Cost of living in Munich

Hi to all. Thanks God I found this website. First time here and I need some info in a hurry, I have to reply by Tuesday. I am dipl. ing. (5 years) in mechanical engineering, close to 25 years in aerospace and aerospace related industries, and company from USA wants me to work as “technical sales� for equipment used in aerospace industry, to cover continental Europe. They are open for any location in Europe, the main issues are good transportation connections and high speed internet. Considering market, location, and my personal preference, looks like that Munich is optimum. I am aware that this is expensive city, but I do not have to be in a downtown

I would need a lot of info later, but most urgent are those regarding salary, apartment and car. My goal is to have at least same standard of living as in Canada (Mississauga), in other words to have net pay that will allow me that. My latest salary was $1000 net on pay check. All benefits, including private pension, were paid by company. Please consider that I have two kids at university (one is doing phd in northern Germany, he will be getting about 1100 euros a month but he will still need some support) and wife would be working, at least part time at the beginning.

When counting all noted, plus cost of living in Germany, please suggest what would be fair salary before tax, and what would be total cost to my employer. I am aware of some on line calculators, but my German is close to nil, and on top of that, there are some terms that I am not familiar with.

As for the apartment, I would use one room as office. I am not looking for any extravaganza, just decent one in are quite area so I do not have to worry about stumbling on weird guy or crowd on evening walk. As for location, I would prefer periphery toward airport with proximity of main highways and major railway hub, but with low pollution.

Also, I would need a car and as a company representative, I would think that normally company pays it. The car will be used mostly for business, but occasionally for personal use. I am assuming that company will be pay fuel (and other car related expenses) for business trips, and I will pay for my personal use.

Any suggestion and opinion will be greatly appreciated. Many thanks.

Freising or somewhere along the s8 (halbergmoos maybe) seem to be what you are looking for, maybe even Erding. They are all within about 15 minutes of the airport and near the A9 so you are connected highway wise as well. The city centre is probably closer than what you are used to in mississauga - toronto. Internet high speed dsl connectiontion with telephone line will run anywhere from 50 to 70 euros. I have no idea about cars because I do everything on a bike but I'm sure someone else can give you the heads up. As for apartments if you are trying to find one from Canada then immoscout24.de is probably the best bet to get at least an idea of the prices, but if your german is next to nothing then it might be hard to navigate the site. It sounds as though you probably want a three room apt. ranging from 70 to 100 square meters and that will probably run you, in Freising, anywhere b/w 700 to 1000 euros including heat and other costs (not including electricity). You have to be aware that you may not have a kitchen or furnisher included in the apartment so you may have to buy that, but it depends on the apartment. Any other more exact questions?

for flats llook at immobilienscout24.de

immoscout24.de and immobilienscout24.de are the same website.

Thank you for your responses. I have several other questions.

How much would electricity cost approximately?
When you say three room apartment, how many bedrooms does that include?
If I wished to receive 3000 euros a month, after taxes, how much (approximately) should be my monthly gross salary be?
For the general cost of living (e.g.: food, clothing, other housing expenses), what is the difference between Canada and Germany?
Thanks again.

If you want to see €3000 going into your account every month, you should try to get €5500 - €6000 on the gross. Your biggest difference between Germany and Canada financially will be healthcare. With a salary like that you could go on a private healthcare plan, but there are so many variables to coverage depending on how old you are, whether your wife will also be paying, etc it's almost impossible to give you precise advice. TT has a healthcare wiki which should give you a good overview to start with. Try to wrangle dental care and eyeware with your benefits package.

Berlin is known as the city with the most affordable housing.

When renting an apartment you might have to do some work to bring it up to a standard you're used to - like put in a kitchen (!) Not all apartments come with them, nor should you automatically expect appliances you'd expect as standard in Canada like a fridge and stove. You should also try to clarify at each place what they mean by room / bedroom. A bedroom to an agent / landlord might turn out to be a cubbyhole by your standards. The rent is quoted either as "kalt" - without heating - or warm, with. Our family of three pays €60 a month electricity, give or take. You might also be on a water metre, though it's not a gouge.

