If you are thinking about moving to Berlin, you should know what to expect financially in the capital.
The well-known saying that Berlin is "poor but sexy" is really no longer true.
Especially since many startups have set up their headquarters in Berlin and thus attracted many international young people, prices, and fortunately also wages, have risen sharply.
But what kind of expenses per month should you calculate if you really consider moving to Berlin?.
Overview of the cost of living in Berlin 2022
| Rent | 400€ WG room |
800€ 50sqm apartment |
1.500€ 100sqm apartment |
| Internet provider | 20€ Basic connection 10MBits Flatrate |
24€ Connection 50MBits Flatrate |
24€ Connection 50MBits Flatrate |
| Mobile operator | 7€ Basic flatrate, no LTE |
20€ Flatrate with LTE and 5GB |
20€ Flatrate with LTE and 5GB |
| Electricity provider | 30€ Single household and 1.000kWh |
80€ 3 person household with 3.500kWh |
80€ 3 person household with 3.500kWh |
| Health insurance | 90€ Student insurance |
261€ 14.6% of gross income (50% paid by the employer) |
400€ Private health insurance |
| Groceries | 100€ Shopping at the discounter |
200€ Shopping at discounters and organic markets |
300€ Shopping mainly at the organic market |
| Eat out | 50€ | 150€ | 300€ |
| Party | 40€ | 150€ | 300€ |
| Transport | 32€ Semester ticket |
63€ AB monthly ticket |
63€ AB Monthly Ticket |
| Total | 769€ | 1.748€ | 2.987€ |
Monthly rent
How much you pay for rent depends on the apartment and its location.
The cheapest option is of course to rent a WG room. This also has the advantage that you have your first friends in Berlin.
A single room without furniture should be available from about 400€ per month onwards. If it’s rented with furniture, then you’ll have to work with ca. 500€ plan.
If one wants to allow oneself the luxury of living alone in a 2-room apartment with ca. 50 sqm, then you have to reckon with at least 800€ a month in rent.
If it is then also in a trendy area such as Friedrichshain or Prenzlauer Berg should be, the Kaltmiete can also be quite fast on over 1.000€ per month go up.
And for families who need 3-4 rooms, you should definitely go with 1.500€ a month cold rent and up calculate.
Then there are the costs for electricity, internet and television. How much they are you can see below.
Monthly costs for Internet providers
As already mentioned, the monthly rent is supplemented by the cost of Internet access.
Many providers have combined offers of Internet and telephone.
And if you want to have also still all transmitters in HD, then there are also for it with most offerers combination offers.
If you don’t need the Internet for business, then 10-16MBits are enough for normal surfing and occasional streaming of series and films.
If you need fast internet, we recommend offers with speeds of at least 50MBits.
1&1 Internet is currently our favorite for Internet in Berlin. There a contract with 50MBits costs approx. 24€ per month.
When you’re looking for a new Internet provider, take a close look at the fine print. Many deals are only cheap for the first 12 months, and after that the cost rises sharply.
Read on here if you want to learn more about internet providers in Berlin.
Monthly costs for mobile phone provider
Similar to your internet provider, your mobile provider depends on how much you value speed.
If you are looking for a bargain, then the tariffs of O2 are very good at the moment.
There it starts with already 22€ per month for strong 10 GB.
But if you are on the road a lot and also value LTE speed, then you should get at least an LTE contract with 4GB.
Here we recommend 1&1 Internet at the moment.
There the really interesting contracts start at the moment at 25€ a month for 10GB.
Read on here to find out more about the best mobile phone providers in Berlin.
Monthly costs for electricity providers
How much you have to pay for electricity depends on your personal consumption.
Of course you should all have switched from old power-guzzling light bulbs to power-saving LEDs long ago.
And your laptop should consume less power than a highly upgraded PC.
But on average you should expect approx. 3.500kWh for a 3-person household runs out. That is then about. 80€ costs per month.
