Cost of living from Melbourne Australia to Cologne

Hi All,

this is my first post so i will try and get it right. I have been offered a senior software engineer position for a automotive company in Cologne and am racking my brain on what sort of cost of living increase I would expect moving from Melbourne in Australia to Cologne or Düsseldorf. I am married with a little child and have been offerred 70K Euro plus relocation benefits including flights, temporary accom etc.. My wage in Australia is about AUS$90K. Is there any other aussies out there that have recently moved and can give me some ideas on what to expect. I have read a lot of other posts and have collected various information about salary, tax and living costs etc but if there are any aussies from melbourne living in germany they maybe able to give a better estimate, of course anyone can answer, the more the better.

By the way, I'm hoping to rent a 3 or 4 bedroom house outside of the city, preferably in a country area, could someone recommend some nice areas to live and an average rent and services cost for a house this size near Cologne or Düsseldorf.

Thanks in advance.

I'm afraid I don't know Melbourne or the Cologne area really well, but I do know Brisbane compared to Munich.

Munich is a little more expensive than Brisbane rent wise, but Munich will be a lot more expensive than Cologne. You could surely get a nice house in the country there for 1000 euros a month.

If your wife doesn't work, the amount deducted for taxes/health care will likely be similar to that in Australia, maybe even less if you take into consideration that you'd have to have private health insurance in Australia, whereas public would be fine here for you and you are forced to put 10% into pension, but if you leave before 5 years you will get it back.

You'll also get 150 euros a month per child from the government.

Petrol here is twice as expensive as in Australia, beer is less than half the cost. Otherwise things are pretty similar.

We live in an apartment in Duesseldorf rather than a house - so I'm afraid I also can't provide guesstimates for utilities on a house. But in my experience health insurance is way more expensive here (4-5 times the cost of similar coverage in Oz - mind you, that's not taking into account the medicare-levi). Groceries seem to be about the same. There are also extra costs to take into account such as compulsory TV/radio fees (approx Euro 22/month)
BUT australian wine is often CHEAPER here (less tax?).

I'm sure you've already discovered it during your research -but this site has lots of practical information:

www.newcomers-network.de

There are many gorgeous villages around both Duesseldorf & Cologne (10 minutes out of the city you're in Farmland!) Meerbush & Neuss seem to be popular near Duesseldorf.

Thanks for all the info guys, also the newbies page was a lotta help and now I have more of an idea what to expect. K