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Expat Family Living

Edition 1 · August 26, 2026

The Family Relocation Cost Index

The same family, priced across every destination that has cleared verification. Two adults, two children aged 7 and 12, renting a three-bedroom home in the capital or the main city where families settle. Figures are the low end of each verified range, converted to US dollars at each destination's recorded rate.

Oldest figure Aug 2026

First-year cost by destination for the reference family
Destination To arrive Year, state school Year, international
Spain $635 $16,962 $38,667
Italy $898 $22,155 $49,693
France $4,836 $40,515 $98,860
Ireland $6,068 $40,725 $63,036
Netherlands $10,418 $56,165 $103,917

How to read this

To arrive is visa fees and residence permit fees for four people, plus the rental deposit where the deposit is set in law or published. Year, state school adds twelve months of rent and, where an official contribution exists, health cover. It assumes the children attend state school in the local language, which is free in every destination here but is a real demand on a child who does not speak it. Year, international swaps in the low end of the verified international school range for two children.

Every figure is the low end of its range, so these are floors, not forecasts. None of them include flights, shipping your household, furniture, a car, or everyday living beyond housing, schooling and health cover. A destination that has not cleared verification is not in the table at all, because a missing figure quietly replaced by an average is exactly how comparison tables become fiction. The methodology sets out the whole calculation.