Should you move? What would university cost? Find out here.
Four tools, built on the same verified figures behind the articles on this site, nothing scraped, nothing invented. Pick a tool, plug in your own numbers, and see what the arithmetic actually says.
By Lin Hai. Every figure is sourced city by city. See the method on the methodology page
Each calculator is built on top of one or more deep-dives already published on this site. The source for every figure is one click away.
Each tool shows its arithmetic instead of issuing a single verdict. The salary equivalent page works through five real city pairs, the move calculator prices out five relocations with their break-even points, the university tool runs five actual years at five different schools, and the expat income tax tool applies the 2026 resident and non-resident brackets to your own package. All four read from the same city figures used across this site, so a number here matches the number on the matching city page.
Which one you want depends on the question you are actually asking.
Use Should You Move? when you already have two cities in mind and a salary figure in at least one of them: it prices the relocation, sets the cost difference against the pay difference, and gives you the number of months it takes to break even, or tells you it never does.
Use Salary Equivalent when you are not committed to a move and only want to know what a number in one city means in another: enter your take-home pay, and it re-prices your costs at the second city's level and reports what you would need to earn there to keep the same surplus.
Use Cost of Studying in China when the budget is a tuition bill rather than a paycheck: pick a city, then a school, add the dormitory and the yearly extras, and it totals a full academic year.
Use Expat Income Tax when a job offer in China comes with a package and you want to know what the tax office keeps: it decides resident versus non-resident from your days in the country, then prices the eight tax-free allowances against the standard deductions and shows your net take-home.
Photo: Mantas HesthavenShould You Move?
Compare real cost of living and take-home pay between two cities (World to China, or China to China) and see whether a move pays back, and how fast.
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Photo: Vitaly GarievCost of Studying in China
Pick a city, then a university, and see real tuition and dormitory cost ranges across the schools in this series, sourced from official fee pages where we can and flagged honestly where we cannot.
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Photo: Towfiqu BarbhuiyaSalary Equivalent Calculator
Type your take-home pay in one city and see what you need to earn in another to live the same way. Any two cities, abroad included. Every figure comes from the city guides we research and verify ourselves, so nothing is scraped or guessed.
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Photo: Kelly SikkemaExpat Income Tax Calculator
Estimate the China individual income tax on your package as a foreign employee: resident vs non-resident, tax-free allowances or standard deductions, and your net take-home, on the 2026 rates.
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What none of the three can see: visa and residence permit fees, private health insurance, school fees if you have children, exchange-rate drift across the year you are planning for, and any gap between leaving one job and starting the next. Each tool lists its own blind spots on its own page. Treat the output as arithmetic, not a quote. The permit fees in that first blind spot are priced out in the visa and residence permit guide.
Looking for a specific city instead? Browse Cities →
Prefer to see it side by side? Browse Compare →
Checking a specific school instead? Browse Universities →
Ready to act on it? Browse Guides →