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LV · RIGALocal facts

Living in Riga.

Latvia's capital and largest city, with 588,911 residents at the start of 2026, almost a third of the country's population. Winters are cold and summers mild, with five pleasant months a year. A one-bedroom flat in the central Centrs district is advertised at a median €800 a month; about 14% of residents are Latvian non-citizens and 6% foreign nationals.

VerifiedUpdated

Population 588,911

Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia (CSP) — table IRS031, population at the beginning of the year in regions, cities, towns and municipalities (Riga, LV0001000)

Official source

Data as of
Jan 1, 2026
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
PxWeb API query of IRS031 (table updated 2 June 2026): indicator POP_SY (population at the beginning of the year), territorial unit Riga (LV0001000), year 2026 = 588,911 usual residents on 1 January 2026 (Latvia 1,845,096; Riga on 1 January 2025: 595,053). Response saved as json-stat2 and read on 2026-10-19.
Notes
CSP changed its estimation model in 2025 (a SoL-logit model instead of a logistic regression) and recalculated 2023 and 2024; the estimate was revised on 2 October 2025 so that usual residents now include foreign students. It counts people living in Latvia or intending to for at least 12 months, which differs from the declared-residence count of the population register.
· Europe/Riga· Latvia rules apply

LV · RIGA

01

At a glance

The headline numbers for Riga — each with its own source and freshness. A live official figure is not the same as a survey estimate or a 30-year climate normal.

01

Cost of living

8.1/10
$873/mo
2025curated

Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia — Household Budget Survey 2025: mean monthly consumption expenditure of one-person households by ECOICOP v2 division (table MBI031)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of
Dec 31, 2025
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
One-person households spent €798.57 a month in the Central Statistical Bureau's 2025 Household Budget Survey (CSP table MBI031, published 17 August 2026; consumption in cash and in kind, imputed rent not included). The survey is current-year, so no inflation uplift applies. Actual rentals are removed: Eurostat's HBS 2020 structure for Latvian one-adult households puts actual rentals at 23 per mille of consumption that includes 196 per mille of imputed rent, i.e. 23 / 804 = 2.86% of consumption without imputed rent, = €22.84 a month. €798.57 − €22.84 = €775.73, × 1.1253 USD/EUR (ECB, 2026-10-16) = $873. The 13 ECOICOP v2 divisions are summed in cost-breakdown.
Notes
The 2025 survey (2,063 responding households, 20% response rate) is Latvia's first to use ECOICOP version 2 and, by the CSP's own warning, is not fully comparable with 2019 and earlier. One-person households include many pensioners, so the basket is an average for people living alone, not a working remote worker's. The rent split is the weakest input, because the CSP does not publish rentals by household type; using the all-household 2025 share of rentals instead (€164.65 of €7,428.08 a year, 2.2%) would remove €17.70 rather than €22.84, a $6 difference. Cross-check: the CSP's 2019 one-person figure (€513.62 a month) lifted by Latvia's HICP from the 2019 to the 2025 annual average (108.53 → 150.85, ×1.390) gives €714, 11% below the 2025 survey figure.

02

Rent, 1–3 bed

6.5/10
$619–$1,913

/mo

2026curated

Global Property Guide — Latvia rental yields, Riga median asking rents (data from SS.lv and City24), 2026 Q2

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of
Jun 30, 2026
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Global Property Guide’s Riga table of median monthly asking rents, 2026 Q2 (page read 2026-10-19), converted at 1.1253 USD per EUR (ECB euro reference rate of 2026-10-16). Centre = the Centrs district: studio €470, 1-bedroom €800, 2-bedroom €1,400, 3-bedroom €1,700 (→ $529, $900, $1,575, $1,913). Outside = Āgenskalns, the one district outside the centre that the table gives: studio €340, 1-bedroom €550, 2-bedroom €1,000 (→ $383, $619, $1,125). Vecrīga (Old Riga) is tabulated separately at €850, €1,450 and €2,500 for 1-, 2- and 3-bedroom flats.
Notes
Asking prices from SS.lv and City24 listings as summarised by GPG, not transactions. Latvia publishes no official rental statistics: the Central Statistical Bureau’s database has no table of rent levels, and the State Land Service’s market data cover sale transactions only. The "outside" column is a single district, Āgenskalns; the table has no figure for the Soviet-era estates (Purvciems, Imanta, Pļavnieki, Ziepniekkalns), so the outside cells are one district’s reading of the non-central market, and there is no 3-bedroom outside cell. The Latvian room count excludes the kitchen: GPG’s "1-Bedroom" corresponds to a Latvian 2-room flat. Corroboration is partial and not like-for-like: Latio, for new-build projects in the first half of 2026, gives €540 for a 1-room and €760 for a 2-room flat in the centre, €460 and €720 in Āgenskalns, €500 for a 1-room flat in Imanta and €610 for a 2-room flat in Teika. GPG’s citywide 2-bedroom median (€1,300) is high against these and against Arco’s €350–550 for centre one- and two-room flats, so the larger-flat cells are the least reliable.

03

Freelancer tax

7.0/10
20.2%
2026curated

SettleMetric tax engine over official 2026 rules (Uzņēmumu ienākuma nodokļa likums; VID — board-member remuneration, social insurance and wage tax)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of
Jan 1, 2026
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Best eligible scheme = lv-sia-distributed-profit (SIA, whole profit distributed) at €60,000 revenue with 10% deductible expenses (net profit €54,000). Monthly turnover is €5,000, above the €3,900 test, so the sole director must be paid at least the minimum wage or is deemed to earn it: salary 12 × €780 = €9,360 (a deductible company cost and the owner's own income), employer social insurance 23.59% × 780 × 12 = €2,208.00 (deductible), employee social insurance 10.50% × 780 × 12 = €982.80, wage tax 12 × 25.5% × (780 − 81.90 − 550 non-taxable minimum) = 12 × 37.77 = €453.24. Distributable profit = 54,000 − 9,360 − 2,208.00 = €42,432.00, corporate tax 20% of the gross distribution = €8,486.40; the dividend itself carries no personal tax. Levies €12,130.44 → 20.2% of revenue. The microenterprise tax is not available at this size (turnover limit = the €50,000 VAT threshold), so the company route is the lowest-burden option open to a resident freelancer.
Notes
The ordinary self-employed route (lv-self-employed-general) at the same profile costs €17,579.29, i.e. 29.3%: social insurance €7,372.20 (31.07% on the €780-a-month minimum base plus 10% of the profit above it) and income tax 25.5% × (54,000 − 7,372.20 − 6,600) = €10,207.09, with the contributions deductible. The microenterprise tax would be 25.0% of turnover (€15,000) but is closed to a freelancer above €50,000 of turnover or with VAT-registered business customers in other EU states. A non-EU remote worker on the remote-work long-stay visa pays a flat 15% income tax for the first 365 days of Latvian residency, but VID treats such a person as an employee of a foreign employer owing 34.09% social insurance, so the burden is €23,747.31 (39.6%) unless the contributions are paid in another state, in which case it is €8,100 (13.5%) (lv-remote-work-visa-15pct). The company figure excludes accounting and filing costs and buys social-insurance rights only on the minimum-wage base; below the €3,900-a-month turnover line there is no director's salary and the burden is a flat 20.0% (with no insurance cover at all), while just above it the same company pays about 22.8% (a profile without expenses), so the figure moves with the turnover test.

Safety

5.8/10
3.55/100k
2025official

Ministry of the Interior Information Centre (IeM IC) — Kriminālā statistika par 2025. gadu, offences registered in Riga by Criminal Law article

Official source

Data as of
Dec 31, 2025
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Offences registered in Riga in 2025 under Criminal Law section 116 (murder) 15, section 117 (murder under aggravating circumstances) 3 and section 118 (murder under especially aggravating circumstances) 3 = 21, from the annual workbook NN_2025.xlsx (sheet XII nodaļa, distribution by State city; read 2026-10-19), divided by Riga’s 2025 annual average population of 591,982 (CSP IRS031, POP) and multiplied by 100,000 = 3.55.
Notes
Registered offences by the place where they were committed, not victims by residence, and the register may include attempts along with completed offences, so the figure can overstate the completed-homicide rate and cannot be set directly against UNODC or Eurostat series. The same workbook gives 53 such offences for all of Latvia (34 + 13 + 6), 2.9 per 100,000 on the national average population, so Riga reads about a quarter above the country.

Air quality

8.5/10
8.8 µg/m³
2025open data

European Environment Agency — Air Quality Statistics (E1a validated), station LV0026A "Riga Kronvalda boulevard"

Open data

Data as of
Dec 31, 2025
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Validated (E1a, verification flag 1) 2025 annual mean at station LV0026A, Riga Kronvalda boulevard, an urban background site at 56.9548°N 24.1048°E (3 m): 8.812 µg/m³ on 99.28% data coverage, hourly data, queried from the EEA statistics service on 2026-10-19 (calculated 2026-10-15). It is the only Riga station with PM2.5 in the EEA’s annual statistics. Earlier years at the same station: 8.920 µg/m³ in 2024 (99.35%), 8.468 in 2023 (96.95%) and 9.245 in 2022 (97.76%). The WHO Ambient Air Quality Database v8.0 (2026) carries the same series for Riga/LVA — 9.24, 8.47 and 8.92 for 2022–2024 — and has no 2025 row yet.
Notes
ONE STATION: an urban-background site near the centre, so it describes the city’s general level, not traffic corridors. Riga’s only other station in the EEA statistics, LV0027A Riga-Valdemara street (traffic, urban), reports PM10, NO2 and benzene but no PM2.5 in 2025; the WHO row counts both stations (n=2) because it pools three pollutants, but its PM2.5 value is the Kronvalda station alone. 8.8 µg/m³ is above the WHO 2021 guideline of 5 µg/m³ and below the EU limit of 10 µg/m³ that applies from 2030. Kronvalda’s 2025 PM10 annual mean was 16.2 µg/m³.

