Moving to France: cost of living, salaries, taxes, visas

• The take-home math

  Take-home pay in France is shaped by a roughly 28% effective payroll deduction (income tax + social security), with VAT at 20%.

• The main hub

  Its primary hub, Paris, carries a cost index of 44 (New York = 100).

• Cost spread within the country

  Across the 2 France cities we track, the cost index spans 32 (Lyon) to 44 (Paris).

• Official price-level cross-check

  Eurostat puts France's consumer price level at 107.9 (EU27 = 100, 2024) — above the EU average. Source: Eurostat.

  See the per-basket monthly breakdown below for how each category compares to the EU average.

Consumer prices rose 0.9% in 2025, averaging 2.5% a year across 2020–2025 — a mean pulled up by the 5.2% of 2022, so the 2025 rate is the better guide to today.

A missing year in a series means the source reported no observation, not zero. From the World Bank (World Development Indicators, updated 2026-07-13).

The average annual wage in France is about $60,608 (PPP-adjusted US$), per the OECD (2024). PPP-adjusted means it's comparable across countries on what the money actually buys — the OECD-wide average is ~$61,000. Source: OECD.

This is a country-wide figure. For what you actually need to earn in a specific city, see the salary-by-lifestyle breakdown on each city's cost-of-living page.

See take-home pay in France after tax → or compare with another country.

Our estimated monthly spend per category in Paris, cross-checked against the official Eurostat price level for that basket (EU27 = 100, 2024). The price level says whether France is dear or cheap for that basket regardless of how much a household happens to buy.

Monthly figures are Mundevo estimates for Paris; price levels are official Eurostat data (dataset prc_ppp_ind). Source: Eurostat. Dining & leisure is proxied against Eurostat's restaurants & hotels basket.

Index base: New York = 100. Catalog average is the unweighted mean across all cities Mundevo tracks, recomputed on every build.