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Economy

Cost of Living in Italy: North vs South, Town by Town

Where life costs most and least: the ranking of Italian municipalities by cost of living — housing, rent and services.

How much does it cost to live in an Italian town? The cost-of-living index combines house prices, rents and services into a value comparable across all municipalities. The result overturns clichés: the most expensive towns are not only the big cities, but above all mountain and seaside tourist resorts.

The most expensive towns

Index 0-100
Indicator
7,896
Municipalities
Housing, rent, services
Components
OMI, ISTAT
Sources

The 15 most expensive towns in Italy

Composite cost-of-living index — highest values

Source: DatiItalia — data from ISTAT, MEF, ISPRA, EEA

The cheapest towns

At the opposite end, the cheapest towns are almost all in the inland South and the Apennines, where property prices collapsed along with the population.

The 15 cheapest towns in Italy

Composite cost-of-living index — lowest values

Source: DatiItalia — data from ISTAT, MEF, ISPRA, EEA

The 3D map of prices

Each municipality is a column proportional to property prices: luxury tourist resorts tower, while inland areas stay low.

3D map: property prices by municipality

Height proportional to prices — drag to rotate, scroll to zoom

Source: DatiItalia — data from ISTAT, MEF, ISPRA, EEA

Explore each municipality's cost of living in the Cost of living section and compare up to 4 in the Compare section. Cost of living, crossed with income, says a lot about a territory's real purchasing power.