice about whether
they’re paying for output or for location. This tool tells you what the
arithmetic says; whether the arithmetic should apply to you is a
separate argument, and one worth having.
Should my salary be cut if I move somewhere cheaper?
That depends on whether your employer is paying for your output or for
your postcode. There’s no settled answer. Companies split roughly into
those paying a single global rate for a role and those localising to
the employee’s market, and both models are common among remote-first
employers.
Does this account for tax?
No. It compares gross salaries against price levels. Effective tax
differs substantially between countries and can outweigh the
cost-of-living difference in either direction.
Can I use this in a salary negotiation?
Use it to establish the arithmetic, not to settle the argument. If your
employer proposes an adjustment using a different index than ours,
ask which one and what base year the answer often reveals the number
was chosen rather than derived.
Is my salary information stored?
No. The calculation runs in your browser and nothing is sent to a
server or saved.