Sources
Where every number on Mundevo comes from
Every metric on this site has at least one publicly-citable source. This page consolidates them in one place so you can audit or cross-check before relying on a specific figure for a relocation decision.
Cost of living + rent
The composite cost-of-living index, rent index, and the per-category monthly basket (housing, food, transport, utilities, leisure, healthcare) draw from the following sources. Where multiple sources agree, we publish the central tendency; where they diverge, we lean toward the larger / more methodologically transparent dataset.
Crowd-sourced cost-of-living and rent indices, normalized to New York = 100. The single source covering all six basket categories in one place.
Independent cost comparator with a different methodology — useful as a second opinion when Numbeo's crowd-sourced figures look noisy.
Official OECD aggregations of housing affordability, household income, and life-satisfaction metrics across member countries.
Tax + payroll
Country-level effective income-tax and employee-side social-security rates are pulled from official tax-authority publications and aggregated by major accounting firms. Where multiple regimes apply (general vs. expat-favorable), the baseline figures reflect a single salaried filer at the country median wage outside any special regime.
Country-by-country reference for income tax bands, social security rates, VAT, and expat-specific regimes (NHR, Beckham, 30% ruling, etc.).
Annual comparative table of top marginal personal income-tax rates by country.
Official OECD annual report on the tax wedge — effective rates faced by single average-wage workers.
Quality of life — safety, healthcare, air
The three quality indices (safety, healthcare, air quality) come from a mix of crowd-sourced perception data and primary measurement.
Crowd-sourced 0-100 indices for safety (crime + perception), healthcare (system quality + accessibility), and pollution (inverted to give air quality).
Primary PM2.5 and NO₂ measurements by city. Used as a sanity check against Numbeo's perception-based pollution index.
Historical benchmark for healthcare system efficiency rankings (covering many of the catalog countries).
Connectivity + infrastructure
Internet speed and city-level connectivity metrics use a single authoritative source.
Monthly country-level median fixed-broadband download speeds based on millions of real consumer tests. Adjusted +5-10% for tech-hub cities, -5% for secondary cities.
Demographics
Urban-area population figures come from publicly cited demographic sources.
Used for urban-area population. Where multiple definitions exist (city proper vs. metropolitan area), we use the urban-area figure for consistency.
Official UN dataset on urban populations and growth projections — used to cross-check when Wikipedia's figures span multiple definitions.
FX rates
Cross-currency conversions on every page rely on a single static table refreshed periodically.
European Central Bank publishes daily reference rates against the euro — the baseline for our static FX table. Cross-checked against XE.com and Wise mid-market rates.
Salary benchmarks
The /salary cluster's NYC anchor bands come from broadly cited public-knowledge sources rather than a live database. We publish them as illustrative ranges, not negotiation data; the disclaimer on every /salary/{job}/{city} page enumerates the cross-check sources we recommend.
Public-disclosure salary data for public tech companies. Best single source for senior IC roles in software engineering, product, design, data, and security.
Broader market coverage than Levels.fyi, especially for non-tech roles (marketing, sales, customer success, ops). Self-reported so noisier.
Localized salary data tied to LinkedIn's job-posting and member-profile dataset. Useful for city-specific triangulation.
Visa + residency
The /visa cluster carries only category-level facts (which visa types exist in each country) and stable tax-regime descriptions (NHR Portugal, Beckham Spain, 30% ruling NL). Specific income thresholds and processing times intentionally NOT published — those change quarterly. Every visa-guide page directs readers to verify with the destination's consulate or an immigration lawyer.
Authoritative source for current visa categories, eligibility, thresholds. We summarize the category landscape; for specifics, the consulate site is the only correct reference.
Official EU-level overview of immigration routes for EU and non-EU citizens.
Spot something wrong?
The dataset is updated quarterly, but real-world conditions move faster. If a specific number looks wrong for a city you know well, email mundevocom@gmail.com with the source you'd cross-check against — corrections to specific data points are the fastest way to improve the catalog. See Methodology for the calculation rules + AI-estimated city disclosures, and Terms for the disclaimer covering financial-decision use.