I find Canada and Germany to be pretty comparable for some items, way out of whack for others. Based on current exchange rates, gas here is around C$2.30 per litre for premium, a few cents less for diesel. We pay about €20 a month for high-speed internet, another €10 or so for basic phone line. You can get package deals from any number of providers. Phoning back home is cheap - I pay less than 2 cents a minute to phone Canada, and of course Google Talk is free. I like to go shopping for clothes either in Canada or hopping over the line in the States when I'm back on visits, because some items are really pricey. Basic Levis blue jeans here I've seen as high as €120 a pair. You may already know this but because of differing TV standards, if you like your tube you'll have to get a new one because a North American TV, VCR, DVD player etc one won't work here. Other appliances you'll either have to bring a 110/220volt converter or get a new one for Europe.

health care is the biggie here, back home its free (out of the tax dollars) but here we all pay for it. Like someone else gave a link to the health care page, there is also the search button at the top where you will find questions already asked on health care, paper work and apartment finding.

Living here has advantages and disadvantages. Costs are more, I noticed the rental prices, but I am from MB where apartments and houses are cheap compared to the rest of Canada. Apartments here are by rooms not bedrooms- so a 2 room apartment will be a main room and a smaller room for sleeping. Some have separate kitchens, some places have a corner kitchen, which takes room from the living/dining room. Shopping hours sucks- takes getting used to, and after 6 years here, I still whine about having no sunday shopping and having to hit the shop by 8pm. If you live in a smaller town, the stores sometimes shut even earlier than that. But on the other hand, its a great experience and the chance to travel on weekends to nearby places make it worth it.

silty1 is right. I find that dollar to euro Munich isn't all that different in costs compared to Toronto, except for health care. Regardless of what your premiums are, it is all after-tax dollars. If you have to take out private health care (if you make over 47000 eu) the costs can be ruinous, especially if you are (god forbid ) in your 40's or older. For example, at one point my husband and I were paying 1000 eu a month, which was 24000 EU in after-tax dollars. And that wasn't including deductibles (3000 /yr) and items not covered by insurance. I was fortunate enough to get back into the public system as I was right on the line, but at the moment my husband doesn't have health insurance. We are trying to get him covered by my policy, but because of his age we're having difficulty.

If you are making under 47000 you can get into the public system, in which case your family could be covered by the same policy as long as your wife is not earning money. You still have to pay hundreds of euros for it every month but the premiums are lower, in my case about half. Your employer will pay half of your insurance premium. In the public system, you don't see any bills. In the private system, the doctors will send you (highly inflated) bills that you have to try to recover from your insurer.

So... to make a long story short unless you are making a LOT of money (over 100K) you can't expect the same standard of living here. But there are lot of other benefits to living in Europe which can't be measured in dollars.

We don't have a car (can't afford one) BUT manage very well without one thanks to wonderful public transit, bike lanes, and train systems. You will need one for a sales job, surely, so perhaps someone else could advise you on that.

Good luck!

Ah, you should also have several thousand euros on hand to cover an apartment rental. You will need to pay a real estate agent to find one (yes really!) plus a very large security deposit, AND probably install a kitchen. You may get lucky and find an apartment where the previous tenant will sell you the one that's already installed. Allow for about 5k in your planning for that, perhaps more, plus the cost of furnishing it.

One other huge advantage that I guess you may not qualify for, is the standard 6 week vacation.

Maybe health insurance is more expensive here (I'm not earning that much money right now). How would other Canadians compare take home money on a salary of say 50K euro (80k CDN) here vs Canada? I always thought with pension or social security plus health care costs at home it worked out to around 40% depending on your tax bracket. And here it's also about 40-50% no?

Also I know you have a deadline of tomorrow, but if this is an important life decision take the time to read more on threads on Toytown and go through the wiki. Most of the very helpful information above has been mentioned many times, and there's lots of additional advice if you take the time to look for it. Off the top of my head there's at least one thread giving advice on how not to move to Germany, telling you everything you should not do when renting etc.

