SEC. 05 — HOUSING

Australia Cost of Living Index

Compare 8 major Australian cities at a glance — no salary, no form, just the numbers.

DATA AS OF —

Which cities are expensive?

Ranked by overall Cost of Living Score (0–100) — higher means more expensive overall.

#	City	Housing	Groceries	Transport	Utilities	Score

Calculate your cost of living → Find out where you can afford to live →

Score breakdown by city

Pick a city to see what's driving its overall score.

Housing—

Groceries—

Transport—

Utilities—

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Explore living costs → Check affordability →

Why are these scores different?

The main cost pressures behind the highest and lowest overall scores.

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See living costs →

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See living costs →

Compare two cities

Pick two cities to see their scores side by side.

	City A	City B
Overall score	—	—
Housing	—	—
Groceries	—	—
Transport	—	—
Utilities	—	—

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Want a personal answer, not just a ranking?

This index compares cities in general. Enter your own salary and household to see which cities you specifically can afford, ranked by estimated monthly surplus.

Check my affordability →

How the score is calculated

A transparent, from-first-principles methodology — not a black box.

Housing (40% weight) — derived directly from each city's benchmark rent, scaled relative to the cheapest and most expensive of the 8 cities. Housing carries the heaviest weight because it's the largest line item in most household budgets.
Groceries, Transport, Utilities (20% weight each) — derived from each city's general cost-of-living index, with a small offset per category (groceries vary least between cities; utilities vary most). These aren't independently sourced per-category government statistics — see the assumptions below for the full, honest detail.
Overall score — a weighted average of the four sub-scores, presented on a 0–100 scale for easy comparison. It's a relative ranking across these 8 cities, not an absolute cost-of-living measurement.

Data & sources

The publicly available data this index's underlying rent and cost-of-living figures are informed by.

Australian Bureau of Statistics

Selected Living Cost Indexes, by city

Cotality (formerly CoreLogic)

City-level residential rent benchmarks

Domain

Rental market reporting by city

Reserve Bank of Australia

Inflation and cost-of-living context

Methodology & assumptions

Housing sub-score. Calculated by scaling each city's benchmark weekly rent onto a 40–95 range, where the cheapest of the 8 cities scores near 40 and the most expensive scores near 95. This is a relative comparison across these specific cities, not a fixed universal scale.

Groceries, Transport, Utilities sub-scores. Derived from each city's general cost-of-living index (also scaled 45–90 across the 8 cities), with a fixed offset per category: groceries −4, transport +0, utilities +4 — reflecting that groceries tend to vary least between Australian cities and utilities tend to vary more. These are this site's own estimated allocation, not independently sourced per-category statistics for each city.

Overall score. A weighted average: Housing 40%, Groceries 20%, Transport 20%, Utilities 20%, rounded to the nearest whole number.

Shared data. This index uses the same underlying rent and cost-of-living figures as the Cost of Living Explorer and Where Can I Afford to Live — all three tools read from one shared dataset, so a city's numbers can't drift out of sync between pages.

This index is a comparative tool for general information only, not financial advice.

Frequently asked questions

Common questions about this index and how to read it.

What does the Cost of Living Score actually measure?

It's a relative ranking of how expensive each of these 8 cities is compared to each other — not an absolute dollar figure. A city scoring 90 isn't "90% expensive" in any universal sense; it means its rent and general costs sit near the top of this specific 8-city comparison.

How is this different from the Cost of Living Explorer?

This index answers "which cities are expensive or cheap?" with no input required — it's a discovery and comparison tool. The Cost of Living Explorer answers "what does it actually cost to live in this specific city, for my salary and household?" with a full dollar breakdown.

How is this different from Where Can I Afford to Live?

This index compares cities in general, without knowing anything about you. Where Can I Afford to Live takes your actual salary and household and ranks cities by what's realistically left over each month — a personalised answer, not a general one.

Why don't the sub-scores add up cleanly?

Housing is weighted more heavily (40%) than the other three categories (20% each) because it's typically the largest expense in a household budget, so the overall score isn't a simple average of the four numbers shown.

How accurate is this index?

The housing sub-score is grounded in real rent benchmarks. The other three sub-scores are this site's own estimated allocation from a general cost-of-living index, not distinct, independently sourced data for groceries, transport and utilities in each city. Treat the ranking as directionally reliable for comparing cities, not as precise government statistics.