Montevideo Cost of Living: What a Visit and a Month Really Cost

Getting Around

The STM fare table sets city bus prices from 5 January. A 1-hour ticket costs $1.29 (UYU 52) with the STM card and $1.59 (UYU 64) in cash. A 2-hour ticket costs $1.94 (UYU 78) with the card and $2.41 (UYU 97) in cash.

The minimum top-up for the common card is $2.48 (UYU 100) and the first card is free, so getting the card pays for itself in a few rides. CUTCSA charges $1.59 (UYU 64) for its common ticket in cash only and cannot take the STM card on it. Paying cash costs about 23% more.

Getting from Carrasco airport to the centre takes about 20 to 30 minutes by car. Plan routes on the Montevideo map before you set out.

Sights That Cost Nothing

MNAV, the national visual arts museum, is free. It opens Tuesday to Sunday 13:00-20:00 and closes on Monday, as several museums in the city do. The Rambla costs nothing and runs along the water, and the beaches along it are free in season from December to March.

On Sunday the Tristan Narvaja fair fills a street in Cordon with stalls, and the candombe drum calls sound through Sur, Palermo and Cordon. Shopping streets and markets cost nothing to walk, so read our guide to shopping in Montevideo before you buy. A full day of the city's best free sights fits any budget, and Monday is the day to plan around closures.

Paid Sights and Tours

Paid sights are priced low. The Museo Andes 1972 ticket costs $8 and covers the 45-90 minute memorial visit in Ciudad Vieja. The Ciudad Vieja walking tour costs $20 for 2.5 hours with entry to three sights included. The hop-on hop-off bus costs $25 for a 24-hour pass over two circuits with an audio guide in six languages. The Punta del Este full-day tour costs $45 for a 10-hour small-group trip with hotel pickup. For more options and prices in one place, see Montevideo tours.

Where to Sleep

No official hotel price list exists, so read the rates on booking pages before you travel and compare a few neighbourhoods. Two rules change the bill. First, hotels charge 0% VAT to non-residents who show a foreign-issued ID, all year, and the stay is invoiced without VAT.

Second, a per-night tourist tax has applied to foreign guests since 1 October 2025. The lodging adds it to your invoice, and paying it activates benefits you can use during your stay in Montevideo. The amount appears on your bill, so ask at the desk what the line item is.

Compare Montevideo hotels with the tax rules in mind, because the same room can cost two travellers different prices depending on the ID they show.

Hotels: 0% VAT With a Foreign ID

Accommodation for non-residents is invoiced at 0% VAT all year. You qualify by showing a foreign-issued identification document at check-in, and the stay simply appears on the invoice without VAT, so there is no refund to claim later. This applies to hotels and to other registered lodging.

Present the foreign document before the invoice is issued, because a bill already raised with VAT is harder to fix at the desk. Book with the passport you will show, and keep the same name on the booking and the ID.

Restaurants and Car Rental: 9 Points Off by Card

Decreto 235/026 extends to 30 April 2027 the 9 percentage point VAT reduction on the services listed in Decreto 537/005: restaurant, bar and café food and drink, hotel food service outside the room price, catering and event services, car rental without driver, mediation in tourist property rentals, and guided visits and tastings at wine-tourism establishments registered with the Tourism Ministry. That last category covers a winery visit. You qualify as a final consumer paying by credit card, debit card or e-money, so the discount comes off the bill at payment with no paperwork.

Small providers under the 'IVA minimo' regime instead give a 7.38% discount on the total. The Tourism Ministry announces a fuller VAT exemption for non-residents in some summer seasons, so check the current season on uruguaynatural.com. A rental car and every meal should go on a foreign card until 30 April 2027, and check Uruguayan currency for the peso side of the bill.

Tax Free Shopping

Shopping works differently from eating. Tax Free runs all year at participating shops. Ask for the paperwork at the till when you buy, then claim the refund at the marked booths when you leave the country.

The listed exits include Carrasco and Laguna del Sauce airports, the ports of Montevideo and Colonia, the Punta del Este cruise terminal and the border bridges. Cruise passengers leaving from the Montevideo port can use the booth there, so keep the receipts with your passport rather than in checked luggage. Not every shop participates, so look for the Tax Free sign before you pay, and check shopping in Montevideo for where the big stores are.

Household Income in Montevideo

In the third quarter, the mean Montevideo household lived on $3,000.47 (UYU 120,938) a month. The median household, the middle of the distribution, lived on $2,272.17 (UYU 91,583). Income per person averaged $1,110.97 (UYU 44,779).

The whole country sat lower: a mean of $2,447.58 (UYU 98,653), a median of $1,910.79 (UYU 77,017) and $868.60 (UYU 35,010) per person. The figures are current values with no year-end bonus and no imputed rent, so treat them as cash income actually received. The gap between mean and median tells you income is skewed: half of Montevideo households live on $2,272.17 (UYU 91,583) or less.

For a single person planning a move, the per-person mean is the most useful line in this table of INE's household survey figures, current values without the year-end bonus.

Inflation

Prices matter as much as income. INE's consumer price index rose 0.59% in the latest month and 4.87% over the last 12 months. The categories a visitor feels moved differently.

Restaurants and hotels rose 0.78% in the month, with restaurants and cafés up 0.75% and hotel services up 1.86%. Food and soft drinks rose 1.05%. Transport rose 0.94%, driven by fuel.

Clothing jumped 2.97% with the start of the spring-summer season. Annual inflation near 5% means a budget drawn up from old trip reports understates today's prices, so rebuild it from current listings rather than from a blog post written two years ago.

Rent, Groceries and Bills

No official price list for rents, groceries or utility bills sits behind this page, and INE reports rents as an index rather than as asking prices. The consequence is simple: build those lines yourself from live listings and real shelves before you commit. Pick the barrios you would accept, such as Pocitos, Punta Carretas or Ciudad Vieja, and compare several comparable apartments in each.

Price a week of your own groceries in one supermarket and at one street market, the Sunday Tristán Narvaja fair being the obvious one. Then hold the total against the INE income figures above: if your rent alone approaches the median Montevideo household's monthly income of $2,272.17 (UYU 91,583), you are budgeting well above how most local households live.

Moving or Retiring Here

Residency, its documents and its fees are set by Uruguay's official bodies, and they publish the requirements themselves. This page prints none of them, so read the official pages directly and have a local professional check your case before you plan around a date. What this page can give is the yardstick for a monthly budget.

The mean income per person in Montevideo is $1,110.97 (UYU 44,779) a month and the mean household income $3,000.47 (UYU 120,938). A pension or remote salary well above those figures buys a comfortable local life on paper, but rent decides most of it, so price housing first. Inflation of 4.87% over the last 12 months also means a fixed income in dollars should be checked against the exchange rate every year, since what a peso buys changes with both.