The most quoted cost of living figure for Albania was recorded by two people on holiday, in shoulder season, across three cities, with the bills included in the rent.
12 Jul 2026 · 4 min · Nick Riesling
Search for what it costs to live in Albania and you will land on a number. 1,680 dollars a month for two people. It sits near the top of the results and it has been passed around ever since. It is a careful number, too. The man who recorded it tracked every cent in an app and published the whole list, and I believe every line of it.
He also did not live here.
He put the word in quotation marks himself, in his own title, which is more than any of the people quoting him have ever done. He and his wife stayed 10 weeks, September to November, in an Airbnb. They split those weeks across three cities: a month in Durrës, a month in Vlorë, and a week in Tirana at each end. Then they averaged it. Here is what that does to a number.
THE RENT IS NOT THE RENT.
Housing came to 2,056 dollars for 72 nights. That is 28.50 a night, or about 855 dollars a month, and that is what a holiday flat costs in the quiet season. A one bedroom on an actual lease in Durrës is 500 euros a month. His largest line is inflated by more than half, for the simple reason that nobody who moves somewhere rents it by the night.
THE BILLS ARE NOT IN IT AT ALL.
There is no electricity in that budget. There is no water, no internet and no phone. They are not missing because he forgot them. They are missing because an Airbnb includes them and he was in an Airbnb. So the most quoted cost of living figure for this country cannot tell you what a month of electricity costs. It is the first bill you will pay here and the number does not contain it.
THERE ARE NO CHILDREN IN IT.
No nursery, no kindergarten, no school, because there are no children. Every family reading that figure is reading a number that was never about them. There is, however, a line for beer. It is 146 dollars.
AND HE SAYS ALL OF THIS HIMSELF.
On healthcare, which is the thing people are most frightened of, he writes that they have no other experience with healthcare in Albania. The 54 dollars in that column is one dental cleaning. He is being straight with you. Nobody who quotes him ever passes that part on, and that is the actual problem: not the man who counted, but the hundred pages that copied his total and threw away his footnotes.
SO WHAT DOES IT COST.
A one bedroom in Durrës is 500 euros a month. A coffee is 1 or 2 euros. Dinner for two runs 15 to 30. The electricity, the water, the internet and the school are the four lines his budget could not hold, and they are the four that decide whether you can actually afford to be here. Those are in the guide: Moving to Albania.
A number that was never about you is not a cheap number. It is somebody else's holiday.
