What does it take to live in a country?
What an average person lives on a month in 122 countries. And what living off investments would take.
To live there
- A month, housing included
- ≈ €1,950
- To live off investments
- ≈ €619,000
An average person in the Netherlands lives on ≈ €1,950 a month, housing included.
To take that out every month, you would need ≈ €619,000 invested. At 3.78% a year: the most that lasted 30 years in the data of US stocks.
It lasted from every start from 1928 to 1993. The worst start: 1929. That monthly amount rises with prices each year. What lasted in the past is not a promise.
Its returns are in US dollars after US inflation. Changes between currencies are left out.
30 years: a long retirement (Bengen, 1994; the Trinity study, 1998).
Worked out in your browser. Nothing you choose is saved or sent.
What this figure measures
- What an average person in the country spends a month, housing included (or earns, in some countries). From the World Bank's household surveys.
- The surveys give it in dollars that buy the same in every country (purchasing power parity). With the country's price level, it becomes what that costs there, at 2024 prices.
- It is a national average, not a given city: a big city usually costs more, a village less.
- Your way of living may not be the average one.
Where the numbers come from
- What an average person lives on in each country, housing included: the World Bank's household surveys (2010–2025, each country its latest).
- Brought to 2024 prices with US inflation, then to each country's prices with the World Bank's price levels. Data of 9 Oct 2026, licence CC BY 4.0.
- Each country in its own currency, at the World Bank's official rate for 2024 (a yearly average, never a live rate). Without a rate for that year, in US dollars.
- One person, a month. Rounded to 1 under 95, to 10 under 10,000, and to three figures above. Only countries with official data are listed: no figure is invented.
- Provisional: read from a public copy of the World Bank's data, until the yearly download.
- A national average: cities differ a lot. Some countries measure spending, others income.