Internet

3.0/10
34 Mbps
2023open data

M-Lab NDT country aggregates for Latvia

Open data

Data as of
Dec 31, 2023
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Median of the 343 daily country-median download values for LV in 2023 (18,575 download tests; daily medians ranged 10.1-63.2 Mbps). 2023 is the year used across the dataset.
Notes
M-Lab NDT is a single-stream test and reads well below advertised fibre speeds; it is comparable only within this criterion.

English

7.0/10
High
2025survey

EF English Proficiency Index 2025 — Latvia (rank 16/123, score 598, High band)

Research

Data as of
Nov 1, 2025
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Notes
Own band informed by EF EPI 2025 (attribution: EF Education First): Latvia ranks 16th of 123 with 598 points, at the top of EF's High band and two points short of Very High (600); the global average is 488 and Riga scores 611. By skill: reading 605, listening 586, writing 551, speaking 542. Banded 'high' rather than 'very-high' because Latvian is the sole official language (State Language Law, art. 3(1)) and state and municipal bodies accept documents only in Latvian, a foreign-language document needing a translation (art. 10(2)-(3), likumi.lv/ta/id/14740), so English will not carry a resident through every government office. Eurostat's Adult Education Survey 2022 (self-reported, not English-specific) shows 95.0% of 25-64-year-olds in Latvia know at least one foreign language, and Eurostat attributes the high share among older people to Russian and among younger people to English.

Private health

no verified data
2026official

Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (PMLP) — Getting a long-term visa for remote work: health insurance requirement

Official source

Data as of
Oct 19, 2026
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Notes
Not priced. No Latvian insurer publishes a premium for a comprehensive individual policy. BTA's private-persons page is written for employers and gives programme descriptions with benefit limits but no premiums; Balta lists health cover only for companies; ERGO describes its PRIORA and PRIORA PLUS programmes without prices and offers a quote-request form; Compensa (Compensa Seesam and Compensa Life) offers a quote form and a PDF application, again without prices. The one public price list found is If's, on its application page, by age band. For a 35-year-old (band 24-36) it shows EUR 420 a year for programme 1 (about USD 473 at 1.1253) or EUR 770 a year with paid operations for programme 2 (about USD 866), valid only for people who have not held an If private health policy before. It is not a comprehensive policy and is not recorded as the value: the total insured sum is EUR 3,000, it pays the statutory patient co-payments in the state system, 50% of paid outpatient services and diagnostics, and in programme 2 paid operations up to EUR 450; cover applies in the Baltic states, starts one month after purchase and runs 12 months. For reference, the remote-work long-stay visa (PMLP) requires a policy valid in Latvia and the Schengen states with a minimum liability limit of EUR 42,600 (Cabinet Regulation 591, point 7.2; the minimum cover is urgent care, treatment of life-threatening conditions in hospital, transport and repatriation). If's foreigners' policy built to that rule lists a first-year price of EUR 55 for ages up to 64 (about USD 62; EUR 50 deductible) and EUR 300 for ages 65 to 80, but it covers emergencies only.
What the tags meanofficial — live figure from a government or authorityopen data — open dataset (Eurostat, EEA, M-Lab, UdSC…)survey — survey or index estimatecurated — SettleMetric-assembled estimate — open the source for the method

02

What it costs you per month

A planning estimate: real asking rent plus a cost-of-living basket scaled to your household. Not a quote.

Household
Lifestyle
Location
Estimated total
$1,492/mo

≈ $17,904 / year

Where it goes
  • Rent (1-bed)$619
  • Food & non-alcoholic beverages$237
  • Housing utilities & upkeep (water, electricity, gas, heating, maintenance)$164
  • Health (out-of-pocket)$74
  • Transport$65
  • Recreation, sport & culture$62
  • Information & communication$48
  • Other goods & services (personal care, social protection, misc.)$45
  • Restaurants & accommodation$44
  • Furnishings & household equipment$43
  • Clothing & footwear$32
  • Alcoholic beverages & tobacco$29
  • Insurance & financial services$26
  • Education$4
  • Living costs$873

Rent from the asking-rent matrix below. Living costs scale a one-person basket ($873/mo) by household size and lifestyle; the equivalence factors are our assumption. Schooling and one-off setup are excluded.

03

Cost of living

What a single person spends each month — food, utilities, transport, eating out and the rest — excluding rent.

Typical monthly spending (national average)

Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia — Household Budget Survey 2025, one-person households: consumption expenditure by ECOICOP v2 division (table MBI031)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of
Dec 31, 2025
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Monthly euro spending of one-person households by ECOICOP v2 division in the CSP's 2025 survey (food 210.19, housing 168.49, health 65.37, transport 57.82, recreation 55.42, information and communication 42.92, personal care and miscellaneous 40.03, restaurants and accommodation 39.22, furnishings 38.58, clothing 28.22, alcohol and tobacco 25.70, insurance and financial services 22.93, education 3.68; total 798.57), each × 1.1253 USD/EUR (ECB, 2026-10-16). Actual rentals (€22.84, see cost-of-living-single) are taken out of the housing division, leaving €145.64; the items sum to $873, the cost-of-living-single figure.
Notes
The CSP publishes household type only at the level of the 13 divisions, so the housing line cannot be split further for one-person households (energy, water, maintenance). For all households in 2025, electricity, gas, solid fuels and heat were 55% of the housing division and water, refuse, sewage and building charges 26%.
total873 USD/mo
01Food & non-alcoholic beverages237 USD
02Housing utilities & upkeep (water, electricity, gas, heating, maintenance)164 USD
03Health (out-of-pocket)74 USD
04Transport65 USD
05Recreation, sport & culture62 USD
06Information & communication48 USD
07Other goods & services (personal care, social protection, misc.)45 USD
08Restaurants & accommodation44 USD
09Furnishings & household equipment43 USD
10Clothing & footwear32 USD
11Alcoholic beverages & tobacco29 USD
12Insurance & financial services26 USD
13Education4 USD

Latvia's household-budget basket for a single person, excluding rent. Non-rent costs vary little between cities — the city-specific part is rent, shown under Housing below.

01Cost of living (single, excl. rent)country-level873USD/month, single person, excluding rent8.1

What this measures

Monthly cost of a defined single-person basket (food, transport, utilities, mobile+internet, modest leisure) excluding rent, curated from national statistics office price data and large local retailers' published prices, converted to USD at the ECB rate recorded in fx-rates. The method field of each value itemizes the basket inputs.

Lower is betterUSD/month, single person, excluding rentre-verified every 365 days

Curated by SettleMetric

Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia — Household Budget Survey 2025: mean monthly consumption expenditure of one-person households by ECOICOP v2 division (table MBI031)

Data as of
Dec 31, 2025
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
One-person households spent €798.57 a month in the Central Statistical Bureau's 2025 Household Budget Survey (CSP table MBI031, published 17 August 2026; consumption in cash and in kind, imputed rent not included). The survey is current-year, so no inflation uplift applies. Actual rentals are removed: Eurostat's HBS 2020 structure for Latvian one-adult households puts actual rentals at 23 per mille of consumption that includes 196 per mille of imputed rent, i.e. 23 / 804 = 2.86% of consumption without imputed rent, = €22.84 a month. €798.57 − €22.84 = €775.73, × 1.1253 USD/EUR (ECB, 2026-10-16) = $873. The 13 ECOICOP v2 divisions are summed in cost-breakdown.
Notes
The 2025 survey (2,063 responding households, 20% response rate) is Latvia's first to use ECOICOP version 2 and, by the CSP's own warning, is not fully comparable with 2019 and earlier. One-person households include many pensioners, so the basket is an average for people living alone, not a working remote worker's. The rent split is the weakest input, because the CSP does not publish rentals by household type; using the all-household 2025 share of rentals instead (€164.65 of €7,428.08 a year, 2.2%) would remove €17.70 rather than €22.84, a $6 difference. Cross-check: the CSP's 2019 one-person figure (€513.62 a month) lifted by Latvia's HICP from the 2019 to the 2025 annual average (108.53 → 150.85, ×1.390) gives €714, 11% below the 2025 survey figure.

04

Housing

What it costs to rent, by apartment type and location.

