If you are moving to Munich (München) from abroad, here is what you would actually be arriving into, on the official numbers: income, jobs, housing, connectivity, taxes and who already lives here. Every figure comes from German Regionalstatistik, the Zensus 2022 and the Breitbandatlas, not guesswork.
Munich is fully urban, with the density, jobs and rents that come with it. Cost is the headline: the most expensive of Bavaria’s 96 districts to rent.
How Munich compares
Where Munich ranks against all 400 of Germany’s districts (Kreise); building-land prices are recorded for 394 of them. Each bar fills to the percentile shown; hover for the underlying figure.
Munich compared with Germany’s other major cities
The bars above set Munich against all 400 German districts, most of them rural. If you are weighing up job offers, the more useful question is how it sits against the cities it actually competes with.
| # | City | Net cold rent | Income / resident | Median wage | Jobs / 1,000 | Unemployment | Fibre (FTTB/H) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Berlin | €7.67/m² | €26,209 | €4,150 | 457 | 10.3% | 53% |
| 2 | Hamburg | €9.16/m² | €29,620 | €4,350 | 582 | 8.3% | 80% |
| 3 | Munich | €12.89/m² | €38,190 | €5,100 | 649 | 5.4% | 77% |
| 4 | Cologne | €9.39/m² | €28,764 | €4,450 | 617 | 9.1% | 66% |
| 5 | Frankfurt | €10.58/m² | €29,442 | €4,850 | 861 | 6.9% | 39% |
| 6 | Düsseldorf | €9.24/m² | €32,446 | €4,700 | 744 | 8.0% | 38% |
| 7 | Stuttgart | €10.39/m² | €31,390 | €4,950 | 723 | 6.6% | 41% |
Rent is the average net cold rent (Nettokaltmiete) from the 2022 census, income is disposable income per resident (2023), median wage is full-time gross per month (2024), jobs and unemployment are 2025, fibre coverage end of 2025.
Scale the average rent to a 70 m² flat for a year and set it against disposable income per resident, and Munich comes out at 28.4%, 6th of these seven cities. Düsseldorf leads the group at 23.9%; Frankfurt trails at 30.2%.
Read that ratio as a comparison device rather than a household budget: disposable income is spread across every resident, children and pensioners included, and the rent is the 2022 census level for tenants already in place. What it does show reliably is the direction of travel.
What living in Munich is actually like
Munich is where German corporate money sits. BMW, Siemens, Allianz and Munich Re are headquartered here, the two universities — LMU and TUM — are consistently the country’s highest-ranked, and every large American technology company runs its German operation from the city. That concentration explains the numbers on this page: the highest disposable income and the highest median wage of any big German city, and the lowest unemployment.
It also explains the rent. Munich is the most expensive place to live in Germany by a clear margin, and the census figure above — already the highest in the country — understates what a new tenant pays. Finding somewhere is the single hardest part of moving here. People routinely commute in from Augsburg, Rosenheim or the lake towns because the maths works better, and the S-Bahn network is built around exactly that pattern.
What you get for the money is real. The Alps start about an hour south by train, the lakes are closer than that, and the city is safe, clean and well run — the recorded-crime figure further down this page is the lowest of any major German city by a wide margin. The airport is the one weak point: it sits well outside the city and the S-Bahn takes around forty minutes.
Neighbourhoods: Schwabing and Maxvorstadt are central, academic and expensive. Haidhausen and the Glockenbachviertel are the desirable inner-city choices. Neuhausen and Sendling are where families who want to stay in the city end up. Bogenhausen is the quiet, wealthy east. The honest caveat: Munich is conservative and it is closed. Salaries are high but so is everything else, and newcomers regularly report that making local friends takes years rather than months.
Jobs and the economy
14% below DE avg
More people work in Munich than its size suggests. It holds 976,230 jobs at local workplaces in 2025, 649 for every 1,000 residents, the kind of ratio you only get where commuters pour in each morning rather than out. Those jobs are spread across 94,691 registered businesses (2024), a sense of how broad the employer base is. The unemployment rate is 5.4% in 2025 (German average 6.3%), roughly one in 19 of the local workforce.
The median full-time worker here earns €5,100 a month gross (29% above the German median of €3,950), before tax and social contributions. Read it alongside, not instead of, the disposable income above: one is gross pay for workers, the other is what each resident has to spend. Source: Bundesagentur für Arbeit, 2024.
Cost of living and housing
77% above DE avg
34% above DE avg
Housing is the line item that bites in Munich. Net cold rent (Nettokaltmiete) averages €12.89 per m² here, about 77% above the German average of €7.28. That is the 2022 census figure for tenants already in place, so a fresh lease on the open market usually costs more. Disposable income per resident comes to €38,190 (6th highest of 400 German districts, 4th in Bavaria). That is about 34% above the German average of €28,453. It is a headline figure, not adjusted for local prices, so read it next to the rent above. Building plots go for around €1,873 per m², the 1st highest of 394 districts with a recorded price, the bare ground before a brick is laid and the floor under every local rent. For scale, the median district nationally sits near €132 per m². At €12.89/m², a 70 m² flat works out to about €902 a month in cold rent (existing-tenancy 2022 level; a new lease costs more). Measured against local incomes, no district in Bavaria rents less affordably. You pay more to live here, but local incomes are higher to match.
