🏡 How much rent can I afford?
← Life & LivingPut in what you take home and the page turns it into a rent, at the share of your pay you choose — 30% is the line most people quote — and shows what each month has left for everything else. Every figure is in whatever currency you are paid in, because affordability is a ratio and a ratio does not care about the money.
The rent
What the same pay supports at each share
| Share of pay | Rent a month | Rent a week | Left a month | The published band |
|---|
Where the pay goes a month
| What | A month | Share of pay |
|---|
Every figure is in whatever currency you are paid in, and none of it is a rate of exchange: the page works in shares, so it says the same thing in any money. The share is measured against pay after tax, while the published measures compare housing costs with income before tax — a 30% ceiling here is a stricter line than a 30% line there. A month is a twelfth of a year rather than four weeks, which is why 1,000 a week comes to 4,333 a month and not 4,000. The upfront costs of moving — a deposit or bond, the van, the fees — are not part of the percentage. "Burdened" and "severely burdened" are the published measure's words rather than this page's opinion. And none of it is financial advice.
Why a share of pay, rather than a number?
There is no such thing as an affordable rent in the abstract. The same two-bedroom flat is comfortable on one income and ruinous on another, and what decides which is not the flat — it is the share of the pay it takes. That is why every figure on this page is a ratio, and why it says the same thing in dollars, euros, rupees, pesos or yen.
The share is also the one part of a housing decision you can check in a minute. Commutes, deposits, lease terms and landlords all matter, but the rent-to-pay ratio is what decides whether the other thirty days of the month go comfortably. Put in a real listing and the page says where it sits against the line you chose — and, more usefully, what pay it would take to pull it back inside.
How it's worked out
Two sums, one conversion, and then the same sums again for each share on the list:
rent a month = take-home a month × the share to keep it inside
what is left = take-home − rent − the rest of the housing costs
- Pay is turned into a month first: a week is a fifty-second of a year, so a week's pay is multiplied by 52 and divided by 12. Pay every two weeks and pay by the year convert the same way, with 26 and 12 in place of 52. A month is a twelfth of a year rather than four weeks, which is why the two are close but never identical.
- The rent you are looking at is converted to months the same way, whatever period it is quoted in. By the time anything is compared, everything is monthly.
- What is left is the take-home with the rent and the other housing costs taken off it. That figure, rather than the rent, is what the rest of life is paid for out of — which is why the page shows it rather than leaving it inside a percentage.
- The bands are the published measure's, on its own thresholds: housing inside 30% of income is called affordable, 30 to 50% burdened, and over 50% severely burdened. The page simply applies those words to the share it works out for you.
- The table of shares is the same arithmetic five times over, so you can watch the line move rather than argue with a single number.
Where the 30% line comes from
The 30% figure is neither this site's invention nor a law anywhere. It is the benchmark that housing policy and housing research settled on, and the measure that uses it works in three bands: housing costing less than 30% of income is called affordable, 30 to 50% is called burdened, and more than 50% is called severely burdened.
One detail matters more than any other here. The published measures compare housing costs with income before tax, while this page asks for what actually lands in your account — which is the money rent is really paid out of. So a 30% ceiling worked out here is a stricter line than a 30% line there. If you would rather see the numbers the way the statistics do, put your pay before tax in the box instead: the arithmetic does not mind which figure it is given, so long as every box is given the same kind.
Different countries, and different agencies within them, draw their own lines, and the lines move with local wages and local rents. That is exactly why this page lets you choose the share rather than deciding for you: 30% is the default because it is the one quoted most often, not because it is right for every city or every household. In some places the going rate makes 30% impossible; in others it leaves more room than you need.
Where these numbers come from
- The thresholds and the words for them — under 30% of income affordable, 30 to 50% burdened, over 50% severely burdened — are the ones used in the housing research. They come from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies' America's Rental Housing, which is set out with its figures in this summary of the measure.
- The arithmetic is this site's own, and deliberately bare: a share of a pay, and what is left when the rent comes off it. There are no tax rules, housing benefits, rent controls or tenancy laws in it, which is why the page works anywhere — and why nothing in it needs updating when a government changes its mind.
- The conversion of a week, two weeks and a year into a month is the ordinary one — 52 weeks, 26 two-week periods and 12 months in a year — and the page says so out loud, because "a month's rent" and "four weeks' rent" are not the same number.
None of it is financial advice. No figure here knows anything about your city, your lease, your commute or your landlord, and the page is a way of asking a better question rather than an answer to it.
Frequently asked questions
Should this be measured against pay before tax or after?
After tax is the honest way for a household, and it is what this page asks for: rent is paid out of the money that reaches you rather than the money you were promised. The published measures use income before tax, so putting a before-tax figure in the box gives you the numbers the statistics would give — and a 30% ceiling on pay before tax is a looser line than a 30% ceiling on take-home, even though both of them say 30%.
Is 30% a rule, a law, or a guideline?
A rule of thumb. It comes from housing policy and housing research rather than from any statute, and no landlord or lender is bound by it. The bands that use it — affordable under 30%, burdened from 30 to 50%, severely burdened over 50% — belong to the published measure, and different countries draw their own versions of the same idea.
What about the deposit, the bond and the cost of moving?
They are not in the percentage, and they are real money: a deposit or bond commonly measured in weeks or months of rent, an agent's fee in some places, a van, and a week of evenings lost to packing. Ask what the total to move in comes to before deciding the monthly figure works — a place that is slightly cheaper each month but costs two months to enter can be the more expensive one over a year.
Does the rent include the bills?
No. Rent is rent; power, water, internet, parking and contents insurance go in the other housing costs box. It is worth filling that box in, because those costs are the difference between what a place costs on the listing and what it actually takes out of a month — and the bar on this page counts them as housing, where they belong.
Why is a month a twelfth of a year and not four weeks?
Because 52 weeks do not divide into 12 months. A month is a twelfth of a year here, so pay of 1,000 a week is 4,333 a month rather than 4,000, and a rent quoted at 400 a week is 1,733 a month. Using one convention throughout is what keeps the weekly and monthly figures on this page agreeing with each other instead of quietly disagreeing.
What if I share the place?
Put the whole rent and the whole take-home in — or your share of both, so long as you are consistent. The mistake worth avoiding is a total rent against one person's pay, which makes a shared place look twice as expensive as it is. Two people each paying half of one rent is a very different share of pay from one person paying all of it.
What if my pay goes up and down?
Use a figure you can defend: the average of the last few months, or the lower end if it swings hard. The page cannot average a year of irregular income for you, and a ceiling built on the best month of the year is the one that fails in the worst one.
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