Durrës vs Naples for couples
Durrës, in Albania, and Naples, in Italy, are about 438 km apart. Every figure below comes from the data behind our city pages: an estimated monthly cost for a couple, tax tier, annual climate, safety, healthcare, internet speed, language and residency rules. Durrës leads on cost, tax, safety and getting by in English; Naples on healthcare.
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Side by side
Source: the datasets behind our city pages. Cost is our model estimate (a country-level cost index scaled for city size); tax tiers are assigned by hand from each country's top marginal income tax rate and overall tax reputation; temperature from the Open-Meteo archive (2019 to 2023 averages); rainfall from TerraClimate (1991 to 2020 normals); safety and healthcare are our own country-level estimates; internet from the Ookla Speedtest Global Index; English from the EF English Proficiency Index; residency from our hand-reviewed residency dataset (not legal advice); short-stay entry from the passport-index dataset. For Albania, cost, safety and healthcare are country-level estimates from World Bank indicators, calibrated to our reference tables. Source: The World Bank (World Development Indicators, Worldwide Governance Indicators), CC BY 4.0.
Factor by factor
Cost of living
Durrës is cheaper: we estimate about €2,533 a month for a couple living centrally, against €3,438 in Naples. That is €905 a month, or 26%, less.
Taxes
Durrës has the lighter tax load: Albania is in our low to medium tax tier, Italy in our high tax tier.
Climate
Naples is 1°C warmer on average over the year: 17°C against 16°C in Durrës. Rainfall is similar: about 976 mm a year in Durrës and 947 mm in Naples.
Safety
Durrës is the safer pick: Albania scores 66 out of 100 on safety, 9 points above Italy (57).
Healthcare
Naples has the stronger healthcare: Italy scores 76 out of 100 on healthcare, 12 points above Albania (64).
Internet
Close: about 60 Mbps median fixed download in Durrës and about 70 Mbps in Naples.
Language
Main languages: Albanian in Durrës; Italian in Naples. English goes further in Durrës (some English) than in Naples (limited English).
Residency and visas
Both are rated comparatively open for long-term residency. The cheapest self-funded income route we track starts at about $385 a month in Albania and $2,718 in Italy. For short visits, 93 of 198 passports can enter Albania visa-free and 93 can enter Italy.
Which one fits a couple
If one of you puts cost (€2,533 against €3,438 a month), tax (low to medium tax against high tax), safety (66 against 57 out of 100) and getting by in English (some English against limited English) first, Durrës comes out ahead. If the other cares more about healthcare (76 against 64 out of 100), Naples does.
Size differs too: Durrës is a smaller city (under 250,000 people) and Naples a mid-sized one (250,000 to 1 million people).
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