Cost of Living inVienna, Austria
Image credit: Pierre Blaché from Paris, France
Purchasing Power vs. United States
Based on GDP per capita (PPP). Austria: $63,788/capita.
How Far Your Money Goes
Prices are 24% lower than the global benchmark (New York City = 100).
Income Category
Happiness
6.9 / 10
#14 globally
GDP per Capita
City Population
Monthly Costs
Rent
Food
Transport
Utilities
Education
Child Education
Public-school quality + expat access, alongside international and private school cost — the two paths a relocating family weighs.
Public schools
Public-schooling rules are set nationally for Austria; Vienna-specific enrollment notes are still being verified.
Quality
Excellent public schools
Assessment snapshot: 2022
Expat access
Resident families can use it
conditionalInstruction
German
Language fit is more manageable.
PISA / outcomes
491
Above OECD avg
PISA 2022 · OECD avg ~480
Why this quality rating
Austria has a strong public-school backbone, reliable teaching quality, and solid OECD outcomes.
Why the expat-access rating looks like this
Foreign resident families can usually enroll, but instruction is in German and local catchment rules still matter.
📋 Homeschooling
Legal with annual examsHomeschooling is legal in Austria. Parents must notify the school district before the school year. Students must pass an annual exam (Externistenprüfung) covering the Austrian curriculum. If the child fails, they must attend school.
Homeschool legality in Austria — check current regulations before committing.
Source: User-curated family relocation research (initial seed) (2026-04-14)
International & private schools
Childcare & Domestic Help
Current nanny and household-help pricing snapshot for Vienna, Austria.
Full-time nanny (5 days)
$2,100
monthly · confidence 0.65
Live-in / 24-7 nanny
$4,200
monthly · confidence 0.65
Source: curated family relocation research
Getting Around
The concrete mobility picture for Vienna: airport access, urban transit, and rideshare practicality.
Airport
International airport
Vienna has strong direct air coverage across Europe and long-haul links.
Urban transit
Metro, tram, and bus
Vienna is one of the easiest cities in Europe to live car-light.
Rideshare
Rideshare available
Uber and taxi-hailing options make first/last-mile trips easy.
Source: User-curated family relocation research (initial seed) (2026-04-14)
Healthcare
System strength, outcome signals, facility coverage, and self-pay visibility in Austria.
Method: country metrics come from public system indicators, facility coverage reflects mapped providers we can inventory, direct pricing only reflects observed self-pay pages, and relative care cost can fall back to broad cost-of-living healthcare indices. Sparse pricing does not imply sparse healthcare availability.
Healthcare system
StrongGood national coverage, strong doctor availability, and deep nursing capacity support this rating.
Public care
StrongBroad public coverage, strong public funding, and relatively low patient cost-sharing support this rating.
Private care
MixedVisible specialty depth help, but self-pay pricing transparency is still sparse.
UHC coverage
84/100
2023
Physicians
5.51/1k
2023
Hospital beds
6.70/1k
2022
Out of pocket
16%
2024
Outcome signals
Life expectancy
82.0 yrs
2024
Maternal mortality
6/100k
2023
Neonatal mortality
2.2/1k
2024
International patient readiness
MixedMultiple facilities have websites and there is visible specialty depth help, but price transparency is still sparse.
Pricing transparency
LimitedMultiple facilities have crawlable websites help, but published self-pay prices are scarce.
Facility coverage
Self-pay pricing visibility
No verified self-pay prices are published for the tracked facilities in Austria yet.
This usually reflects low online price transparency rather than a lack of healthcare providers.
Notable facilities
System metrics: World Bank WDI · Updated 2026-06-01
Safety & Governance
Street Safety
Source: Numbeo where a city row is matched; otherwise World Bank WGI and country-level safety context.
Political Stability
World Bank WGI scale: -2.5 to +2.5.
Wages by Sector
| Sector | Median |
|---|---|
| Administrative & Support Services | — |
| Agriculture & Farming | — |
| Arts, Entertainment & Recreation | — |
| Construction | — |
| Education | — |
| Finance & Insurance | — |
| Healthcare & Social Work | — |
| Hospitality & Food Service | — |
| Information & Technology | — |
| Manufacturing | — |
| Mining & Quarrying | — |
| Other Services | — |
| Professional & Scientific Services | — |
| Public Administration & Defence | — |
| Real Estate | — |
| Retail & Wholesale Trade | — |
| Transport & Logistics | — |
| Utilities | — |
2024 annual wages in Vienna, Austria · Source: Statistik Austria (region-adjusted)
Price Comparison vs. US
Visa Information (US passport)
Short-stay entry
US passport holders can stay up to 90 days without a visa.
Long-Term Visa Programs
working holiday
Working Holiday VisaQuick comparison FAQ
Structured from the deltas already shown on this page — no invented facts, no extra data sources.
How far does your money go in Vienna compared with the US?
Your money goes about 1.2x further in Vienna than in the US, based on the current PPP estimate.
Is Vienna cheaper or more expensive overall than New York City?
Vienna is cheaper overall than New York City — overall living costs are about 24% cheaper than the global benchmark (New York City) for Vienna.
How does rent in Vienna compare with New York City?
Rent in Vienna is about 71% cheaper than the global benchmark (New York City).
How expensive are groceries and restaurants in Vienna?
Groceries in Vienna are about 25% cheaper than the global benchmark (New York City), and restaurant prices are about 18% cheaper than the same benchmark.
About Vienna
Vienna is the capital of Austria, a Danube city of about 1.69 million that regularly tops global quality-of-living rankings on the strength of its public transit, healthcare, and large stock of subsidized housing. Roughly a quarter of all dwellings are municipally owned or cooperative, which keeps median rents well below Munich or Zurich for an equivalent tier of city. For relocators the trade-off is taxes — high income tax and social contributions — and a notoriously slow path to integration without German, which dominates daily life despite widespread English in tech and academia. EU freedom of movement applies, and the city is a logical base for anyone working across CEE given its airport hub and central rail position.
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