I have a feeling it's because we're all easy going friendly Canadians. But I could see an innocent question like in this thread becoming rather ugly.

I don't think you'd get quite so much deducted. Firstly, if you have kids and your wife doesn't work, you'll get some serious tax deductions there. Further to that, you'll get 150 euros each month from the government for each of your kids.

Even if your wife works part time, if she doesn't earn very much you can still offset your tax onto her a lot. It's a complex system, but in any case, I'm quite sure that with 5000 a month, you would come out with over 3000 euros in your situation.

You are never forced into the private system. Even if you make more than 47,000 euros, you can still opt into the public system. In fact, unless you have been earning over that amount for the last 3 years, you are now not allowed to go private. The advantage of going private is that for a single person, it is normally much cheaper than the public system, not more expensive.

The trouble can arise when you go into the private system and want back into the public one. That is tough to do. However, your premiums shouldn't rise excessively each year as you get older because they take this into account when you do your initial policy and part of your money every month goes away to pay for the extra care you will need when you are older.

In this case however, the guy is coming over with a family. He would almost certainly be better off going for the public system where his family would be covered under him for no extra cost.

Key to this could be if your employer has a German branch - you might have "fun" persuading a non-German company to pay the social contributions that a German employer is mandated to do.


That will apply if you are employed by a German company - even if it be it a branch of a US one (as in my case). If your direct employer is in US you might find they claim US vacations apply


depends on your employer. Initially my company had me pay fuel, oil etc and on business trips there was a refund to cover the fuel. Now they provide a "Tankkarte" to cover but business and private usage for which I pay a monthly "flat rate" for the privilige.

Thanks to all of you. Without your generous help I will have hard times. As for the office in Germany, there is nothing now. There are just some distributors. I will have to start from scratch.

Now, if I opt to stay in public healthcare system (if I can), how much would cost me a month, should I assume that noted cost is taken as a part of the tax? I am 54 and in very good health. What is situation with dental care, is dental part of public healthcare?

public health ins. covers just the basics. Dental on public covers repair work like fillings and a portion of crowns, but cleanings (as we know them in Canada) are extra - if you can find an office with a qualified Dental Hygienist.

Thanks Carm. When you say "public health ins. covers just the basics", apart from dental, what is situation with normal health care, are drugs and other stuff covered, how about sick days especially in case of lengthy illness, who pays them, employer or healthcare system?

You'll find plenty of useful information in the Wiki entry on Health insurance.

all depends on the type of insurance you get.
I am home sick today, and my bosses have to cover it,if I was sick longer (with a note) then my insurance would take over my costs.
Under public- basic appointments, hospital stays (shared rooms), prescriptions and such are covered, but not every office takes public. I work in a private dental clinic, and we only take private patients, if you want to see us, you have to pay out of your own pocket. Normally extras and special stuff will be not covered. But if your wife is not working at first, public might be the better option financially for you both.

I don't know how the health care is in Canada, but the public health care here is miles ahead of the public health care in Australia and the UK. You do however pay loads more for it. Calculate between 6% and 7% of your wage for this.

For your age, your premiums for private insurance will be in the neighbourhood of 500 EUR or more (each - your wife would need her own policy). If you go this route and decide it was a horrible mistake (as we did), there is likely no going back for you. The public system is not required to take you after the age of 55. Since you would need to be making under the threshold (47000) for over a year to qualify, that would put you over the age limit. Private insurance companies make it very, very difficult to get out of contracts, regardless. I strongly recommend that you go with public insurance. From my experience, this is the decision that will have the gravest impact on your net income.

After reading your and other posts and looking on some websites, I agree. Thanks again. Now, as for accommodation, I will ask my employer to pay me first several months furnished apartment, something smaller would be OK, and once I am there, I will start looking for permanent one. Seems to me that anything else is recipe for a big error.