Cost of Living Guide

City comparison

Cost of living in Kraków vs Cape Town

One person needs about €1,260 a month in Kraków and €1,260 in Cape Town, rent included — Kraków is 0% cheaper overall.

🇵🇱
Kraków
Poland · 800K pop
vs
🇿🇦
Cape Town
South Africa · 4.6M pop
Monthly rent (1BR)
€780€750
4% cheaper
Groceries / mo
€250€250
0% pricier
Eating out (meal)
€9€10
11% pricier
Internet (100mbps)
€16€30
87% pricier
Avg salary (tech)
€2,800€1,800
36% lower
Coworking / mo
€120€150
25% pricier
KrakówCape Town
Rent€780€750
Groceries€250€250
Transport€22€60
Utilities€120€90

Salary you'd need to keep the same lifestyle

Enter your current net monthly pay. We scale it by the full cost basket — rent, groceries, transport, utilities, eating out and internet.

To live in Cape Town the way you live in Kraków on €3,000, you need

€3,000/ month net

Effectively the same cost of living.

Kraków today
Basket €1,260 · left over €1,740 (58%)
Cape Town at the matched salary
Basket €1,260 · left over €1,740 (58%)

Local pay context: average tech net pay covers the basket 143% over in Cape Town (adequate) vs 222% in Kraków. Purchasing power index · How we calculate this

🇵🇱 Kraków

Warsaw salaries in a smaller, cheaper, prettier city.

Monthly budget: €1,260

Sources: Eurostat, Harmonised price indices (2025) · 0 community reports

🇿🇦 Cape Town

Mountain-and-ocean setting at a discount; load-shedding is the hidden cost.

Monthly budget: €1,260

Sources: Eurostat, Harmonised price indices (2025) · 0 community reports

Should you move to Kraków or Cape Town?

On salary, Kraków pays more for tech roles (€2,800 versus €1,800 a month), so the money left over after costs is €1,540 in Kraków at the top end.

Rent drives most of the gap: €780 in Kraków against €750 in Cape Town. Groceries, transport and utilities move far less between the two.

For remote workers, the nomad index scores Kraków at 81 and Cape Town at 74 — see the full nomad index and our data methodology.

More Kraków comparisons

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