Asking rent by apartment type & location

Global Property Guide — Latvia rental yields, Riga median asking rents (data from SS.lv and City24), 2026 Q2

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of
Jun 30, 2026
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Global Property Guide’s Riga table of median monthly asking rents, 2026 Q2 (page read 2026-10-19), converted at 1.1253 USD per EUR (ECB euro reference rate of 2026-10-16). Centre = the Centrs district: studio €470, 1-bedroom €800, 2-bedroom €1,400, 3-bedroom €1,700 (→ $529, $900, $1,575, $1,913). Outside = Āgenskalns, the one district outside the centre that the table gives: studio €340, 1-bedroom €550, 2-bedroom €1,000 (→ $383, $619, $1,125). Vecrīga (Old Riga) is tabulated separately at €850, €1,450 and €2,500 for 1-, 2- and 3-bedroom flats.
Notes
Asking prices from SS.lv and City24 listings as summarised by GPG, not transactions. Latvia publishes no official rental statistics: the Central Statistical Bureau’s database has no table of rent levels, and the State Land Service’s market data cover sale transactions only. The "outside" column is a single district, Āgenskalns; the table has no figure for the Soviet-era estates (Purvciems, Imanta, Pļavnieki, Ziepniekkalns), so the outside cells are one district’s reading of the non-central market, and there is no 3-bedroom outside cell. The Latvian room count excludes the kitchen: GPG’s "1-Bedroom" corresponds to a Latvian 2-room flat. Corroboration is partial and not like-for-like: Latio, for new-build projects in the first half of 2026, gives €540 for a 1-room and €760 for a 2-room flat in the centre, €460 and €720 in Āgenskalns, €500 for a 1-room flat in Imanta and €610 for a 2-room flat in Teika. GPG’s citywide 2-bedroom median (€1,300) is high against these and against Arco’s €350–550 for centre one- and two-room flats, so the larger-flat cells are the least reliable.
Asking prices from SS.lv and City24 listings as summarised by GPG, not transactions. Latvia publishes no official rental statistics: the Central Statistical Bureau’s database has no table of rent levels, and the State Land Service’s market data cover sale transactions only. The "outside" column is a single district, Āgenskalns; the table has no figure for the Soviet-era estates (Purvciems, Imanta, Pļavnieki, Ziepniekkalns), so the outside cells are one district’s reading of the non-central market, and there is no 3-bedroom outside cell. The Latvian room count excludes the kitchen: GPG’s "1-Bedroom" corresponds to a Latvian 2-room flat. Corroboration is partial and not like-for-like: Latio, for new-build projects in the first half of 2026, gives €540 for a 1-room and €760 for a 2-room flat in the centre, €460 and €720 in Āgenskalns, €500 for a 1-room flat in Imanta and €610 for a 2-room flat in Teika. GPG’s citywide 2-bedroom median (€1,300) is high against these and against Arco’s €350–550 for centre one- and two-room flats, so the larger-flat cells are the least reliable.
ApartmentCentralOutside centre
Studio529 USD/mo383 USD/mo
1-bedroom900 USD/mo619 USD/mo
2-bedroom1,575 USD/mo1,125 USD/mo
3-bedroom1,913 USD/mo—

05

Climate

Temperature and rainfall through the year, plus air quality.

Monthly normals — Riga

NOAA/WMO Climatological Standard Normals 1991–2020 — Riga LU (WMO 26422), Latvia

Open data

Data as of
Dec 31, 2020
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
WMO 1991–2020 station normals for RIGA LU (WMO 26422, WIGOS 0-20000-0-26422, 56°57′17″N 24°06′17″E, 3 m), NCEI accession 0253808, version 6.6 (the latest in the archive), Latvia/CSV directory. tMin = parameter code 4 (mean daily minimum; 27–29 years per month), tMax = code 3 (mean daily maximum; 29–30 years), precipMm = code 1 (monthly precipitation total; 29–30 years). All 36 cells are populated in the file. Annual precipitation 674.8 mm.
Notes
Cross-checked against the Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Centre (LVGMC): its climate page (klimats.meteo.lv, Latvijas klimatiskais raksturojums) prints the 1991–2020 standard normals for Riga, and its monthly mean temperatures (-2.1 °C in January, 19.3 in July, -0.3 in December; annual 8.0) and monthly precipitation (46.5 mm in January, 79.5 in July, 50.2 in December; annual 674.8) are identical to the WMO file’s code 5 and code 1 rows. The station is about 0.6 km from the city-centre point used for the coordinates.
Daytime high °CNighttime low °CRainfall mm
-5°13°30°050100mmJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecJanuary — high -0.1°C, low -4.5°C, rainfall 46.5 mmFebruary — high 0.3°C, low -4.6°C, rainfall 40.1 mmMarch — high 4.8°C, low -1.7°C, rainfall 34.1 mmApril — high 11.9°C, low 2.9°C, rainfall 35 mmMay — high 17.8°C, low 8.2°C, rainfall 47.5 mmJune — high 21.3°C, low 12.4°C, rainfall 65 mmJuly — high 23.8°C, low 14.9°C, rainfall 79.5 mmAugust — high 22.7°C, low 14.1°C, rainfall 77.9 mmSeptember — high 17.3°C, low 9.8°C, rainfall 67.1 mmOctober — high 10.5°C, low 4.9°C, rainfall 75.6 mmNovember — high 4.8°C, low 1.1°C, rainfall 56.3 mmDecember — high 1.4°C, low -2.4°C, rainfall 50.2 mm

Average day/night temperature (lines, left axis) and total rainfall (bars, right axis) for each month — 1991–2020 normals. Hover a month for exact figures.

Month by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Daytime high °C-0.1°0.3°4.8°11.9°17.8°21.3°23.8°22.7°17.3°10.5°4.8°1.4°
Nighttime low °C-4.5°-4.6°-1.7°2.9°8.2°12.4°14.9°14.1°9.8°4.9°1.1°-2.4°
Rainfall mm474034354865807867765650
01Climate comfort5pleasant months/year5.0

What this measures

Number of months whose 1991–2020 climate normals satisfy: mean daily maximum between 15°C and 28°C and monthly precipitation under 150mm. Computed from the city's climate-normals indicator; the raw normals are stored alongside so users can judge by their own taste.

Higher is betterpleasant months/yearre-verified every 3650 days

Curated by SettleMetric

SettleMetric computation over Riga LU climate-normals (WMO 26422)

Data as of
Dec 31, 2020
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Count of months with mean daily max 15–28°C and precipitation < 150mm, from the 1991–2020 normals: May (17.8°C), Jun (21.3), Jul (23.8), Aug (22.7), Sep (17.3) qualify = 5. April misses at 11.9°C and October at 10.5°C; no month exceeds 28°C or 150 mm.
02Air quality (PM2.5)8.8µg/m³, annual mean PM2.58.5

What this measures

Annual mean fine-particulate (PM2.5) concentration for the city, latest available year. Anchors follow the WHO 2021 guideline (5 µg/m³ → 10) through the EU limit value territory (25 µg/m³ → 2). Preferred source: European Environment Agency city-level air quality data; outside Europe: WHO Ambient Air Quality Database or the national monitoring network.

Lower is betterµg/m³, annual mean PM2.5re-verified every 730 days

Open data

European Environment Agency — Air Quality Statistics (E1a validated), station LV0026A "Riga Kronvalda boulevard"

Data as of
Dec 31, 2025
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Validated (E1a, verification flag 1) 2025 annual mean at station LV0026A, Riga Kronvalda boulevard, an urban background site at 56.9548°N 24.1048°E (3 m): 8.812 µg/m³ on 99.28% data coverage, hourly data, queried from the EEA statistics service on 2026-10-19 (calculated 2026-10-15). It is the only Riga station with PM2.5 in the EEA’s annual statistics. Earlier years at the same station: 8.920 µg/m³ in 2024 (99.35%), 8.468 in 2023 (96.95%) and 9.245 in 2022 (97.76%). The WHO Ambient Air Quality Database v8.0 (2026) carries the same series for Riga/LVA — 9.24, 8.47 and 8.92 for 2022–2024 — and has no 2025 row yet.
Notes
ONE STATION: an urban-background site near the centre, so it describes the city’s general level, not traffic corridors. Riga’s only other station in the EEA statistics, LV0027A Riga-Valdemara street (traffic, urban), reports PM10, NO2 and benzene but no PM2.5 in 2025; the WHO row counts both stations (n=2) because it pools three pollutants, but its PM2.5 value is the Kronvalda station alone. 8.8 µg/m³ is above the WHO 2021 guideline of 5 µg/m³ and below the EU limit of 10 µg/m³ that applies from 2030. Kronvalda’s 2025 PM10 annual mean was 16.2 µg/m³.

06

Safety

How safe daily life is, from official crime statistics.

01Homicide rate3.6intentional homicides per 100,000/year5.8

What this measures

Intentional homicide victims per 100,000 population, latest available year. Country level: UNODC national series. City level: official municipal/police statistics where published; otherwise null (country value shown as country-level).

Lower is betterintentional homicides per 100,000/yearre-verified every 730 days

Official source

Ministry of the Interior Information Centre (IeM IC) — Kriminālā statistika par 2025. gadu, offences registered in Riga by Criminal Law article

Data as of
Dec 31, 2025
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Offences registered in Riga in 2025 under Criminal Law section 116 (murder) 15, section 117 (murder under aggravating circumstances) 3 and section 118 (murder under especially aggravating circumstances) 3 = 21, from the annual workbook NN_2025.xlsx (sheet XII nodaļa, distribution by State city; read 2026-10-19), divided by Riga’s 2025 annual average population of 591,982 (CSP IRS031, POP) and multiplied by 100,000 = 3.55.
Notes
Registered offences by the place where they were committed, not victims by residence, and the register may include attempts along with completed offences, so the figure can overstate the completed-homicide rate and cannot be set directly against UNODC or Eurostat series. The same workbook gives 53 such offences for all of Latvia (34 + 13 + 6), 2.9 per 100,000 on the national average population, so Riga reads about a quarter above the country.
Crime by offence typecountry-levelpolice-recorded per 100,000 · 2024

Eurostat — police-recorded offences by category (crim_off_cat, ICCS, unit P_HTHAB)

Open data

Data as of
Dec 31, 2024
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Notes
Police-recorded offences per 100,000 inhabitants, 2024 (ICCS categories: theft 0502, burglary 0501, robbery 0401, serious assault 020111, drug offences 0601, sexual violence 0301). In counts: 12,203 thefts, 2,330 burglaries, 1,290 drug offences, 548 serious assaults, 528 sexual-violence offences and 271 robberies. Sexual-violence offences have risen from 309 cases in 2020 to 551 in 2023 and 528 in 2024, while robbery fell from 779 cases in 2015 to 271 and drug offences from 3,529 to 1,290. Eurostat's burglary series has a break between 2015 (501 cases) and 2016 (6,365), so earlier years are not comparable with later ones. Recording practices and legal definitions differ between countries, so read the levels as context, not a league table.
01Theft650per 100k
02Burglary124per 100k
03Drug offences68.7per 100k
04Serious assault29.2per 100k
05Sexual violence28.1per 100k
06Robbery14.4per 100k

Police-recorded offences per 100,000 inhabitants, 2024 (ICCS categories: theft 0502, burglary 0501, robbery 0401, serious assault 020111, drug offences 0601, sexual violence 0301). In counts: 12,203 thefts, 2,330 burglaries, 1,290 drug offences, 548 serious assaults, 528 sexual-violence offences and 271 robberies. Sexual-violence offences have risen from 309 cases in 2020 to 551 in 2023 and 528 in 2024, while robbery fell from 779 cases in 2015 to 271 and drug offences from 3,529 to 1,290. Eurostat's burglary series has a break between 2015 (501 cases) and 2016 (6,365), so earlier years are not comparable with later ones. Recording practices and legal definitions differ between countries, so read the levels as context, not a league table.

