Where a Salary Goes Further 2026

Key findings

• In Stuttgart, a median gross salary leaves €2,607 a month after income tax and the rent of a 60 m² flat, the most of 19 cities in Germany, Luxembourg and Norway (2026).
• Luxembourg leaves the least of those 19 cities: €1,451 a month (2026).
• Of 27 cities in the United Kingdom, Derby leaves the most after income tax and the mean rent of a dwelling: €2,274 a month, 69% of take-home pay (2026).
• Of 16 cities in Germany, Stuttgart leaves the most after income tax and the rent of a 60 m² flat: €2,607 a month, 82% of take-home pay (2026).
• In Islington, rent takes 83% of take-home pay, the largest share of the 27 cities in the United Kingdom (2026).

Press note

The ranking

Across Germany, Luxembourg and Norway: the rent of a 60 m² flat

United Kingdom: mean monthly rent of a dwelling

Germany: rent of a 60 m² flat (average rent per m² × 60)

Computed but not ranked, because fewer than ten cities of their country qualify and their rent is not the per-m² measure: Clinton Township (United States, €1,515 left); Lexington-Fayette urban county (United States, €1,467 left); Urban Honolulu (United States, €1,154 left).

Most and least left each month

Method

For each city: the median gross monthly salary of the city, less income tax and employee social contributions for a single person without children (the OECD Taxing Wages model for 2025, the same model as the site's take-home pay calculator), less the rent. Where the city publishes an average rent per m², the rent is that figure × 60 m²; where it publishes the rent of a whole dwelling, that figure. Amounts in another currency are converted with the ECB monthly average named in the data file.

A city enters only with its own official median salary and its own official rent, both observed in 2023 or later, and 100,000 residents or more. A country is ranked on its own with ten such cities or more. The ranking across countries holds only cities whose rent is the per-m² measure, the one measure published in more than one country; a ranking never mixes the two.

This is one computed measure, not a combined score. It leaves out every cost but rent, and the tax of anyone who is not a single employee without children.

Left out after the release this edition was read from: the median wages of four Latvian cities, Rīga among them, were net figures stored as gross; they were withdrawn on 2026-09-29 and are listed on the corrections page.

This edition was frozen on 2026-09-29; later data do not change it. The cities that did not qualify, with the reason for each, are in the data file.

How to cite

ImmigrationDB (2026). Where a Salary Goes Further 2026. https://immigrationdb.com/indices/salary-goes-further/2026/

Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0, with the credit above; each value keeps its publisher's terms.

Data

The complete table, with every input, its date and its source, is in /data/indices/salary-goes-further/2026.json. A CSV download follows once the terms of every publisher behind the table are recorded.

Sources

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2. Stadt Augsburg; im Auftrag auf Grundlage einer repräsentativen Mieterumfrage (6.329 Antworten, 2.645 für Mietspiegelerstellung verwendet); Datenerhebung Juli-August 2025; anerkannt von Mieterverein Augsburg und Umgebung e.V. und Haus & Grund Augsburg — Augsburger Mietspiegel 2025 (Neuerstellung) www.augsburg.de
3. Bundesagentur fuer Arbeit Entgeltatlas web.arbeitsagentur.de
4. Berlin Senate — Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung, Bauen und Wohnen — Berliner Mietspiegel 2026 mietspiegel.berlin.de
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