What is the cost of living in Berlin?

Are you considering moving to Berlin but you want to find out more about the cost of living here?

Let us help you figure out how much you will need to pay each month to survive in Berlin.

In order to reflect most of the population we decided to compare prices for students, employees with a monthly salary of around 3.000€ and employees with a monthly salary of +8.000€.

Overview of Cost of Living in Berlin in 2024

Monthly rent for an Apartment

How much money you need to pay depends heavily on the size of the apartment and the location.

The cheapest option is to rent a room in a shared flat, called WG or Wohngemeinschaft.

This is also a great way to get to know new people and have a social life in Berlin from day one.

A single room in a shared apartment can start at around 400€ and can be as much as 800€ per month.

For a 2 bedroom apartment with 50m² in a decent neighbourhood and good location you need to pay at least 800€ including additional costs for water and heating.

However ususally you need to calculate another 50€ for internet and TV + another 60€ for electricity.

For a 3-4 bedroom apartment or a small house in the outskirts of Berlin you probably need to calculate with around 1.500€ upwards.

Continue reading here about how to find a place to live in Berlin.

Monthly cost for Internet Provider

On top of your monthly rent you need to sign up with an internet provider in Berlin.

If you are mainly using internet at home for browsing some of your favorite websites and writing some emails then we highly recommend a contract with 10-16MBits.

1&1 Internet* offers some very cheap options right now with 16MBits for around 10€/month in the first year.

If you are working in the online industry or if you are working from at home from time to time we highly recommend going for a contract with around 50MBits.

1&1 Internet* offers the best value option with 50MBits for around 25€/month if you look at the whole 24 months of the contract.

Be aware that usually the price for internet goes up after the first 12 months.

Keep reading here about the best internet provider in Berlin.

Monthly cost for Mobile Phone Provider

Similar to the best internet provider it depends heavily on how much you use your phone and mobile internet which mobile phone provider we can recommend.

If the monthly cost is the most important factor for you we highly recommend o2* as a mobile phone provider.

Decent mobile phone contracts already start at around 20€/month.

Are you constantly on your phone and even stream videos on the go? If yes, we highly recommend a contract with at least 10GB mobile data.

Right now the best pick is 1&1 Internet* with their contracts at around 22,50€/month for 25GB mobile internet and Flatrate included.

Keep reading about the best phone providers in Berlin.

Monthly cost for Electricity Provider

Right now you might already have heard of the energy crisis in Europe that was caused by Russia’s war in the Ukraine.

Cost for electricity sky-rocketed in recent months and caused many electricity providers to stop accepting new clients.

But if you follow our tips (link at the bottom of this paragraph) you still might be able to get a good deal for electricity providers.

Your monthly cost for electricity heavily depend on how much electricity your devices, lamps, etc. use.

Obviously if you only install LED lamps and use a power efficient laptop you will be consuming less energy.

But usually you can calculate for a 3 person household a power consumption of approx. 3.500kWh.

This would mean you need to calculate around 125€ for your monthly electricity bill.

A single person household should come in at around 1.000kWh and monthly costs of 45€.

Continue reading here about the best electricity provider in Berlin.

Monthly cost for Health Insurance

The cost for your health insurance depends mainly on two factors.

Factor one is if you are privately insured, which is not possible for most employees.

Factor two is how high your monthly income is.

If you are a freelancer, working for the government or an employee with a yearly gross-income that exceeds 59.400€ you can opt for a private health insurance.

The monthly cost for a private health insurance depend on many factors such as your age, previous diseases, etc.

To get a proper private health insurance that covers the most important things you need to calculate with around 400€/month.

Be aware that if you are privately insured you might need to pay extra for each of your kids, which are included in any statutory health insurance.

Furthermore if you are an employee your employer will take over 50% of your monthly costs.

If you are with the statutory health insurance the monthly costs are 14,6% of your gross income. Again 50% of this will be paid by your employer and 50% will be taken from your salary.

Therefore your monthly cost for statutory health insurance depend on your gross income.

For students the statutory health insurance is a lot cheaper and should be around 90€/month.

Keep reading about private health insurances in Germany.

