Should you rent or buy?
A calculator that takes opportunity cost and country-specific taxes seriously, the only honest way to settle the question.
Pick a country to start. Every input is encoded in the URL so you can share a scenario, save it, or come back to it later.
What this calculator actually models
Most rent-vs-buy widgets compare a mortgage payment to a monthly rent. That answer is wrong, sometimes by hundreds of thousands of euros. The simulation here is built around a few principles that the alternatives ignore.
Opportunity cost is real
Both households start with the same liquid wealth: the down payment plus closing costs. The buyer spends it on the house; the renter invests it. Each month, whichever side has the lower outflow invests the difference. Whatever the renter would have paid in mortgage costs instead compounds in a stock/bond portfolio.
Country-specific taxes change the answer
Mortgage interest deduction (US), Hypotheekrenteaftrek & Eigenwoningforfait (NL), the 19% mutuo credit (IT), Box 3 wealth tax, bollo, and capital-gains tax on the renter's portfolio (US LTCG, IT 26% / 12.5% equity-vs-bond split) all net into the simulation once a year. Skipping these is the single biggest source of error in naive calculators.
Both sides use a consistent measuring stick
Buy net worth = home equity plus portfolio, with optional sale-side transaction costs you control. Rent net worth = portfolio net of country-specific capital-gains tax owed on liquidation. The two definitions are intentionally asymmetric and the methodology page explains why.
The inputs you actually have
Home price, down payment, mortgage rate, term, time horizon, expected stock/bond return, marginal tax rate, partnered status, NHG eligibility, filing status: the simulation exposes the levers you either know about yourself or can reasonably forecast. Defaults are seeded with realistic 2025 numbers per country.
Read the guides for country-by-country walk-throughs and the economics behind the model, the methodology page for the formulas, or jump straight into a country above.