Hate crime (police-recorded)country-levelpolice-recorded · 2016

OSCE ODIHR Hate Crime Reporting — Latvia (official police-recorded data)

Official source

Data as of
Dec 31, 2016
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Notes
Latvia last reported hate-crime data to ODIHR for 2016; ODIHR lists 2017 to 2024 as not available and observes that Latvia has not nominated a national point of contact. The latest official figure is 11 offences recorded by police in 2016 (7 prosecuted, 0 sentenced; 2015: 11, 2014: 13, 2013: 22). ODIHR states that these police and prosecution figures consist of incitement-of-hatred cases, that three of the 11 may have involved violence or threats, and that Latvia does not report hate crimes separately from hate speech. Latvian police have no specific system for recording hate crimes, the Prosecutor's Office records only cases under Criminal Law section 78 (incitement of national, ethnic and racial hatred), and the bias motive (section 48(1)14) is a sentencing provision, so no separate statistics are compiled. For 2024 ODIHR lists only 14 incidents sent in by civil society (13 anti-Christian, nearly all attacks on property reported by Jehovah's Witnesses, and 1 other religion-based attack); those are unofficial. No racist or xenophobic subset is available. Not comparable across countries.
11
recorded by police

Latvia last reported hate-crime data to ODIHR for 2016; ODIHR lists 2017 to 2024 as not available and observes that Latvia has not nominated a national point of contact. The latest official figure is 11 offences recorded by police in 2016 (7 prosecuted, 0 sentenced; 2015: 11, 2014: 13, 2013: 22). ODIHR states that these police and prosecution figures consist of incitement-of-hatred cases, that three of the 11 may have involved violence or threats, and that Latvia does not report hate crimes separately from hate speech. Latvian police have no specific system for recording hate crimes, the Prosecutor's Office records only cases under Criminal Law section 78 (incitement of national, ethnic and racial hatred), and the bias motive (section 48(1)14) is a sentencing provision, so no separate statistics are compiled. For 2024 ODIHR lists only 14 incidents sent in by civil society (13 anti-Christian, nearly all attacks on property reported by Jehovah's Witnesses, and 1 other religion-based attack); those are unofficial. No racist or xenophobic subset is available. Not comparable across countries.

07

Infrastructure

Internet speed and how parcels get to your door.

01Domestic delivery qualitycountry-levelExcellent10.0

What this measures

Quality of in-country parcel delivery. excellent = nationwide next-day widely available, dense parcel-locker network, real-time tracking standard; good = 1–3 day delivery, lockers in major cities; basic = reliable but slow (3–7 days), mostly to-door or post-office pickup; poor = unreliable delivery, street addresses often unusable, informal workarounds common. Classified from official service/coverage data of the national postal operator and the two largest private carriers; inputs itemized in each value's method field.

Rated by category—re-verified every 730 days

Curated by SettleMetric

Latvijas Pasts / Omniva / DPD Latvia / Venipak official network and delivery-time pages (composite)

Data as of
Oct 19, 2026
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Classified from the carriers' own pages, read on 2026-10-19. Latvijas Pasts, the national postal operator: parcel-locker shipments delivered 'as soon as the next day', courier shipments across Latvia on the next business day, 155 post offices and 421 parcel lockers at the end of 2024 (annual report 2024). Omniva: 416 parcel machines in Latvia in its public locations file (modified 2026-10-16); next-day delivery for parcels handed in before a city cut-off (17:00 in Riga, Mārupe and Jaunmārupe, 12:00 in about 30 towns, 10:00 elsewhere), with 1-2 working days as the general delivery time to a machine. DPD Latvia: a published delivery-time table showing delivery on day 1 'in whole Latvia' for pick-up on day 0 in all three zones, more than 345 parcel lockers, real-time tracking. Venipak: 271 lockers and 130 pick-up points in its public list and about 98% of parcels delivered the next working day (its own figure). SmartPosti: lockers usually served within one working day (not guaranteed), all indoors. Four locker networks add up to roughly 1,400 machines (counts of different dates, not de-duplicated), tracking is standard, and nationwide next-day delivery is published by the national operator and by DPD, Venipak and Omniva → 'excellent'.
Notes
Promises differ by carrier: Omniva states 1-2 working days from handover to a parcel machine and SmartPosti says one working day is usual but not guaranteed, so next-day is the norm rather than a guarantee from every carrier. Unisend Latvija, whose lockers Latvijas Pasts shares, is not counted.
02International delivery easecountry-levelMinor friction7.0

What this measures

Ease of receiving goods from abroad. seamless = major international carriers deliver door-to-door, meaningful duty-free de-minimis threshold, customs clearance predictable in days; minor-friction = carriers present but low de-minimis, extra paperwork or routine delays; significant-friction = frequent customs holds, high brokerage fees, some marketplaces refuse to ship; unreliable = parcels regularly lost or blocked, informal import channels dominate. De-minimis thresholds and clearance rules from the national customs authority (official source, cite the regulation); carrier presence from carriers' official pages.

Rated by category—re-verified every 365 days

Official source

State Revenue Service (VID) — Postal consignments: changes from 1 July and 1 November 2026 (temporary EUR 3 customs duty; Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382)

Data as of
Jul 1, 2026
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Notes
Parcels from the EU single market arrive without customs. Every consignment from outside the EU must be declared. The duty exemption for consignments up to EUR 150 ended on 30 June 2026; since 1 July 2026 a temporary customs duty of EUR 3 per item applies until 1 July 2028 (European Commission page of 8 June 2026), plus Latvian VAT at 21%, collected at checkout when the shop uses the IOSS scheme. VID states that from 1 November 2026 a Union handling fee of EUR 2 per item is added; the Commission's page, last updated 20 July 2026, still describes that fee as proposed, with amount and date to be set. Gifts from a private person abroad up to EUR 45 are exempt from duty, VAT and the fee but still need a declaration. Clearance is done by the carrier when the shop supplies the data, by the recipient in VID's Electronic Declaration System, or through Latvijas Pasts: its self-service site atmuito.pasts.lv charges EUR 1.28 for a consignment up to EUR 150 without excise goods and its customs broker EUR 5.99 (EUR 30.25 above EUR 1,000 or for excise or restricted goods); a parcel over 500 g kept at a Pasts customer location more than 10 days costs EUR 1 a day. Latvijas Pasts has stopped clearing goods from Russia and Belarus under EU sanctions. Carriers: DPD, Omniva, SmartPosti, Venipak and Latvijas Pasts deliver across the Baltic states.
03Internet speedcountry-level34Mbps, median fixed download3.0

What this measures

Median fixed-broadband download speed over the trailing 6 months from M-Lab NDT open data (CC0), aggregated at country or city level. Not comparable with Ookla figures (different test methodology) — do not mix sources within this criterion.

Higher is betterMbps, median fixed downloadre-verified every 365 days

Open data

M-Lab NDT country aggregates for Latvia

Data as of
Dec 31, 2023
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Median of the 343 daily country-median download values for LV in 2023 (18,575 download tests; daily medians ranged 10.1-63.2 Mbps). 2023 is the year used across the dataset.
Notes
M-Lab NDT is a single-stream test and reads well below advertised fibre speeds; it is comparable only within this criterion.

08

Healthcare

What comprehensive private medical cover costs.

01Private healthcare costcountry-levelno verified data—

What this measures

Median of at least three publicly quoted annual premiums for comprehensive private medical insurance (outpatient + inpatient, ~$100k coverage, small deductible) for a healthy 35-year-old resident foreigner, from local and international insurers. Method field lists the insurers quoted.

