Should you rent or buy your home?

The Lux List calculator

Rent or buy in Luxembourg?

A straight answer, with the tax relief that most comparisons leave out.

Below is the answer for a typical Luxembourg purchase — an €800,000 home, 20% deposit, against €2,200 a month in rent, on a €150,000 household income. Scroll down to put your own numbers in and it updates as you go. Tap any ? if a term is unfamiliar.

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Buying — equity plus savings Renting — savings invested

The thing that decides it

The answer swings more on house prices than on anything else. Same inputs, different growth rates:

Your income and the tax relief
The property
Renting instead
Purchase costs and reliefs

What to take from this

Then there is everything a calculator cannot weigh. Whether you might move for work, whether the family is likely to grow, how much a landlord's decisions would bother you, and what it is worth to stop moving house. Plenty of people buy knowing the numbers are marginal, and are right to.

A sensible next step: ask a bank what you would actually be offered, and a notary what the fees on a specific property would come to. Both are free conversations, and real figures beat any estimate — including this one.

How this works. Both paths start with the same money. The buyer spends it on the deposit and fees; the renter keeps it invested. Each year, whoever pays less for housing invests the difference. Wealth for the buyer is the home's value minus the outstanding mortgage, plus any savings; for the renter it is the portfolio. The chart runs 30 years, all in today's money, so returns and growth rates are real rates after inflation.

On the tax relief. Mortgage interest on a main residence is deducted from taxable income. For homes that became available to you since 1 January 2024 there is no ceiling on this — and that includes existing properties, not just new builds, since the availability date for a habitable home is simply the date you buy it. Tenants get no equivalent relief in Luxembourg, which is a real part of the gap between the two options. The marginal rate here is estimated from the income you enter using the 2026 scale, with the 7% solidarity surcharge, and Class 2 thresholds when there are two incomes. It is an approximation — your actual rate depends on allowances and circumstances this tool cannot see.

Not included: moving costs, furnishing, renovation, agency fees on a future sale, capital gains tax, or the deduction of mortgage arrangement fees available in the year of purchase.

This is general information, not advice. Luxembourg's housing and tax rules change often. Confirm anything you rely on with your notary, your bank, a tax adviser and guichet.lu.