Cheaper Rent or Shorter Commute? The Real Maths

Moving one ring further out of Zurich typically buys back CHF 800 to 1'600 a month in rent. The route season ticket takes part of that back, your own time takes more, and a village grocery basket quietly takes a little every week. Whether the move pays comes down to how many days you really travel, and whether one person commutes or two.

On our own indicative working figures, a 3.5-room flat costs around CHF 2'800 a month in Zurich and around CHF 1'600 in St. Gallen. That CHF 1'200 gap is your entire budget for getting to work — in tickets, in petrol, in hours.

How much rent does one ring further out actually save

Start with the gap — the only number here that arrives as cash every month. The figures below are the indicative values our planner uses for a 3.5-room flat and a monthly local pass.

The last column is the one people quote at dinner parties, and the most misleading in the table. It assumes you keep travelling on a local pass in a town you no longer work in. The moment your job stays in Zurich, that figure becomes a route ticket.

What does the commute really cost per month

Turn the sum around: the rent you save is the budget for the journey. From Winterthur that is CHF 1'000 a month, from St. Gallen CHF 1'200, from Uri CHF 1'600. Those are your break-even prices — the travel cost at which the move stops being worth anything in cash.

Written that way, public transport looks comfortable. No Swiss season ticket into Zurich comes near CHF 1'000 a month for one person, so on tickets alone almost every move in the table wins.

The car is harder to price and usually loses. A car is not its petrol bill: it is insurance, road tax, servicing, tyres, both parking spaces, and the depreciation you only notice when you sell. Add up a year and divide by twelve before comparing it to a season ticket. A garage at, say, CHF 150 a month plus paid parking at the office eats a fifth of the Winterthur saving.

What is an hour of your commute worth

This is the line that flips most of these decisions, and almost nobody writes it down. On a CHF 100'000 gross salary and roughly 2'080 working hours a year, an hour of your time is worth about CHF 48 gross. On CHF 80'000, about CHF 38; on CHF 130'000, about CHF 63.

Now count the extra minutes. Suppose the move adds 30 minutes each way — modest for a change of ring. That is one extra hour per office day: across a five-day week and roughly 21.7 working days a month, about 22 hours. At CHF 48 an hour, the commute quietly charges you around CHF 1'050 a month in time.

That is not cash, but it is the only honest way to compare two options that look similar in francs. Against the CHF 910 from Winterthur, 22 hours of extra travel is no bargain. Against the CHF 1'515 from Uri it is nearer an even trade — and Uri is far more than 30 minutes each way.

The costs people leave out of the rent-versus-commute sum

The second season ticket. If a partner also commutes, the transport line doubles while the rent saving does not. One rent gap has to carry two tickets. That detail alone moves several rows of the table from clearly positive to marginal.

The parking space. Flats outside the cities are quoted without a garage more often than people expect, and a space at the station car park is a separate monthly line. Drive to the station and you pay at both ends, plus the evening fares nobody budgets for.

The one-off costs. A rental deposit is typically up to three months' rent, and the standard notice period typically three months to the next official termination date. That deposit is a four-figure sum locked away until you leave, and the notice period means both flats can overlap for weeks.

The village grocery effect nobody budgets for

The average Swiss household spends about CHF 636 a month on food and non-alcoholic drinks. That number does not move when you move — the price of filling the basket does. A village Volg or Spar carries a smaller range at a higher shelf price than a full-size city Coop or Migros, and rarely has a discounter around the corner keeping it honest.

Work it like the ticket. Every 5% your basket runs above the city price takes roughly CHF 32 a month off the rent saving; ten per cent takes CHF 64. Next to the Glarus CHF 1'450 that is a rounding error. On a marginal Luzern or Bern move it is a real slice of what was left.

It is mostly avoidable: one larger shop a fortnight on the way home from the station, village shop for bread and milk. We have looked at whether village supermarkets are worth the premium and at where the cheapest baskets in Zürich are. Prices differ between cantons too, so check the canton comparison first.

Where the move pays, where it does not, and what decides the middle

It clearly pays when the rent gap is large and the journey short: one train, no change, under 30 minutes. Zurich to Winterthur is the textbook case — CHF 1'000 a month for a journey many already accept inside the city. It also pays when you work from home most of the week: the time cost collapses while the rent gap does not move.

It clearly does not pay when two people commute daily, when the journey needs two changes, or when the saving is under about CHF 500 a month. A CHF 400 gap bought with an extra hour a day of travel is a bad trade at almost any salary.

The middle band is a CHF 800 to 1'200 saving with a 30 to 50 minute journey, and there days are the lever. Take the Bern row: CHF 900 saved, one extra hour per office day at CHF 48. Five days a week is about 22 hours, roughly CHF 1'050 of time — more than the rent saved. Three days is about 13 hours, roughly CHF 625, comfortably inside it. Two days is about nine hours, around CHF 415, and the move looks obvious.

How to run the numbers for your own move

1. Write down the real rent gap. Not the town's advertised range, but the flat you would actually take, service charges included, against the rent you pay now.
2. Price the exact journey. Your station to your office, door to door, at the hour you would really leave, using the season ticket price for that route.
3. Multiply by the number of commuters. Two people travelling means two tickets against one rent gap.
4. Add the car honestly. Insurance, servicing, tyres, depreciation, both parking spaces, divided by twelve.
5. Price your hour. Gross salary divided by about 2'080, times the extra travel hours per month at realistic office attendance.
6. Add a grocery buffer. If the new town has no full-size supermarket, assume the basket runs a few per cent higher until proven otherwise.
7. Re-run it at five days a week. If it still works, the move is robust. If only the two-day version works, you are betting on a policy.

This is general information about how the Swiss system works, not individual advice — your canton, municipality and situation change the numbers.

What Eini is building for this decision

Housing is Phase 4 of our roadmap, and this sum is what it is being built to do. The module will take your current town and rent, gross income, work location, household size and how many days each person commutes, then score target towns on the full picture rather than rent alone. Our algorithm will route the real journeys — public transport and car — so cost and time come from a timetable rather than a guess, and rank Swiss towns by opportunity. It will watch the rental market and alert you when a match appears. Groceries and meal planning are live today.