A single household should even manage with approx. 1.000kWh to make ends meet. Then there are approx. 30€ a month on you.
Read on for more information on the best electricity providers in Berlin.
Monthly costs for health insurance
The costs for health insurance are unfortunately not so easy to break down.
There are two possibilities to be insured in Germany.
Variant 1 is the private health insurance and variant 2 is the statutory health insurance.
Without going too much into the topic, you can roughly say that as a permanent employee you are normally in the statutory health insurance.
However, if you are over 59.400€ per year, one has the possibility to switch to private health insurance.
With private health insurance, the monthly costs depend on factors such as age, health, etc. and it usually starts at 400€ a month.
But the costs can easily double if you have children, for example, or if you add extra benefits such as a two-bed room or treatment by a chief physician.
With statutory health insurance, on the other hand, the monthly contribution is calculated 100% from income.
14.6% of gross income is due as a contribution to statutory health insurance. However, the costs in the GKV are capped, while in the PKV upward almost no limits are set.
As a student you can expect costs of approx. Calculate 90€ per month.
If one of your parents is a civil servant, you can even be insured with this parent up to a certain age.
Monthly costs for food
Germany is a paradise in terms of food shopping.
Synonymous with this are probably the two world’s best-known discounters Aldi and Lidl.
We Germans are really known for spending tens of thousands of euros on a new car without batting an eye, but turning every penny twice when we go grocery shopping instead.
But also when it comes to food shopping, the trend is slowly but surely moving towards organic and quality instead of cheap cheap cheap.
Here is a brief overview of the most important foods and their price range:
- Milk (1 liter) from 0,68€ at the discounter to 1,29€ at the health food store
- Butter (250g) from 1,59€ to 2,59€
- Meat (100g fillet of beef) from 2,99€ to 5,59€
- coffee (500g) from 4,99€ to 8,49€
In general, you have to plan between 100€ and 300€ for food.
Monthly costs for going out to eat
You have probably already read several times that Berlin was so nice and cheap 10 years ago and now everything is so expensive.
With the rent that is also really true. But what surprises us all here in Berlin is that eating out is still absolutely cheap.
And the best thing is that the restaurants in Berlin are not only quite cheap due to the strong competition, but also damn tasty.
But of course the range is from very cheap (3€ for a kebab) to very expensive (25€ for a steak).
But if you fancy a good restaurant, you should be fine with 15€ per person (excl. drinks) reckon.
Monthly costs for party
Again, the range is very wide.
If you don’t want to party at all, you can get away with 0€ per month.
If you’re a student who likes to go out but doesn’t want to pay much for it, you can expect to pay 80€ a month. Many student parties come with free entrance and quite cheap alcohol.
And if you want to have a good time in one of the many famous clubs in Berlin, you should easily plan 50€ for entrance and drinks.
Monthly costs for transportation/mobility
To anticipate, we really advise everyone not to own a car in Berlin.
It’s not just that a car costs a lot of money. Also, you often reach your destination faster by public transport, because you don’t have to stand in traffic jams and then desperately search for a parking space.
That’s why you should consider taking out a monthly subscription with BVG.
For 95% of the people the AB ticket of the BVG for 63€ per month is enough. As a student, of course, you get it as part of your semester ticket for only 32€ a month.
Should you know that you are in Berlin for the whole year, then you can also pay the BVG ticket immediately for the whole year and then it costs only 60€ a month.
Summary Cost of Living Berlin
As you have already seen, the monthly cost of living depends a lot on your lifestyle (what a surprise).
If you really try to save in every area then you should get through life in Berlin with a monthly budget of only €770.
But if you already have a family and don’t want to miss out on a bit of luxury, then you should be able to get by with at least 3.000€ per month in living expenses in Berlin.
Now that you have saved so much money thanks to our help, it’s time to treat yourself to something special.
That’s why we recommend you our overview of the best restaurants in Berlin.