City Living Cost Comparison Calculator

City Living Cost Comparison Calculator helps Compare two everyday planning options using upfront cost, recurring cost, and time horizon assumptions.

City living cost comparison

Runs the Korean 17-region real-income model with 2026 wage tax, social insurance, monthly rent or jeonse-interest conversion, utilities, CPI, and purchasing-power index.

Best city in selection

대전

₩1,803,783

Seoul disposable income

₩1,777,165

Seoul burden rate

55.4%

Top national PPI

울산 130.1pt

서울 total living cost
₩2,210,000 / PPI 100pt
부산 total living cost
₩1,557,000 / PPI 114.8pt
대전 total living cost
₩1,481,000 / PPI 122.9pt
전북 total living cost
₩1,202,000 / PPI 130pt

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City living cost comparison guide

This English page translates the Korean city living cost comparison and calls calculateComparison, calculateAllCitiesRanking, calcMonthlyIncomeTax, calcMonthlySocialInsurance, and calcNetIncome. It preserves 17-region city data, 2026 income tax brackets, employee four-social-insurance rates, JEONSE_LOAN_RATE 3.8%, monthly rent, jeonse monthly interest conversion, CPI, disposable income, burden rate, rent-to-income ratio, and purchasing-power index.

Income and payroll deductions

The source converts gross monthly wage into net income through annual wage deduction, basic deduction, the 2026 income tax brackets, wage-earner tax credit, monthly income tax, and social insurance.

Social insurance includes national pension 4.5%, health insurance 3.545%, long-term care at 12.95% of health insurance, and employment insurance 0.9%. This is why the result is not simply gross income minus rent.

Housing and living cost

Housing can be monthly rent or jeonse. Monthly rent uses the city housing table, while jeonse deposit is converted to monthly cost with JEONSE_LOAN_RATE 3.8% divided by 12.

The living-cost subtotal includes food, transport, utilities, education, healthcare, and leisure. The calculator reports total living cost, disposable income, burden percentage, and rent-to-income ratio.

Purchasing-power comparison

Purchasing power compares the user city ratio of net income to living cost against Seoul average wage and Seoul living cost, with Seoul set to 100. This lets a lower-rent region outrank a high-wage region when spending power is better.

The city data is based on 2025 to 2026 statistical and real-estate references. Local commute, school district, ownership status, household size, and job stability still need separate review.