Lower is betterUSD/year, comprehensive private insurance premium, healthy 35-year-oldre-verified every 365 days

Not priced. No Latvian insurer publishes a premium for a comprehensive individual policy. BTA's private-persons page is written for employers and gives programme descriptions with benefit limits but no premiums; Balta lists health cover only for companies; ERGO describes its PRIORA and PRIORA PLUS programmes without prices and offers a quote-request form; Compensa (Compensa Seesam and Compensa Life) offers a quote form and a PDF application, again without prices. The one public price list found is If's, on its application page, by age band. For a 35-year-old (band 24-36) it shows EUR 420 a year for programme 1 (about USD 473 at 1.1253) or EUR 770 a year with paid operations for programme 2 (about USD 866), valid only for people who have not held an If private health policy before. It is not a comprehensive policy and is not recorded as the value: the total insured sum is EUR 3,000, it pays the statutory patient co-payments in the state system, 50% of paid outpatient services and diagnostics, and in programme 2 paid operations up to EUR 450; cover applies in the Baltic states, starts one month after purchase and runs 12 months. For reference, the remote-work long-stay visa (PMLP) requires a policy valid in Latvia and the Schengen states with a minimum liability limit of EUR 42,600 (Cabinet Regulation 591, point 7.2; the minimum cover is urgent care, treatment of life-threatening conditions in hospital, transport and repatriation). If's foreigners' policy built to that rule lists a first-year price of EUR 55 for ages up to 64 (about USD 62; EUR 50 deductible) and EUR 300 for ages 65 to 80, but it covers emergencies only.

09

Money & crypto

Crypto rules and how freely personal money moves.

01Crypto regulationcountry-levelLegal regulated8.0

What this measures

Own classification of the legal status of holding, trading and cashing out cryptocurrency for individuals: legal-friendly (legal with clear, favourable rules or explicit tax exemptions), legal-regulated (legal under standard licensing/AML and taxation), restricted (partial bans: payments or banking access prohibited), banned (holding/trading prohibited). Classified from national regulators' and central banks' official positions.

Rated by category—re-verified every 180 days

Official source

Kriptoaktīvu pakalpojumu likums (Crypto-Asset Services Law), adopted 13 June 2024, in force 30 June 2024

Data as of
Jun 30, 2024
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Notes
Legal and licensed under the EU's MiCA regulation (Regulation (EU) 2023/1114). The Crypto-Asset Services Law supplements MiCA and, in article 4(1), names Latvijas Banka as Latvia's competent authority under article 93(1) of MiCA for issuers, offerors and crypto-asset service providers (the financial supervisor's functions passed to Latvijas Banka on 1 January 2023). Providers already operating before 30 December 2024 under the State Revenue Service's anti-money-laundering supervision could continue without MiCA authorisation until 30 June 2025, or until Latvijas Banka decided if they had applied by then (transitional provision 2). The law regulates providers and issuers; it contains no restriction on individuals holding or trading crypto-assets. For tax, the State Revenue Service treats a private person's gain on selling crypto-assets as capital gain, taxed at 25.5% from 2025.
02Financial control levelcountry-levelLow10.0

What this measures

Own composite of state control over personal money flows: currency/capital controls (IMF AREAER), restrictions on foreign accounts and transfers, mandatory income declaration scope for residents, cash payment limits, banking access for foreigners. Low = free movement of personal funds and easy non-resident banking; very-high = strict capital controls and pervasive reporting. Method field on each value lists the inputs used.

Rated by category—re-verified every 365 days

Curated by SettleMetric

Composite — euro-area free movement of capital + Law "On Taxes and Fees" (Par nodokļiem un nodevām), article 30 (restrictions on the use of cash)

Data as of
Oct 15, 2026
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Composite, each input read at its source on 2026-10-19. Latvia is a euro-area member of the EU, so capital moves freely under EU law and no currency or capital controls apply. The restrictions on personal money flows found: (1) cash payments, Law "On Taxes and Fees" article 30: a natural person who carries on no economic activity may not make a cash transaction above EUR 7,200, in one operation or several (art. 30(8); in force since 1 January 2017 under the amending law of 23 November 2016, transitional provision 181); taxpayers other than private individuals face the same EUR 7,200 ceiling and must declare monthly their cash transactions above EUR 1,500 (art. 30(1)); and no taxpayer, a private individual included, may sell or buy immovable property in cash, at any amount (art. 30(1^6)). Article 30 is read in the version in force since 15 October 2026; the last amending law (17 September 2026) restated only part 3, which keeps credit institutions, payment service providers and licensed consumer lenders outside the rules. (2) Reporting: under article 22^3 banks and payment service providers report to the State Revenue Service (VID) each year on resident individuals whose accounts turned over EUR 15,000 or more, or who paid in EUR 7,000 or more in cash. (3) Cash of EUR 10,000 or more crossing the EU's external border must be declared under Regulation (EU) 2018/1672 (VID cash page). (4) Latvijas Banka states that EU residents, and people without a residence permit who cannot be expelled from Latvia, have a right to a basic payment account, and a bank may not refuse it on grounds of citizenship or residence. The EU-wide EUR 10,000 cash cap in article 80 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 applies from 10 July 2027 and, under article 80(3), leaves Latvia's lower existing limit in force. These are anti-money-laundering rules on cash and on reporting, not limits on moving one's own money by bank transfer. Classified 'low'.

10

Language

How far English gets you in daily life and services.

01English proficiencycountry-levelHigh7.0

What this measures

Own banding of how far English gets a resident in daily life (government offices, healthcare, housing, services). Informed by EF EPI band (research source, cited with attribution, not republished) plus official language status and service-sector realities. Values are our bands, not EF scores.

Rated by category—re-verified every 730 days

Research

EF English Proficiency Index 2025 — Latvia (rank 16/123, score 598, High band)

Data as of
Nov 1, 2025
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Notes
Own band informed by EF EPI 2025 (attribution: EF Education First): Latvia ranks 16th of 123 with 598 points, at the top of EF's High band and two points short of Very High (600); the global average is 488 and Riga scores 611. By skill: reading 605, listening 586, writing 551, speaking 542. Banded 'high' rather than 'very-high' because Latvian is the sole official language (State Language Law, art. 3(1)) and state and municipal bodies accept documents only in Latvian, a foreign-language document needing a translation (art. 10(2)-(3), likumi.lv/ta/id/14740), so English will not carry a resident through every government office. Eurostat's Adult Education Survey 2022 (self-reported, not English-specific) shows 95.0% of 25-64-year-olds in Latvia know at least one foreign language, and Eurostat attributes the high share among older people to Russian and among younger people to English.

11

Education

International schooling options for families.

01International schools6accredited international schools, count6.3

What this measures

Count of international schools in the metro area accredited by or member of IB, CIS, COBIS, or an equivalent national-curriculum-abroad body (verified against the accreditor's public registry, not aggregator sites).

Higher is betteraccredited international schools, countre-verified every 730 days

Curated by SettleMetric

CIS membership directory, AEFE school directory and Internet Archive captures of IB school profiles

Data as of
Oct 19, 2026
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Count for the Riga metro area = 4 schools in the city + 2 in Piņķi (Babīte, about 12 km west of the centre, in Mārupe municipality). Read directly at an accreditor on 2026-10-19: the Council of International Schools member directory (queried the way its own map does) lists three Latvian members, all "Accredited" — International School of Riga (Kalnciema iela 118, Riga; IB DP and PYP, IB code 002334), and International School of Latvia (001796) and Exupery International School (060211), both in Piņķi — and the AEFE directory lists one school in Latvia, Lycée français international Jules-Verne de Riga (Patversmes iela 20; 529 pupils, all 15 levels homologated). Two state schools are counted on Internet Archive captures of their IB profiles, because ibo.org answers our requests with a Cloudflare challenge: Riga State Gymnasium No. 1 (001001, Diploma Programme since 16 July 1997; capture of April 2018) and Riga State Gymnasium No. 2 (050320, DP since 22 July 2014 and MYP since 8 January 2016; capture of November 2019).
Notes
A floor, not a tally. Two more Riga schools appear as IB World Schools only in search-engine views of ibo.org pages, with no live page or capture read: Riga State Gymnasium No. 3 (061962, DP authorised 13 February 2024) and the International Montessori School of Latvia (PYP, December 2024); with them the count would be 8, which fits the IB's Latvia total of 11 schools (9 DP, 5 MYP, 4 PYP, 1 CP, per the IB World Schools Yearbook). COBIS's member file (read 2026-10-19, last modified 30 September 2026) lists no school in Latvia, and the Accredited European Schools list (eursc.eu) has none in Latvia; no German school abroad (ZfA) in Riga was found — the Riga State German Gymnasium is a language-partner school and is not counted. King's College, The British School of Latvia (Mārupe), a UK-curriculum school the Yearbook advertises, appears in none of these registries and is not counted. The International School of Riga's own site calls itself "the only IB World School in Riga", which the IB profiles of the state gymnasia contradict.

12

Demographics

Who else lives here — the share of foreign residents and the largest national communities, from official statistics.

Openness to foreignerscountry-levelLow acceptanceGallup MAI 2.25/9 · 2019

What this measures

How accepting the resident population is of migrants and foreigners — the inverse of xenophobia, a real concern for someone relocating. Our own five-band reading (very-open / open / moderate / reserved / low) informed primarily by the Gallup Migrant Acceptance Index (0–9 scale: three questions on migrants living in the country, becoming neighbours, and marrying into the family; 2019 wave), cross-checked where available with the World Values Survey wave 7 / European Values Study 2017 question on whether people would not want immigrants or foreign workers as neighbours (a higher share = more hostile). Banding guide against the Gallup 0–9 score: ≥7.0 very-open, 5.5–7.0 open, 4.0–5.5 moderate, 2.5–4.0 reserved, below 2.5 low (the 2019 global average of 5.21 sits in 'moderate'). Country level only: no credible city-level survey of attitudes to foreigners exists, so on city pages the country reading is shown as country context. Gallup is a research source cited with attribution, not republished in bulk; the raw index score/year and any cross-check figure are carried inside each value. Value shape: { band, gallupMai?, gallupYear?, unwantedNeighborPct?, unwantedNeighborSource? }. Display-only: attitudinal, survey-based and ~2019 vintage, so it is shown as honest context and never folded into the composite score.

