The cost of living in Austria is higher than in Germany, with a price level on average five percent higher than its northern neighbor. Despite this, Austria is in the European midfield, according to a cost comparison study for 36 countries conducted by the Federal Office for Statistics (Destratis) in Wiesbaden, Germany.
In each case, German prices were used as the basis for comparison in the study.
The most expensive place to live by a considerable margin was Switzerland, where the prices were 51 percent higher than in Germany for private consumption. The other most expensive countries to live in were Iceland (40 percent more expensive than Germany), Norway (30
percent), Denmark (28 percent), and Luxembourg (25 percent).
The cheapest country was Turkey, which was 64 percent cheaper than Germany. In Romania and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the living costs were half, and Bulgaria and Poland were close to 50 percent (49 and 46 percent respectively). Hungary (40 percent) was also considerably cheaper than Germany, as were Croatia and Lithuania (36 percent respectively) and the Czech Republic (28 percent).
According to Destatis, the data came from results from the European Comparison Programme (ECP) on purchasing power parities from Eurostat and calculations by the German office for statistics. The data came from July this year, and the report was published on Thursday.
Reported in cooperation with the Austrian Press Agency / APA.