Cost of Living in Milan

and this despite high prices for housing and household services.
Here in Holland, where I am now, I have met Italians who came here to work, but I have never seen a Dutch person who would go to work in Italy. We are always happy to go on vacation, not to work.
It seems to me that if you really want to live in a warm place, then Barcelona is at your service. And not Milan at all :) To live there, you must either be born Italian, or you must have an inexplicable passion for this country.

Do not move here. Worst city in Europe as far as CostOfLiving/Salary goes. The data here sugarcoats it.

A 30sqm STUDIO apartment outside of the city is at least 900-1000€ not counting utilities. A ROOM is MINIMUM 600-700€ without utilities, and that's if you're very lucky.

Average salary for a fresh grad is 1200-1300€ per month. Run.

The glass ceiling is 40-50k/year (2200-2400€ net per month). You're never gonna get more than that and it's gonna take you 15 years to get to that point.

Berlin has 8% higher cost of living but a fresh grad gets paid at least 40k there. It's shameful. Same goes for Paris, Munich, Frankfurt. Avoid this place at all costs if you care about your mental and financial health.

Cost of living has skyrocketed in the past 5-10 years to the point where the salary you need to live here as a single person is at least 70k (which would put you in the top 1%).

To Paul,
I was born and keep living in Milan (unfortunately),so I can solemnly claim that here's the only one who shot crap it's you. Most probably either you don't live in Milan or you have to be well-off to affirm what you wrote. Milan is the most expensive city in all of Italy and one of the most expensive cities in all of Europe, but with starvation salaries that don't even allow you to make ends meet.

The salaries are way lower than 1775 that's mentioned!
The tax system does not ALLOW for people to go above 4000.
But in fact, the average salary is like 1400 euros. Even in Rome the situation is much worse, it is 1200 on average!

People live together to make the ends meet. These low salaries are also the reason why the marriage age or pregnancy age are way higher than other countries, or the reason why a huge number of under 35 live with their parents (74%), compared to the EU country (average 35%) which is way higher.

This is also the reason why you see millions of Italians anywhere across the world, as if there is a war in this country.
In fact, the youth are working for the elderlies who are still alive at 100 and taking advantage of the tax system.

Just come to this country or city if you earn somewhere else but would like to enjoy the fashion, parties, etc. Anything non-work related.

Word of advice!

To expand on the point below: it's common for software devs (possibly the best paid professionals) in Milan to make <25k fresh out of uni, and then hit a ceiling of 40k ish after 10-15 years. Meanwhile, the same devs 3 hours north in Munich would start with 50-55k and comfortably hit 75k+ as seniors with approximately the same cost of living. It's ridiculous.

I am reading comments about people with 3-5 years of work earning 60+k. I am happy for you but you are completely outliers in Milan. The main national statistics institution says the average salary in 2022 in Milan is around 30k that, considering 14 monthly payments, consists of something more than 1.6k. Of course there are people who earns 60,80,120k but they are just a small percentile in the distribution and useless to make a good statistics. Milan is a fast and great city for whom can afford that. High salaries are hard to reach when you start with an average entry salary of around 25-27k. Again: there are also entry salaries of 40k but they’re just a tiny percentage of the total. The truth is that salaries in Milan are good but there’s a tremendous gap between gross and net salaries. Taxes are smashing the wealth of people and the government is planning to act on this - hopefully soon.

Salaries in Milan are not great but for sure the average here is too low otherwise the city wouldn't be so expensive.
The average Joe makes €1.600 but there are managers and executives alore with salaries anywhere between €100k and €500k.
Lets not forget that Milan is the business capital of the 7th largest economy in the world.
My salary is €120k gross for example. I'm 41 and most of my italian friends make more or less the same but it's true that there are a lot of people at my company who make a lot less.

I am Italian and I live in I am Italian and I live in Milan, I do a six months internsip for a famous auditing firm. My gross earnings are 800€ per month plus 100€ of ticket restaurant. I pay 600€ for a bedroom 3km far amway from Duomo. I've got friends working and living in London and Benelux, in addition, my girlfriend works in Paris.
In my opinion Milan is the worst city in Europe for purchasing power ahd working conditions even though you have a wide range of career opportunities. Furthermore, work loads in finance are massive, it is common to work after 8 pm.

@HG: your experience is pretty rare. The average person (actually no, the average college educated person) with 4 years experience in Milan make around 1,800€ net salary. To that you must add 1,200€ per month for rent and you are left with 600€ per month and still have to pay the ATM subscription, food, gym and the expenses when you go out on weekends. Very few people are able to save something, actually the majority get help from their family to pay part of the rent because otherwise they can't make ends meet.

1600 EUR is a common ok salary in mid/small Italian cities and towns where you can rent a 1bhk for 300-400 EUR. if the ceiling of your career is such a salary you shouldn’t live in Milan, period

I was born and raised in Milan.
What can I say? The salaries are even lower than 1.600 euros per month. I can ensure you not so many people earn that much, regardless of their studies and/or working experiences.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t really matter whether you got a diploma or you graduated from university: the salaries are ridiculously low, especially if compares to the prohibitive cost of living - as listed above.
The city center isn’t affordable at all for obvious reasons, but so are the suburbs, unless you’d be interested in living in a quite overcrowded neighbourhood with higher micro-criminality rates, and you would still be paying too much among rent, bills, etc…
The city isn’t large at all, it’s actually quite small considering its population which consequently makes it a very crowded and not so bike friendly city.
Furthermore, I solemnly believe it should be cleaner than it currently is: it’s sadly not rare to find garbage on the street as well as broken roads and sidewalks.
I wouldn’t suggest anybody to move to Milan unless they already had an extremely high income, otherwise life won’t be easy at all.
What many expats don’t understand is that nothing is gold here, even if Italy is geographically stunning as a country, but that doesn’t mean we all live well.

Europe mostly and Italy for sure, are not good places for expats to live!
You will be given the job you are deserved (by your resume). The cost of living is much higher! Especially the rents.
In the city center only paying the rent (not utilities) is at least 1500 euros!
You can go to cheap chain stores like LiDl or Eurospin but ... !!!
Jobs are awful! Purchasing power is relay really bad!