Reference data—re-verified every 1825 days

Research

Gallup Migrant Acceptance Index, second wave (2019 Gallup World Poll) — least-accepting countries table (research, attribution)

Data as of
Sep 23, 2020
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Notes
Gallup MAI 2.25 on the 0-9 scale (2019 wave, fieldwork throughout 2019, published 2020-09-23), in the low band (below 2.5); Latvia is one of the eleven least-accepting countries in Gallup's published 2019 list. The first wave (2016-2017 table) gave 2.04, also low (Gallup, 2017-08-23, https://news.gallup.com/poll/216377/new-index-shows-least-accepting-countries-migrants.aspx). Gallup's 2019 table lists Latvia (2.25) just above Malaysia (2.24) in an otherwise ascending order, so one of the two figures may carry a typo; Latvia's band is low on either reading.
Who lives thereforeign residents 6.1%

Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia (CSP) — table IRV012, usually resident population by citizenship in regions and State cities (Riga)

Official source

Data as of
Jan 1, 2026
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
CSP IRV012, Riga, 1 January 2026: foreign nationals = citizens of other EU-27 countries 1,818 + United Kingdom 77 + Ukraine 2,068 + Belarus 891 + Russia 14,190 + other citizenship 5,898 + refugees from Ukraine (temporary protection) 10,906 = 35,848, of 588,911 residents = 6.1%. Without the Ukrainian refugees the figure is 4.2% (24,942).
Notes
Latvian non-citizens (nepilsoņi) are NOT counted as foreign nationals: they are long-term residents who hold neither Latvian nor any other citizenship, under the law on the status of former U.S.S.R. citizens who are not citizens of Latvia or any other state (OCMA, pmlp.gov.lv). They number 80,480 in Riga, 13.7% of residents, against 472,583 Latvian citizens (80.2%). Nationally the same table gives 159,742 non-citizens (8.7%) and 62,836 foreign nationals including 17,209 Ukrainian refugees (3.4%; 2.5% without them), so Riga’s foreign share is well above the country’s. Ukrainians under temporary protection are a separate CSP category and are included here. "Other citizenship" is a residual that CSP does not itemise.
Largest communities of the total population35,848 total

Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia (CSP) — table IRV012, usually resident population by citizenship in regions and State cities (Riga)

Official source

Data as of
Jan 1, 2026
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
CSP IRV012, Riga, 1 January 2026, 588,911 residents; Latvian citizens (472,583, 80.2%) are the remainder and are not listed. Shares are count ÷ 588,911. Ukraine = 2,068 citizens + 10,906 refugees from Ukraine under temporary protection (CSP counts them as a separate category) = 12,974. Other EU countries = the EU-27 total of 1,818 minus Lithuania 895 and Estonia 266 = 657. The listed groups plus Latvian citizens sum to the 588,911 total; totalForeign (35,848) is the sum of all groups except the non-citizens.
Notes
Non-citizens of Latvia are listed because they are the second-largest category in the city, but they are not foreign nationals (see foreign-population-share). For other EU countries CSP also publishes Poland 93, Germany 86, France 66, Italy 61, Finland 55 and Spain 53 for Riga. Citizenship, not ethnicity or country of birth: many Russian-speaking residents hold Latvian citizenship and sit in the citizens line.
01Non-citizens of Latvia (no citizenship of any state)13.7%80,480
02Russia2.4%14,190
03Ukraine2.2%12,974
04Other citizenship (not itemised)1%5,898
05Lithuania0.2%895
06Belarus0.2%891
07Other EU countries (excluding Latvia)0.1%657
08Estonia0.1%266
09United Kingdom0%77

Non-citizens of Latvia are listed because they are the second-largest category in the city, but they are not foreign nationals (see foreign-population-share). For other EU countries CSP also publishes Poland 93, Germany 86, France 66, Italy 61, Finland 55 and Spain 53 for Riga. Citizenship, not ethnicity or country of birth: many Russian-speaking residents hold Latvian citizenship and sit in the citizens line.

13

How you can stay

How you can legally enter and stay. These apply across Latvia.

All requirements & citizenship filter

14

What you'd pay in taxes

The tax schemes a freelancer can choose from. Rules are national, the same in Riga as anywhere in Latvia.

Full schemes & calculator

See what you would keep

Your income against Latvia's real tax schemes — the same engine as the full calculator.

  1. 1 SIA — private limited company, profit distributed as dividends (20% corporate tax on the gross distribution, no personal tax)
    46,670 EURnet/year
    22.2% burden
  2. 2 Self-employed on the general regime — 25.5% income tax plus state social insurance (31.07% on at least EUR 780 a month, 10% on the rest)
    40,444 EURnet/year
    32.6% burden
  3. 3 Remote-work long-stay visa holder — 15% flat income tax for the first 365 days of Latvian tax residency
    33,614 EURnet/year
    44.0% burden
  4. 4 Microenterprise tax (mikrouzņēmumu nodoklis) — 25% of turnover replaces income tax and social insuranceover income cap
    45,000 EURnet/year
    25.0% burden

15

Who is Riga for?

The same place reads differently depending on why you move. Each lens pulls the facts that matter most for that plan — with sources, and the trade-offs stated plainly.

Contract or freelance in tech, billing clients abroad.

Works in your favour

Freelancer tax burden20.2%

SettleMetric tax engine over official 2026 rules (Uzņēmumu ienākuma nodokļa likums; VID — board-member remuneration, social insurance and wage tax)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of
Jan 1, 2026
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Best eligible scheme = lv-sia-distributed-profit (SIA, whole profit distributed) at €60,000 revenue with 10% deductible expenses (net profit €54,000). Monthly turnover is €5,000, above the €3,900 test, so the sole director must be paid at least the minimum wage or is deemed to earn it: salary 12 × €780 = €9,360 (a deductible company cost and the owner's own income), employer social insurance 23.59% × 780 × 12 = €2,208.00 (deductible), employee social insurance 10.50% × 780 × 12 = €982.80, wage tax 12 × 25.5% × (780 − 81.90 − 550 non-taxable minimum) = 12 × 37.77 = €453.24. Distributable profit = 54,000 − 9,360 − 2,208.00 = €42,432.00, corporate tax 20% of the gross distribution = €8,486.40; the dividend itself carries no personal tax. Levies €12,130.44 → 20.2% of revenue. The microenterprise tax is not available at this size (turnover limit = the €50,000 VAT threshold), so the company route is the lowest-burden option open to a resident freelancer.
Notes
The ordinary self-employed route (lv-self-employed-general) at the same profile costs €17,579.29, i.e. 29.3%: social insurance €7,372.20 (31.07% on the €780-a-month minimum base plus 10% of the profit above it) and income tax 25.5% × (54,000 − 7,372.20 − 6,600) = €10,207.09, with the contributions deductible. The microenterprise tax would be 25.0% of turnover (€15,000) but is closed to a freelancer above €50,000 of turnover or with VAT-registered business customers in other EU states. A non-EU remote worker on the remote-work long-stay visa pays a flat 15% income tax for the first 365 days of Latvian residency, but VID treats such a person as an employee of a foreign employer owing 34.09% social insurance, so the burden is €23,747.31 (39.6%) unless the contributions are paid in another state, in which case it is €8,100 (13.5%) (lv-remote-work-visa-15pct). The company figure excludes accounting and filing costs and buys social-insurance rights only on the minimum-wage base; below the €3,900-a-month turnover line there is no director's salary and the burden is a flat 20.0% (with no insurance cover at all), while just above it the same company pays about 22.8% (a profile without expenses), so the figure moves with the turnover test.
English proficiencyHigh

EF English Proficiency Index 2025 — Latvia (rank 16/123, score 598, High band)

Research

Data as of
Nov 1, 2025
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Notes
Own band informed by EF EPI 2025 (attribution: EF Education First): Latvia ranks 16th of 123 with 598 points, at the top of EF's High band and two points short of Very High (600); the global average is 488 and Riga scores 611. By skill: reading 605, listening 586, writing 551, speaking 542. Banded 'high' rather than 'very-high' because Latvian is the sole official language (State Language Law, art. 3(1)) and state and municipal bodies accept documents only in Latvian, a foreign-language document needing a translation (art. 10(2)-(3), likumi.lv/ta/id/14740), so English will not carry a resident through every government office. Eurostat's Adult Education Survey 2022 (self-reported, not English-specific) shows 95.0% of 25-64-year-olds in Latvia know at least one foreign language, and Eurostat attributes the high share among older people to Russian and among younger people to English.
Cost of living (single, excl. rent)$873/mo

Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia — Household Budget Survey 2025: mean monthly consumption expenditure of one-person households by ECOICOP v2 division (table MBI031)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of
Dec 31, 2025
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
One-person households spent €798.57 a month in the Central Statistical Bureau's 2025 Household Budget Survey (CSP table MBI031, published 17 August 2026; consumption in cash and in kind, imputed rent not included). The survey is current-year, so no inflation uplift applies. Actual rentals are removed: Eurostat's HBS 2020 structure for Latvian one-adult households puts actual rentals at 23 per mille of consumption that includes 196 per mille of imputed rent, i.e. 23 / 804 = 2.86% of consumption without imputed rent, = €22.84 a month. €798.57 − €22.84 = €775.73, × 1.1253 USD/EUR (ECB, 2026-10-16) = $873. The 13 ECOICOP v2 divisions are summed in cost-breakdown.
Notes
The 2025 survey (2,063 responding households, 20% response rate) is Latvia's first to use ECOICOP version 2 and, by the CSP's own warning, is not fully comparable with 2019 and earlier. One-person households include many pensioners, so the basket is an average for people living alone, not a working remote worker's. The rent split is the weakest input, because the CSP does not publish rentals by household type; using the all-household 2025 share of rentals instead (€164.65 of €7,428.08 a year, 2.2%) would remove €17.70 rather than €22.84, a $6 difference. Cross-check: the CSP's 2019 one-person figure (€513.62 a month) lifted by Latvia's HICP from the 2019 to the 2025 annual average (108.53 → 150.85, ×1.390) gives €714, 11% below the 2025 survey figure.
Domestic delivery qualityExcellent

