If there’s one thing that we like to complain about more than anything else, it may well be our daily commute.
In fact, it’s estimated that in London, workers spend an average of 107 hours every year travelling to and from work, and spending hundreds of pounds doing so.
We’ve decided to see how the daily commute in London stands up against other capitals from across Europe, comparing the monthly cost of travel against the average net monthly salary to give us the percentage each city spends, on average, on their commute.
City | Country | Average Net Monthly Salary | Monthly Travel | % Spent On Commuting |
1. Riga | Latvia | £532.95 | £40.00 | 7.51% |
2. Belgrade | Serbia | £313.19 | £22.00 | 7.02% |
3. London | England | £2,140.02 | £136.00 | 6.36% |
4. Skopje | Macedonia | £291.60 | £18.00 | 6.17% |
5. Sarajevo | Bosnia and Herzegovina | £373.70 | £23.00 | 6.15% |
6. Ankara | Turkey | £495.38 | £30.00 | 6.06% |
7. Zagreb | Croatia | £704.22 | £40.00 | 5.68% |
8. Podgorica | Montenegro | £417.50 | £23.00 | 5.51% |
9. Tbilisi | Georgia | £224.03 | £12.00 | 5.36% |
10. Budapest | Hungary | £511.21 | £27.00 | 5.28% |
11. Dublin | Ireland | £2,009.02 | £105.00 | 5.23% |
12. Yerevan | Armenia | £250.47 | £13.00 | 5.19% |
13. Astana | Kazakhstan | £367.44 | £18.00 | 4.90% |
14. Kiev | Ukraine | £207.85 | £10.00 | 4.81% |
15=. Sofia | Bulgaria | £468.91 | £22.00 | 4.69% |
15=. Vilnius | Lithuania | £575.88 | £27.00 | 4.69% |
16. Lisbon | Portugal | £752.77 | £34.00 | 4.52% |
17. Athens | Greece | £609.89 | £27.00 | 4.43% |
18. Amsterdam | Netherlands | £1,975.98 | £86.00 | 4.35% |
19. Baku | Azerbaijan | £207.33 | £9.00 | 4.34% |
20. Chisinau | Moldova | £192.60 | £8.00 | 4.15% |
21. Tirana | Albania | £242.87 | £10.00 | 4.12% |
22. Pristina | Kosovo | £342.86 | £14.00 | 4.08% |
23. Berlin | Germany | £1,738.88 | £69.00 | 3.97% |
24. Reykjavik | Iceland | £2,131.88 | £81.00 | 3.80% |
25. Ljubljana | Slovenia | £921.91 | £35.00 | 3.80% |
26. Madrid | Spain | £1,282.24 | £46.00 | 3.59% |
27. Minsk | Belarus | £285.85 | £10.00 | 3.50% |
28. Stockholm | Sweden | £2,081.61 | £72.00 | 3.46% |
29. Moscow | Russia | £782.25 | £27.00 | 3.45% |
30. Warsaw | Poland | £765.35 | £23.00 | 3.01% |
31. Paris | France | £2,072.19 | £62.00 | 2.99% |
32. Bratislava | Slovakia | £802.04 | £23.00 | 2.87% |
33. Nicosia | Cyprus | £1,158.15 | £32.00 | 2.76% |
34. Oslo | Norway | £2,564.82 | £67.00 | 2.61% |
35. Copenhagen | Denmark | £2,341.11 | £61.00 | 2.61% |
36. Bucharest | Romania | £463.39 | £12.00 | 2.59% |
37. Tallinn | Estonia | £780.67 | £20.00 | 2.56% |
38. Brussels | Belgium | £1,709.57 | £43.00 | 2.52% |
39=. Vienna | Austria | £1,637.15 | £39.00 | 2.38% |
39=.Valletta | Malta | £967.23 | £23.00 | 2.38% |
40. Bern | Switzerland | £3,039.26 | £71.00 | 2.34% |
41. Rome | Italy | £1,309.01 | £30.00 | 2.29% |
42. Prague | Czech Republic | £793.77 | £17.00 | 2.14% |
43. Andorra la Vella | Andorra | £1,645.73 | £35.00 | 2.13% |
44. Helsinki | Finland | £2,119.70 | £45.00 | 2.12% |
45. San Marino | San Marino | £2,071.40 | £41.00 | 1.98% |
46. Luxembourg | Luxembourg | £2,557.83 | £27.00 | 1.06% |
47. Monaco | Monaco | £3,607.61 | £27.00 | 0.75% |
48. Vaduz | Liechtenstein | £5,126.25 | £32.20 | 0.63% |
How does your own personal spending on your daily commute stack up? To calculate the above, we’ve used the Numbeo cost of living database to find average salaries, alongside crowdsourced data from the Expatistan cost of living index to give us the average monthly travel cost.
We also wondered how these stats stacked up against some of the world's other major cities:
City | Country | Average Net Monthly Salary | Monthly Travel | % Spent On Commuting |
São Paulo | Brazil | £588 | £50 | 8.50% |
Osaka | Japan | £1,835 | £113 | 6.16% |
Washington, D.C. | USA | £3,157 | £190 | 6.02% |
Philadelphia | USA | £2,729 | £153 | 5.61% |
Tokyo | Japan | £2,290 | £125 | 5.46% |
Toronto | Canada | £2,078 | £88 | 4.23% |
Dallas | USA | £3,030 | £128 | 4.22% |
Los Angeles | USA | £2,976 | £98 | 3.29% |
Hong Kong | Hong Kong | £2,135 | £64 | 3.00% |
Chicago | USA | £2,734 | £80 | 2.93% |
New York City | USA | £3,332 | £97 | 2.91% |
Atlanta | USA | £2,806 | £76 | 2.71% |
Seoul | South Korea | £1,822 | £39 | 2.14% |
San Francisco | USA | £3,571 | £73 | 2.04% |
Boston | USA | £3,487 | £68 | 1.95% |
Houston | USA | £3,016 | £48 | 1.59% |
Mexico City | Mexico | £546 | £8 | 1.54% |