Relocating to Duisburg from another country? This is what a newcomer is moving into, on the official figures: income, jobs, housing, connectivity, taxes and who lives here, all drawn from German Regionalstatistik, the Zensus 2022 and the Breitbandatlas.
Duisburg is a city through and through, and it behaves like one on every measure below. Modest incomes stand out: among the lowest-income in North Rhine-Westphalia.
How Duisburg compares
Where Duisburg 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.
Duisburg beyond the figures
Duisburg has the largest inland port in Europe — counting all public and private facilities, the largest in the world — and that is not a historical curiosity but the city’s live economic engine. Over thirty per cent of all China-Europe rail freight passes through here, with something like thirty-five to forty trains a week running to and from Chinese cities, and a new trimodal container terminal has just added several hundred thousand containers of annual capacity. Alongside the port, thyssenkrupp still makes steel here on a large scale.
The figures on this page are the bluntest of any city in this guide: the lowest disposable income and the highest unemployment of the major German cities, and also the cheapest rent by a distance. Duisburg is where the industrial Ruhr’s decline landed hardest, and it has not finished working through it.
That said, the practical position is genuinely good. Düsseldorf is twenty minutes away by regional train and its airport barely more, Essen and Cologne are close, and the University of Duisburg-Essen brings a large student population. For someone whose work is in Düsseldorf but whose budget is not, this is the obvious trade.
Neighbourhoods: Duissern and Neudorf, near the university and the main station, are where most newcomers look. Ruhrort is the old harbour quarter and has the most character. Rheinhausen and Homberg across the river are cheaper again. The honest caveat is straightforward: Duisburg has real deprivation, and the parts of the city that are struggling are not hard to find. Choose the district carefully rather than by price alone.
Jobs and the economy
110% above DE avg
Duisburg roughly balances jobs and residents: 179,779 jobs at local workplaces in 2025, 358 per 1,000 residents. Those jobs are spread across 15,415 registered businesses (2024), which gives a feel for the spread of employers here. Unemployment measures 13.2% in 2025 (German average 6.3%), roughly one in 8 of the local workforce.
Median gross pay for full-time staff here is €3,950 a month (about the national median), before tax. This is a different measure from the disposable income per resident above: it is what people in work earn, not what each resident has left to spend. Source: Bundesagentur für Arbeit, 2024.
Cost of living and housing
20% below DE avg
26% below DE avg
Housing is one of the easier costs to swallow here. The average net cold rent (Nettokaltmiete) is €5.84 per m², about 20% below 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 runs to €21,102 (399th highest of 400 German districts, 52nd in North Rhine-Westphalia). That puts it about 26% below Germany’s €28,453 average. On its own that number tells half the story; the local cost of living does the rest. Building plots go for around €330 per m², the 72nd highest of 394 districts with a recorded price, the raw land cost that ultimately works its way into what you pay in rent. Half of Germany’s districts come in under about €132 per m². Scale it up and a 70 m² flat runs to about €409 a month cold at that rate (2022 sitting tenancies; new contracts sit higher). Against local incomes, that ranks 48th most affordable of North Rhine-Westphalia’s 53 districts. That is around 62% of what the same metre costs in Cologne (€9.39/m²). The trade-off is the usual one: cheaper to rent than most, but with fewer local jobs.
The local housing market
Here is the shape of the market, from the 2022 census: 73.4% of homes are rented rather than owner-occupied; the vacancy rate is 4.2% (a fairly balanced market); the average home measures 78 m². The stock is 260,092 homes in 82,037 buildings, about 3.2 per building, so this is dominated by apartment blocks. In the latest year 157 new dwellings were completed against 136 permits, which hints at how much new housing is actually coming through.
Who lives in Duisburg
Age profile and household make-up from the 2022 census.
Age distribution
26.6% of residents are aged 25 to 45, the bracket most relocations fall into, with 15.1% under 15 and 20.4% at 65 or older. The 2022 census fills in the rest: 30.9% of residents have a migration history (22.5% are foreign nationals); 47.1% of households are single-person; 31.9% of adults hold an Abitur / university-entrance qualification. As a newcomer from abroad you would blend straight in; this is a properly international place. There are 56,345 pupils in local schools. Daycare places get easier to find as children get older: about 0.5% of under-1s, 15.5% of 1 to 2 year olds and 41.6% 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
The share of homes able to get each speed (Breitbandatlas, end of 2025). Gigabit may come via fibre or upgraded cable; true fibre (FTTB/H) is listed on its own.
98% of households are within reach of at least 100 Mbit/s on a fixed line, and 81% can reach gigabit (1,000 Mbit/s) speeds (Breitbandatlas, end of 2025). Of that, 38% of households can get true fibre to the building (FTTB/H); the rest of the gigabit coverage runs over upgraded cable. On mobile, 5G reaches 100% of households. Working remotely as a newcomer is straightforward; the connection is rarely the problem here.
Where Duisburg is in Germany
Recorded crime
How much crime the police registered locally, per 100,000 residents.
In 2025 the police logged 10,395 offences per 100,000 residents here (the Häufigkeitszahl), 104% above the German district median of about 5,096. This counts offences registered by the police, not convictions, and is inflated wherever offenders and victims are not residents: city centres, major stations, motorways and airports all push it up. It reflects recorded activity in the area, not how dangerous the place is for the people who live there. Source: Polizeiliche Kriminalstatistik, BKA 2025.
Local taxes
Unless you start a business, local tax is a footnote here. The trade-tax multiplier (Gewerbesteuer) is 505%, but it only touches you if you register a business: the tax office sets a base amount, the municipality multiplies it. Property tax (Grundsteuer B) is passed on to tenants inside the Nebenkosten. The 2025 reform reset it nationwide, so a current rate would be guesswork and we leave it out.
Moving in and out
growing
Duisburg is growing. In 2024, 26,366 people registered an address here and 25,333 deregistered, leaving +1,033. Arrivals outnumber departures, so the rental market stays tight. In 2024 the district naturalised 2,649 residents, a naturalisation rate of 2.2%. Around 23,110 residents hold or are seeking protection status, about 46.0 per 1,000 residents, the combined asylum, refugee and humanitarian total, with Ukrainians counted here since 2022. Voter turnout last time around was 76.5%.
Just arrived in Duisburg? Sort these first
Duisburg sees a lot of churn, so internet hook-ups and bank appointments book out quickly. Sort the essentials before you land.
FAQ: relocating to Duisburg
How expensive is Duisburg to live in?
Net cold rent averages €5.84 per m², 20% below the German average of €7.28. That is the 2022 census level for sitting tenants; a new contract costs more. Disposable income per resident stands at €21,102 (399th highest of 400 German districts, 52nd in North Rhine-Westphalia). That puts it about 26% below Germany’s €28,453 average. This figure is nominal, not adjusted for the local cost of living.
Is it easy to find a job in Duisburg?
There are 179,779 jobs at workplaces in Duisburg, 358 for every 1,000 residents once commuters are counted, with unemployment at 13.2%, roughly one in 8 of the local workforce, against 6.3% across Germany.
How built-up is Duisburg?
With about 2,157 residents per km², Duisburg is a built-up, urban area.
Is Duisburg family-friendly?
By the figures: 15.1% of residents are under 15, local schools serve 56,345 pupils, daycare reaches about 41.6% of two-to-three-year-olds.
Is the population of Duisburg rising or falling?
Duisburg is gaining residents: over a year 26,366 people moved in and 25,333 moved out, a net of +1,033, about 0.2% of the population in a year.
Other places in North Rhine-Westphalia
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 ›