Latvijas Pasts / Omniva / DPD Latvia / Venipak official network and delivery-time pages (composite)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of
Oct 19, 2026
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Classified from the carriers' own pages, read on 2026-10-19. Latvijas Pasts, the national postal operator: parcel-locker shipments delivered 'as soon as the next day', courier shipments across Latvia on the next business day, 155 post offices and 421 parcel lockers at the end of 2024 (annual report 2024). Omniva: 416 parcel machines in Latvia in its public locations file (modified 2026-10-16); next-day delivery for parcels handed in before a city cut-off (17:00 in Riga, Mārupe and Jaunmārupe, 12:00 in about 30 towns, 10:00 elsewhere), with 1-2 working days as the general delivery time to a machine. DPD Latvia: a published delivery-time table showing delivery on day 1 'in whole Latvia' for pick-up on day 0 in all three zones, more than 345 parcel lockers, real-time tracking. Venipak: 271 lockers and 130 pick-up points in its public list and about 98% of parcels delivered the next working day (its own figure). SmartPosti: lockers usually served within one working day (not guaranteed), all indoors. Four locker networks add up to roughly 1,400 machines (counts of different dates, not de-duplicated), tracking is standard, and nationwide next-day delivery is published by the national operator and by DPD, Venipak and Omniva → 'excellent'.
Notes
Promises differ by carrier: Omniva states 1-2 working days from handover to a parcel machine and SmartPosti says one working day is usual but not guaranteed, so next-day is the norm rather than a guarantee from every carrier. Unisend Latvija, whose lockers Latvijas Pasts shares, is not counted.

Watch-outs

Internet speed34 Mbps

M-Lab NDT country aggregates for Latvia

Open data

Data as of
Dec 31, 2023
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Median of the 343 daily country-median download values for LV in 2023 (18,575 download tests; daily medians ranged 10.1-63.2 Mbps). 2023 is the year used across the dataset.
Notes
M-Lab NDT is a single-stream test and reads well below advertised fibre speeds; it is comparable only within this criterion.

Relocating with a partner and school-age children.

Works in your favour

Air quality (PM2.5)8.8 µg/m³

European Environment Agency — Air Quality Statistics (E1a validated), station LV0026A "Riga Kronvalda boulevard"

Open data

Data as of
Dec 31, 2025
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Validated (E1a, verification flag 1) 2025 annual mean at station LV0026A, Riga Kronvalda boulevard, an urban background site at 56.9548°N 24.1048°E (3 m): 8.812 µg/m³ on 99.28% data coverage, hourly data, queried from the EEA statistics service on 2026-10-19 (calculated 2026-10-15). It is the only Riga station with PM2.5 in the EEA’s annual statistics. Earlier years at the same station: 8.920 µg/m³ in 2024 (99.35%), 8.468 in 2023 (96.95%) and 9.245 in 2022 (97.76%). The WHO Ambient Air Quality Database v8.0 (2026) carries the same series for Riga/LVA — 9.24, 8.47 and 8.92 for 2022–2024 — and has no 2025 row yet.
Notes
ONE STATION: an urban-background site near the centre, so it describes the city’s general level, not traffic corridors. Riga’s only other station in the EEA statistics, LV0027A Riga-Valdemara street (traffic, urban), reports PM10, NO2 and benzene but no PM2.5 in 2025; the WHO row counts both stations (n=2) because it pools three pollutants, but its PM2.5 value is the Kronvalda station alone. 8.8 µg/m³ is above the WHO 2021 guideline of 5 µg/m³ and below the EU limit of 10 µg/m³ that applies from 2030. Kronvalda’s 2025 PM10 annual mean was 16.2 µg/m³.

Watch-outs

International schools6

CIS membership directory, AEFE school directory and Internet Archive captures of IB school profiles

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of
Oct 19, 2026
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Count for the Riga metro area = 4 schools in the city + 2 in Piņķi (Babīte, about 12 km west of the centre, in Mārupe municipality). Read directly at an accreditor on 2026-10-19: the Council of International Schools member directory (queried the way its own map does) lists three Latvian members, all "Accredited" — International School of Riga (Kalnciema iela 118, Riga; IB DP and PYP, IB code 002334), and International School of Latvia (001796) and Exupery International School (060211), both in Piņķi — and the AEFE directory lists one school in Latvia, Lycée français international Jules-Verne de Riga (Patversmes iela 20; 529 pupils, all 15 levels homologated). Two state schools are counted on Internet Archive captures of their IB profiles, because ibo.org answers our requests with a Cloudflare challenge: Riga State Gymnasium No. 1 (001001, Diploma Programme since 16 July 1997; capture of April 2018) and Riga State Gymnasium No. 2 (050320, DP since 22 July 2014 and MYP since 8 January 2016; capture of November 2019).
Notes
A floor, not a tally. Two more Riga schools appear as IB World Schools only in search-engine views of ibo.org pages, with no live page or capture read: Riga State Gymnasium No. 3 (061962, DP authorised 13 February 2024) and the International Montessori School of Latvia (PYP, December 2024); with them the count would be 8, which fits the IB's Latvia total of 11 schools (9 DP, 5 MYP, 4 PYP, 1 CP, per the IB World Schools Yearbook). COBIS's member file (read 2026-10-19, last modified 30 September 2026) lists no school in Latvia, and the Accredited European Schools list (eursc.eu) has none in Latvia; no German school abroad (ZfA) in Riga was found — the Riga State German Gymnasium is a language-partner school and is not counted. King's College, The British School of Latvia (Mārupe), a UK-curriculum school the Yearbook advertises, appears in none of these registries and is not counted. The International School of Riga's own site calls itself "the only IB World School in Riga", which the IB profiles of the state gymnasia contradict.
Homicide rate3.55/100k

Ministry of the Interior Information Centre (IeM IC) — Kriminālā statistika par 2025. gadu, offences registered in Riga by Criminal Law article

Official source

Data as of
Dec 31, 2025
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Offences registered in Riga in 2025 under Criminal Law section 116 (murder) 15, section 117 (murder under aggravating circumstances) 3 and section 118 (murder under especially aggravating circumstances) 3 = 21, from the annual workbook NN_2025.xlsx (sheet XII nodaļa, distribution by State city; read 2026-10-19), divided by Riga’s 2025 annual average population of 591,982 (CSP IRS031, POP) and multiplied by 100,000 = 3.55.
Notes
Registered offences by the place where they were committed, not victims by residence, and the register may include attempts along with completed offences, so the figure can overstate the completed-homicide rate and cannot be set directly against UNODC or Eurostat series. The same workbook gives 53 such offences for all of Latvia (34 + 13 + 6), 2.9 per 100,000 on the national average population, so Riga reads about a quarter above the country.
Private healthcare costno verified data

Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (PMLP) — Getting a long-term visa for remote work: health insurance requirement

Official source

Data as of
Oct 19, 2026
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Notes
Not priced. No Latvian insurer publishes a premium for a comprehensive individual policy. BTA's private-persons page is written for employers and gives programme descriptions with benefit limits but no premiums; Balta lists health cover only for companies; ERGO describes its PRIORA and PRIORA PLUS programmes without prices and offers a quote-request form; Compensa (Compensa Seesam and Compensa Life) offers a quote form and a PDF application, again without prices. The one public price list found is If's, on its application page, by age band. For a 35-year-old (band 24-36) it shows EUR 420 a year for programme 1 (about USD 473 at 1.1253) or EUR 770 a year with paid operations for programme 2 (about USD 866), valid only for people who have not held an If private health policy before. It is not a comprehensive policy and is not recorded as the value: the total insured sum is EUR 3,000, it pays the statutory patient co-payments in the state system, 50% of paid outpatient services and diagnostics, and in programme 2 paid operations up to EUR 450; cover applies in the Baltic states, starts one month after purchase and runs 12 months. For reference, the remote-work long-stay visa (PMLP) requires a policy valid in Latvia and the Schengen states with a minimum liability limit of EUR 42,600 (Cabinet Regulation 591, point 7.2; the minimum cover is urgent care, treatment of life-threatening conditions in hospital, transport and repatriation). If's foreigners' policy built to that rule lists a first-year price of EUR 55 for ages up to 64 (about USD 62; EUR 50 deductible) and EUR 300 for ages 65 to 80, but it covers emergencies only.

Optimising tax, banking and crypto rules.

