Most workation cost calculations fail at the same point: they use the rent of a local who has lived in their apartment for years, not that of a furnished apartment you book for four weeks. That difference quickly adds up to 30 to 60 percent. Here we calculate a month in Lisbon, Chiang Mai and Tbilisi, with ranges instead of single figures and with the items that tend to be forgotten.
What belongs in the calculation
Five items are enough: accommodation, workspace, food and daily life, getting there, insurance. Everything else (excursions, a diving course, the third dinner with new friends) is holiday budget and belongs in its own column. If you mix the two, you won't know afterwards whether the workation was expensive or the holiday.
On accommodation: the Numbeo rents (as of September 2026) reflect annual leases. For a furnished apartment on a four-week term, you pay significantly more in all three cities. That's why we give both figures.
Lisbon
| Item | Range per month (2026) |
|---|---|
| 1-bedroom apartment, centre, long-term | €1,100 to €1,900 |
| Furnished, 4 weeks, good location | €1,600 to €2,400 |
| Coworking flex desk | €100 to €200 |
| Food and daily life excluding rent | €750 to €1,000 |
| Return flight from Germany | €90 to €250 |
| Travel health insurance, 4 weeks | €30 to €80 |
A cheap restaurant meal costs €11 to €20, a cappuccino around €2.70. The monthly pass for bus and metro is €30 to €40. Numbeo puts living costs excluding rent for one person at around €760. Realistically you'll end up at €2,600 to €3,900 for four weeks if you live centrally. If you move out to Almada or the east of the city, you save €300 to €500 on rent.
Chiang Mai
| Item | Range per month (2026) |
|---|---|
| 1-bedroom apartment, centre, long-term | 12,000 to 24,000 THB (approx. €320 to €630) |
| Furnished condo, 4 weeks | €450 to €800 |
| Coworking flex desk | €80 to €130 |
| Food and daily life excluding rent | €450 to €650 |
| Return flight from Germany | €600 to €1,000 |
| Travel health insurance, 4 weeks | €40 to €100 |
Street food costs 60 to 90 THB (under €2.50), a cappuccino around 60 THB. That's why living costs excluding rent come to just under €480, even with air conditioning and a scooter on top. The flight is the big item: it eats up what you save on rent if you only stay four weeks. From eight weeks onwards, the maths clearly tips in Thailand's favour. Total for four weeks: €1,700 to €2,700.
A note on the season: from February to April the fields around Chiang Mai are burned and the air quality gets bad. If you come then, you'll end up paying for an air purifier as well, or leaving early.
Tbilisi
| Item | Range per month (2026) |
|---|---|
| 1-bedroom apartment, centre, long-term | 1,300 to 2,350 GEL (approx. €440 to €790) |
| Furnished, 4 weeks, Vera or Vake | €600 to €950 |
| Coworking flex desk | €80 to €130 |
| Food and daily life excluding rent | €550 to €750 |
| Return flight from Germany | €200 to €450 |
| Travel health insurance, 4 weeks | €30 to €80 |
A simple meal costs 20 to 50 GEL (€7 to €17), a cappuccino around 9 GEL. The monthly pass for metro and bus is 40 GEL, so around €13. Numbeo puts living costs excluding rent at around €580. Georgia is no longer the bargain it was in 2019; rents have roughly doubled since 2022. Even so: four weeks cost €1,500 to €2,400, and the time difference to Germany is two hours in summer and three in winter.
The three compared
| Lisbon | Chiang Mai | Tbilisi | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Four weeks total | €2,600 to €3,900 | €1,700 to €2,700 | €1,500 to €2,400 |
| Biggest item | Rent | Flight | Rent |
| Time difference | −1 h | +5 h (summer) / +6 h (winter) | +2 h / +3 h |
What tends to be missing
Three items hardly ever show up in a calculation and together easily cost €200 to €400: the rent at home that keeps running (or the effort of subletting), fees for card payments and cash withdrawals in foreign currency (1 to 3 percent, depending on your bank) and an eSIM or local SIM with enough data (€10 to €30 per month). If you have an apartment at home and don't sublet it, you're effectively paying rent twice. That's the item that makes a workation more expensive than any holiday, and it isn't in any Numbeo table.
So don't calculate with the best case. Take the upper half of the ranges, add your costs at home and then see whether it's worth it. Usually it is. But for the right reasons.