Cost of living
Average household spending is highest in the North-east and Centre and lowest in the South and the islands. Rent and energy weigh most in the big cities; food and transport everywhere. ISTAT and OMI are the official sources for comparison.
Sections: Rent · Utilities · Groceries · Mobility · Services · Scenarios
North, Centre, South and the big cities
The cost of living follows the country's economic geography. According to the ISTAT household consumption survey, in 2024 the average monthly spending of a household was highest in the North-east and the Centre and lowest in the South and the Islands, with a gap of more than a third between the most and the least expensive area. Within each region the differences between the regional capital and the province are often just as large: Milan, Rome, Florence and Bologna have rents far above the mid-sized towns of the same region, while food, eating out and services vary less.
What weighs most
The heaviest item in the budget is housing with water, electricity and gas, which in the ISTAT survey absorbs over a third of average spending (including owners' imputed rents). Food and drink, transport and eating out follow. The food share is higher in the South, a sign of lower incomes; the share for transport and restaurants is higher in the North. For tenants, rent is by far the dominant cost in the big cities; for those living in the provinces the car, unavoidable where public transport is weak, and heating in Po-valley and Apennine winters weigh more.
Official sources: ISTAT and OMI
For rents and purchase prices the official source is the Agenzia delle Entrate's Real Estate Market Observatory (OMI), which every six months publishes minimum and maximum quotations per square metre for each zone of every municipality, freely available online. OMI quotations are reference values, not listings: asking rents in the tightest city markets can exceed the OMI maximum. For inflation the source is the ISTAT consumer price index (NIC index for the whole population, FOI for blue- and white-collar households, used for rent indexation), published monthly. In GoNest's regional and city pages the data blocks show these sources with their reference period.
Missing: rent_sqm_month_center, rent_1br_center, transport_pass_month, meal_out_mid
Data
Sources
Updated: 2026-10-14
Updated: 2026-10-14
Updated: 2026-10-14
Reviewed: 10/20/2026 · by piero.avolio · rev. 1 · Period: → 2027-04-30
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