Works in your favour

Crypto regulationLegal regulated

Kriptoaktīvu pakalpojumu likums (Crypto-Asset Services Law), adopted 13 June 2024, in force 30 June 2024

Official source

Data as of
Jun 30, 2024
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Notes
Legal and licensed under the EU's MiCA regulation (Regulation (EU) 2023/1114). The Crypto-Asset Services Law supplements MiCA and, in article 4(1), names Latvijas Banka as Latvia's competent authority under article 93(1) of MiCA for issuers, offerors and crypto-asset service providers (the financial supervisor's functions passed to Latvijas Banka on 1 January 2023). Providers already operating before 30 December 2024 under the State Revenue Service's anti-money-laundering supervision could continue without MiCA authorisation until 30 June 2025, or until Latvijas Banka decided if they had applied by then (transitional provision 2). The law regulates providers and issuers; it contains no restriction on individuals holding or trading crypto-assets. For tax, the State Revenue Service treats a private person's gain on selling crypto-assets as capital gain, taxed at 25.5% from 2025.
Financial control levelLow

Composite — euro-area free movement of capital + Law "On Taxes and Fees" (Par nodokļiem un nodevām), article 30 (restrictions on the use of cash)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of
Oct 15, 2026
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Composite, each input read at its source on 2026-10-19. Latvia is a euro-area member of the EU, so capital moves freely under EU law and no currency or capital controls apply. The restrictions on personal money flows found: (1) cash payments, Law "On Taxes and Fees" article 30: a natural person who carries on no economic activity may not make a cash transaction above EUR 7,200, in one operation or several (art. 30(8); in force since 1 January 2017 under the amending law of 23 November 2016, transitional provision 181); taxpayers other than private individuals face the same EUR 7,200 ceiling and must declare monthly their cash transactions above EUR 1,500 (art. 30(1)); and no taxpayer, a private individual included, may sell or buy immovable property in cash, at any amount (art. 30(1^6)). Article 30 is read in the version in force since 15 October 2026; the last amending law (17 September 2026) restated only part 3, which keeps credit institutions, payment service providers and licensed consumer lenders outside the rules. (2) Reporting: under article 22^3 banks and payment service providers report to the State Revenue Service (VID) each year on resident individuals whose accounts turned over EUR 15,000 or more, or who paid in EUR 7,000 or more in cash. (3) Cash of EUR 10,000 or more crossing the EU's external border must be declared under Regulation (EU) 2018/1672 (VID cash page). (4) Latvijas Banka states that EU residents, and people without a residence permit who cannot be expelled from Latvia, have a right to a basic payment account, and a bank may not refuse it on grounds of citizenship or residence. The EU-wide EUR 10,000 cash cap in article 80 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 applies from 10 July 2027 and, under article 80(3), leaves Latvia's lower existing limit in force. These are anti-money-laundering rules on cash and on reporting, not limits on moving one's own money by bank transfer. Classified 'low'.
Freelancer tax burden20.2%

SettleMetric tax engine over official 2026 rules (Uzņēmumu ienākuma nodokļa likums; VID — board-member remuneration, social insurance and wage tax)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of
Jan 1, 2026
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Best eligible scheme = lv-sia-distributed-profit (SIA, whole profit distributed) at €60,000 revenue with 10% deductible expenses (net profit €54,000). Monthly turnover is €5,000, above the €3,900 test, so the sole director must be paid at least the minimum wage or is deemed to earn it: salary 12 × €780 = €9,360 (a deductible company cost and the owner's own income), employer social insurance 23.59% × 780 × 12 = €2,208.00 (deductible), employee social insurance 10.50% × 780 × 12 = €982.80, wage tax 12 × 25.5% × (780 − 81.90 − 550 non-taxable minimum) = 12 × 37.77 = €453.24. Distributable profit = 54,000 − 9,360 − 2,208.00 = €42,432.00, corporate tax 20% of the gross distribution = €8,486.40; the dividend itself carries no personal tax. Levies €12,130.44 → 20.2% of revenue. The microenterprise tax is not available at this size (turnover limit = the €50,000 VAT threshold), so the company route is the lowest-burden option open to a resident freelancer.
Notes
The ordinary self-employed route (lv-self-employed-general) at the same profile costs €17,579.29, i.e. 29.3%: social insurance €7,372.20 (31.07% on the €780-a-month minimum base plus 10% of the profit above it) and income tax 25.5% × (54,000 − 7,372.20 − 6,600) = €10,207.09, with the contributions deductible. The microenterprise tax would be 25.0% of turnover (€15,000) but is closed to a freelancer above €50,000 of turnover or with VAT-registered business customers in other EU states. A non-EU remote worker on the remote-work long-stay visa pays a flat 15% income tax for the first 365 days of Latvian residency, but VID treats such a person as an employee of a foreign employer owing 34.09% social insurance, so the burden is €23,747.31 (39.6%) unless the contributions are paid in another state, in which case it is €8,100 (13.5%) (lv-remote-work-visa-15pct). The company figure excludes accounting and filing costs and buys social-insurance rights only on the minimum-wage base; below the €3,900-a-month turnover line there is no director's salary and the burden is a flat 20.0% (with no insurance cover at all), while just above it the same company pays about 22.8% (a profile without expenses), so the figure moves with the turnover test.

Prioritising safety, air, and an easy daily life.

Works in your favour

Air quality (PM2.5)8.8 µg/m³

European Environment Agency — Air Quality Statistics (E1a validated), station LV0026A "Riga Kronvalda boulevard"

Open data

Data as of
Dec 31, 2025
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Validated (E1a, verification flag 1) 2025 annual mean at station LV0026A, Riga Kronvalda boulevard, an urban background site at 56.9548°N 24.1048°E (3 m): 8.812 µg/m³ on 99.28% data coverage, hourly data, queried from the EEA statistics service on 2026-10-19 (calculated 2026-10-15). It is the only Riga station with PM2.5 in the EEA’s annual statistics. Earlier years at the same station: 8.920 µg/m³ in 2024 (99.35%), 8.468 in 2023 (96.95%) and 9.245 in 2022 (97.76%). The WHO Ambient Air Quality Database v8.0 (2026) carries the same series for Riga/LVA — 9.24, 8.47 and 8.92 for 2022–2024 — and has no 2025 row yet.
Notes
ONE STATION: an urban-background site near the centre, so it describes the city’s general level, not traffic corridors. Riga’s only other station in the EEA statistics, LV0027A Riga-Valdemara street (traffic, urban), reports PM10, NO2 and benzene but no PM2.5 in 2025; the WHO row counts both stations (n=2) because it pools three pollutants, but its PM2.5 value is the Kronvalda station alone. 8.8 µg/m³ is above the WHO 2021 guideline of 5 µg/m³ and below the EU limit of 10 µg/m³ that applies from 2030. Kronvalda’s 2025 PM10 annual mean was 16.2 µg/m³.
Cost of living (single, excl. rent)$873/mo

Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia — Household Budget Survey 2025: mean monthly consumption expenditure of one-person households by ECOICOP v2 division (table MBI031)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of
Dec 31, 2025
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
One-person households spent €798.57 a month in the Central Statistical Bureau's 2025 Household Budget Survey (CSP table MBI031, published 17 August 2026; consumption in cash and in kind, imputed rent not included). The survey is current-year, so no inflation uplift applies. Actual rentals are removed: Eurostat's HBS 2020 structure for Latvian one-adult households puts actual rentals at 23 per mille of consumption that includes 196 per mille of imputed rent, i.e. 23 / 804 = 2.86% of consumption without imputed rent, = €22.84 a month. €798.57 − €22.84 = €775.73, × 1.1253 USD/EUR (ECB, 2026-10-16) = $873. The 13 ECOICOP v2 divisions are summed in cost-breakdown.
Notes
The 2025 survey (2,063 responding households, 20% response rate) is Latvia's first to use ECOICOP version 2 and, by the CSP's own warning, is not fully comparable with 2019 and earlier. One-person households include many pensioners, so the basket is an average for people living alone, not a working remote worker's. The rent split is the weakest input, because the CSP does not publish rentals by household type; using the all-household 2025 share of rentals instead (€164.65 of €7,428.08 a year, 2.2%) would remove €17.70 rather than €22.84, a $6 difference. Cross-check: the CSP's 2019 one-person figure (€513.62 a month) lifted by Latvia's HICP from the 2019 to the 2025 annual average (108.53 → 150.85, ×1.390) gives €714, 11% below the 2025 survey figure.

Watch-outs

Homicide rate3.55/100k

Ministry of the Interior Information Centre (IeM IC) — Kriminālā statistika par 2025. gadu, offences registered in Riga by Criminal Law article

Official source

Data as of
Dec 31, 2025
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Offences registered in Riga in 2025 under Criminal Law section 116 (murder) 15, section 117 (murder under aggravating circumstances) 3 and section 118 (murder under especially aggravating circumstances) 3 = 21, from the annual workbook NN_2025.xlsx (sheet XII nodaļa, distribution by State city; read 2026-10-19), divided by Riga’s 2025 annual average population of 591,982 (CSP IRS031, POP) and multiplied by 100,000 = 3.55.
Notes
Registered offences by the place where they were committed, not victims by residence, and the register may include attempts along with completed offences, so the figure can overstate the completed-homicide rate and cannot be set directly against UNODC or Eurostat series. The same workbook gives 53 such offences for all of Latvia (34 + 13 + 6), 2.9 per 100,000 on the national average population, so Riga reads about a quarter above the country.
Climate comfort5/12 mo

SettleMetric computation over Riga LU climate-normals (WMO 26422)

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of
Dec 31, 2020
Verified
Oct 19, 2026
Method
Count of months with mean daily max 15–28°C and precipitation < 150mm, from the 1991–2020 normals: May (17.8°C), Jun (21.3), Jul (23.8), Aug (22.7), Sep (17.3) qualify = 5. April misses at 11.9°C and October at 10.5°C; no month exceeds 28°C or 150 mm.

16

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Living in Riga: a resident on the real cost of living

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17

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