Moving to macau

Hi leaw and welcome to the forum!

Hope that you'll be given some answers soon.

All the best,
Harmonie.

Hello, leaw!

I'm no economics expert, but I can tell you about our day-to-day life here.

Rent: varies wildly by building and neighbourhood. We pay about MOP 15,000/month
Dry cleaning, 1 pair men's trousers: MOP 25
Grocery costs (primarily Western ingredients): MOP 1500/week
Box of chicken broth: MOP 10
Maid service 8 hours/week: MOP 300/week
Electricity: MOP 1000/month
Mobile phone plan: MOP 500/month
Movie ticket: MOP 65 - 175 per person

We budget +/-MOP 50,000 a month excluding holidays/vacations. That's for two people with no children. Of course, we eat out often and are living rather grandly.

It is possible to rent an apartment for MOP 8000/mo or even less, however it will be very small and not outfitted with modern appliances. Some of them do not even have a stovetop/hob. On the other hand, there are a lot of buildings which are quite expensive (MOP 25,000 - 40,000), where you pay for the name and/or the view. We live in a nice midrange apartment on Taipa-side.

Our second-biggest expense is groceries. Everything gets imported to Macau - whether from China, Hong Kong or points further. The food prices reflect that. Many of the things we like sell out quickly and are not available for quite some time -- so we buy extra while it is in stock. This may not be a problem for you, depending on your family's tastes and how often you dine at home.

And ranking third is utilities. You will find the electricity bill is quite high all year long, as buildings in Macau are not well insulated. In the summer, you pay for air conditioning, and, in the winter, for space heaters. Gas and water are quite reasonable.


Hope this helps!

macaogrrl.

Hi Macao girl,

Thanks for the info.Shall catch up with u when I transfer to Macao.Take care.

See u.

Leaw

My pleasure.

By the way, just realized I neglected the query about income tax. Here is a link with some summary info:

sino-mac.com/magnoliaAuthor/sinomac/recentFactSheet/recentFactSheetList/recentFactSheetDetail?uuid=d8a39131-0e34-4bb3-8cfd-001840a2d5e9

Definitely, look me up when you arrive!