Monthly cost for Groceries

Luckily Germany is one of the cheapest countries worldwide for shopping groceries (in relation to the price level).

Many discounters like Aldi and Lidl are from Germany and therefore there is a longstanding German tradition of buying only very cheap groceries while expecting a certain level of quality.

But lately more and more people are demanding not only good quality but also that the food is from local farmers or are Bio-certified.

Companies like Bio Company or Denns are opening up new Bio-supermarkets almost on a daily basis.

To give an idea of how much you will probably spend on groceries we are comparing the prices for

• milk (1 liter) from 0,68€ discounter to 1,39€ bio quality
• butter (250g) from 1,59€ discounter to 2,79€ bio quality
• meat (100g beef filet) from 3,99€ discounter to 5,99€ bio quality
• coffee (500g) from 4,99€ discounter to 14,99€ bio quality

In general you can do your monthly grocery shopping for anything between 150€ and 400€.

Monthly cost for Eating Out

You are probably reading everywhere that 10 years ago Berlin used to be such a cheap place to live and now everything has gotten so expensive.

Don’t believe everything you read we would say.

It might be true that 10 years ago you could rent a run-down 4 bedroom apartment in the middle of Prenzlauer Berg for 400€/month, but somehow the prices for eating out seem to be the same as they used to be.

There is probably no place comparable to Berlin in terms of quality of food and the price you have to pay.

If you are on a tight budget you probably will be eating Döner more often than you should. Good Döner cost around 4€ and are to be found on almost every corner.

For some more upscale eating we guess with around 15€ per person (excluding drinks) you will have some great food anywhere in Berlin.

So our estimate for eating out should be anywhere between 50€ and 300€ a month.

Monthly cost for Drinking/Party

Depending on your situation partying can be as cheap as a bottle of wine each weekend that you bring to a student or house party.

Or if you want to make use of the countless worldclass clubs in Berlin you need to plan with around 50€ a night for entrance fee + drinks.

So we would estimate your monthly expenses for party and drinking anywhere between 40€ and 300€.

Monthly cost for Transportation

If you do not own a car (good choice as Berlin is not a fun place to drive or park) and rely on public transport we highly recommend buying a monthly BVG ticket.

Such ticket for AB (meaning the neighbourhoods inside the Ring and the ones just outside the Ring) costs around 32€ a month for students (as part of a Semesterticket) and 86€ a month for anybody who has to pay the full price.

However if you pay already for 12 months in advance you can get a discount and you only need to pay around 63€ per month.

Summary: Cost of Living in Berlin

Now that you know in detail what to expect when moving to Berlin it is only simple maths to add up all expenses.

In our opinion you can live happily in Berlin with a monthly budget of 770€.

Keep in mind that this is an absolut minimum budget you need to calculate and you will not be able to enjoy any luxurious things.

If you want to fully enjoy your live in Berlin without financial worries you should be able to do so with a monthly budget of 3.000€.

Overview Cost of living: Basic items

• Coffee at a nice cafe: 4€
• Beer at a bar: 4€
• Beer at the supermarket: 1€
• Milk 1L: 1,40€
• Bread 500g: starting at 2€
• 500g minced meat: 4€
• 100g beef filet: 8€
• Meal for 2 at a normal priced restaurant: 35€
• Entrance fee Berlin clubs: 15€
• Cinema ticket: 12€
• Single ticket public transport AB: 3€
• Monthly ticket public transport AB: 86€
• Carsharing trip 5km: around 6€
• Fitness club monthly fee: 30€

Now that you have an overview of how much money you are going to spend per month in Berlin it is time to have some fun and spend money on great food.

*Since I love to keep my website as up-to-date as possible for you awesome readers, my content may contain affiliate links. All the links in this post marked with ‘*’ are such affiliate links. Even though I might receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you, all opinions on my website remain my own.

Find the best places to eat in Berlin in our updated guide.

Best Burger in Berlin

Maybe you crave a big, fat, juicy burger? If that is the case the just keep reading about where to find the best burgers in Berlin.

Best Schnitzel in Berlin

In case you fancy some really good Schnitzel now, we strongly advise you to keep reading about where to get the best Schnitzel in Berlin..