About OfficialCost
OfficialCost is a structured knowledge graph of what life actually costs — salaries, taxes, rent, cost of living, tuition, and visa fees — across countries and cities. Every published value traces back to a dated, named source you can check.
Comparing the real cost of living, working, or studying somewhere usually means stitching together a dozen inconsistent sources. OfficialCost does that work once, in the open: we collect official and authoritative data, normalize it to comparable units and currencies, and link every number to the evidence behind it. The result is a single, queryable graph instead of scattered estimates.
The graph — not any single page — is the product. Pages, comparisons, rankings, and the API are just interfaces onto it. Data flows through a deterministic pipeline: a registered source is reviewed, collected, and stored as immutable evidence; values are extracted, normalized, and scored for confidence; and a page is only published once it clears coverage and confidence thresholds. Nothing is invented by a language model or hand-edited without a source. Read the verification pipeline, source methodology, and confidence scoring.
OfficialCost is supported by advertising and an optional paid data API. Advertising never influences the data: there is no pay-for-placement, no sponsored rankings, and no way for an advertiser to change a published value. Rankings and comparisons are computed from verified facts by formula, not curated by hand. If our funding model ever changes, we will say so here.
Found a number that looks wrong? Every fact shows its source and date so you can check it — and you can submit a correction or data point. Our editorial process explains how submissions are reviewed. For anything else, reach us at hello@officialcost.com.