The local housing market
The 2022 census sketches the local stock: 76.0% of homes are rented rather than owner-occupied; the vacancy rate is 2.4% (little to spare); the average home measures 73 m². At that vacancy rate viewings get crowded, so have your paperwork ready before you turn up. The stock is 842,898 homes in 146,323 buildings, about 5.8 per building, so this is dominated by apartment blocks. In the latest year 928 new dwellings were completed against 948 permits, which hints at how much new housing is actually coming through.
Who lives in Munich
Who lives here, by age and household type, on the 2022 census.
Age distribution
The age mix here leans young and working-age. 33.8% of residents are aged 25 to 45, the bracket most relocations fall into, with 13.4% under 15 and 17.0% at 65 or older. The rest of the 2022 census picture: 36.6% of residents have a migration history (27.3% are foreign nationals); 55.2% of households are single-person; 55.0% of adults hold an Abitur / university-entrance qualification. As a newcomer from abroad you would blend straight in; this is a properly international place. Local schools serve 137,846 pupils. Daycare places get easier to find as children get older: about 3.9% of under-1s, 51.6% of 1 to 2 year olds and 71.3% of 2 to 3 year olds have a place, so a place for a baby is the hard part, much less so for a toddler.
Internet & connectivity
Share of households that can get each speed (Breitbandatlas, end of 2025). Gigabit may run over fibre or upgraded cable; true fibre (FTTB/H) is shown separately.
99% of households can get a fixed line of at least 100 Mbit/s, and 97% can reach gigabit (1,000 Mbit/s) speeds (Breitbandatlas, end of 2025). Fibre all the way to the building (FTTB/H) covers 77% of households, with upgraded cable making up the balance of the gigabit figure. On mobile, 5G reaches 100% of households. Working remotely as a newcomer is straightforward; the connection is rarely the problem here.
Where Munich is in Germany
Recorded crime
How much crime the police registered locally, per 100,000 residents.
Police recorded 6,061 offences per 100,000 residents in 2025 (the Häufigkeitszahl), 19% above the German district median of about 5,096. It records reported offences rather than convictions, and runs high in places with lots of through-traffic (stations, motorways, airports, busy centres) where many cases involve non-residents. Treat it as a measure of recorded activity, not of personal risk for residents. Source: Polizeiliche Kriminalstatistik, BKA 2025.
Local taxes
Unless you start a business, local tax is a footnote here. The municipality applies a trade-tax multiplier (Gewerbesteuer) of 490% to the base amount the tax office sets, which matters only if you trade under your own name here. The property tax (Grundsteuer B) reaches you as a tenant through the service charges (Nebenkosten), and it was reset in the 2025 reform, so there is no settled rate to quote yet.
Moving in and out
growing
Munich is growing. In 2024, 108,120 people registered an address here and 95,963 deregistered, leaving +12,157. The inflow tops the outflow, which keeps demand on housing up. 6,747 people were naturalised here in 2024, a naturalisation rate of 1.6%. Some 54,445 people here hold or are seeking protection status, about 36.2 per 1,000 residents, the combined asylum, refugee and humanitarian total, with Ukrainians counted here since 2022. At the last election, 84.3% turned out to vote.
Just arrived in Munich? Sort these first
In a city like Munich, the practical stuff (internet, banking, a SIM) is easier arranged early than scrambled for on arrival.
FAQ: relocating to Munich
Is it easy to find a job in Munich?
Munich has 976,230 jobs (649 per 1,000 residents, including commuters) and 5.4% unemployment, roughly one in 19 of the local workforce, against 6.3% across Germany.
How expensive is Munich to live in?
The average net cold rent is €12.89 per m² (77% above the €7.28 German average), from existing 2022 tenancies, so a new lease runs higher. Residents have €38,190 of disposable income a year (6th highest of 400 German districts, 4th in Bavaria). That is about 34% above the German average of €28,453. It is not adjusted for local prices, so treat it as a headline only.
How built-up is Munich?
With about 4,844 residents per km², Munich is firmly on the urban side.
How does Munich compare to the rest of Germany?
Against the German average: unemployment 5.4% versus 6.3% nationally; income €38,190 (34% above the €28,453 average); building land €1,873/m² against a €132 median.
Is the population of Munich rising or falling?
Munich is gaining residents: over a year 108,120 people moved in and 95,963 moved out, a net of +12,157, about 0.8% of the population in a year.
Other cities in Germany
Source: Regionaldatenbank Deutschland (regionalstatistik.de), Statistische Ämter des Bundes und der Länder; supplementary data via Destatis GENESIS-Online. Housing, household, education and migration figures from the Zensus 2022. Broadband coverage from the Breitbandatlas (© MIG, BMDV). Recorded crime from the Polizeiliche Kriminalstatistik (BKA, 2025). Median full-time gross wages from the Bundesagentur für Arbeit (2024). Years per field: population 2024, jobs and unemployment 2025, income 2023, businesses, building activity and land 2024, naturalisations 2024, childcare 2025; rent, vacancy, ownership, dwelling size, single-person households, education and migration 2022 (Zensus); broadband end of 2025 (Breitbandatlas). · How we built this ›