Is Monaco cheap to live in?

No, Monaco is one of the most expensive places CostLiving tracks. The moderate benchmark is $4,825 a month for a single person, and even the tight-budget tier runs $2,895, more than a comfortable lifestyle costs in most of Europe. Housing does the damage: $2,323 a month at the moderate tier, nearly half the budget, because two square kilometres of principality cannot house everyone who wants a tax residency with a harbour view. The counterintuitive part is that daily life outside rent is less extreme than the reputation suggests. Groceries at the Carrefour, a baguette in Beausoleil, public transport, none of it is wildly beyond nice-parts-of-France pricing (France’s moderate benchmark is $2,050), and plenty of people who work in Monaco live minutes away across the border where rents fall off a cliff. That’s the honest arbitrage: Monaco salaries or Monaco tax treatment combined with French rent. Living inside the principality itself is a luxury good, priced like one. Full tiers on our Monaco cost of living page, and see where it ranks in our most expensive places guide.