6 things that are surprisingly cheap in France (and 5 that are shockingly expensive)
When visiting or moving to France, foreigners are often surprised by the cost of certain products - here's a look at what is expensive in France and what is comparatively cheap - and the reasons why prices fluctuate so much.
When travelling from your home country, the following items might be worth stocking up on to help save you a few extra euros when shopping in France.
Things that are surprisingly expensive
Washing powder
If you ever visit Andorra, the small country found in the Pyrenees mountains between Spain and France, you might come across droves of French people stocking up on washing powder. Many French people go to Andorra to shop - as sales taxes are very low or non-existent, especially for luxury items and things like alcohol and tobacco. Cleaning products, like washing powder, are also at the top of many French people's shopping lists when crossing the border.
A large part of the reason washing powder is so pricey in l'Hexagone is because the TVA (value-added tax) is 20 percent for all cleaning products. It's betting more expensive too - from 2006 to 2015, detergents and cleaning products increased in price by up to 44 percent in some cases, according to Familles rurales.
When compared with the UK, a study by Which.UK found that the most expensive laundry detergent cost on average 40p per wash, with the cheapest coming out to 8p per wash. In comparison, the cheapest per cycle in France was €0.15 and the most expensive was €0.50.
Light bulbs
While light bulbs were once something that foreigners may have packed in suitcases to bring to France in order to avoid high prices, the growth and advent of LED lights has meant that the bulbs have a much longer lifespan. An LED lightbulb's projected lifespan is 25,000 hours.
Nevertheless - lightbulbs are still a bit more expensive in France than in the UK, though French prices are quite average when compared to other European countries, like Germany.
In France just a few years ago (in 2016) an individual LED bulb could cost between at €10 to €15. These prices were prohibitive for many households, so the French government launched an operation called "mesampoulesgratuites.fr" (My free lightbulbs) that gave low-income houses up to 10 LED bulbs at a discounted price (or for free).
In 2023, at Monoprix, you would be able to find a two-pack of standard 60w LED light bulbs for €12.50, but for the exact same product at Sainsbury's in the UK you would pay £5.
Towels
In the United States, you can go into Target and buy a standard bath towel for $3 to $10. However, in France, if you were to attempt the same purchase at Monoprix, you would struggle to find a bath towel for under €8. Most bath and shower towels on the Monoprix website were listed for about €13.
Pricing will depend where you shop - for instance, the brand Auchan might be more affordable than Monoprix.
If you shop at Ikea in France you will likely have to pay between €8 to €10 at minimum for a shower/ bath towel (which seems to be the standard price for Ikea stores in other EU countries).
Paint
Many Brits have noticed over the years that paint tends to be more expensive in France than the UK. Several bloggers have shared that paint was one of the top sources of frustration when renovating their French homes.
A litre of paint is typically sufficient to cover one wall (depending on size), and in the UK you can expect to find budget paints that could be available for as little as £2 to £3 per litre, while the more established brands sell paint for between £5 and £20 per litre, if not more.
However, in France, however, while the average cost of paint is typically calculated by metre squared, and you can expect to spend between €5.5 and €13 per metre squared, if you go to a website like Leroy-Merlin you can see that a simple 1L of white interior paint costs approximately €30.
Books
In France, whether you are buying a book in a bookshop (librarie) or online, you will still end up paying more than you might expect to in a country like the UK or the US - the average price for a paperback book is €11.50.
This is because the French government has set up specific protections for independent booksellers. In 2016, France banned free book deliveries, and in 2022 the country took steps to set up a minimum delivery fee that anyone selling a book must abide by. These actions were intended to help small businesses compete with large tech firms, like Amazon.
It also means that French consumers pay higher prices than their anglophone neighbours when buying the latest best seller - but at least their local town probably has an independent book store.
Here are the things that are surprisingly cheap in France
But it's not all bad news, there are plenty of things in France that are cheaper than you might be used to.
Condoms and contraception
People under the age of 26 can benefit from free birth control, as of January 1st, 2023.
France's President Emmanuel Macron announced in December 2022 that the country would offer free condoms to people aged 18 to 25, available in pharmacies. In addition to free condoms, France also made all contraceptive methods for women and girls under 26 free of charge.
Museums visits
Once again, this applies to people between 18 and 25 years old, but this French government provision makes it so that young people can enjoy the permanent collections at France's national museums for free.
Temporary exhibitions are not free of charge, but discounts are typically in place for students.
Members of certain professions in France can also benefit from free museum visits in France - like public school teachers and journalists - and many cities offer days when museums are free for everyone. In Paris this happens on the first Sunday of every month.
Bread
This may not come as a surprise - particularly after the baguette received UNESCO heritage status - but bread is quite affordable in France. A baguette typically does not cost more than €1 and considering the fact that over 9 out of every 10 Parisians lives within a five-minute walk from a boulangerie, they are not very hard to come by.
However, baguettes could become more expensive in 2023, as French bakeries cope with rising prices for energy and raw materials (although government help is on the way for bakeries).
READ MORE: Boulangeries across France face closure as energy bills skyrocket
Wine
Once again, wine being affordable in France may not come as a huge shock - obviously you can pay hundreds or even thousands of euro for rare vintages, but the average cost of a bottle of wine is €6.50, while it's possible to get a vin de table for as little as €1.50 per litre (if you take your own container).
Wine at the pump per litre in the south of France is…cheaper than petrol
🇫🇷🍷 pic.twitter.com/HzdFMJQhU6
— Sophie Pedder (@PedderSophie) October 29, 2022
In France, the vast majority of wine consumed is French wine, meaning you're not paying import costs.
Wine - the most consumed alcohol in France - also has a special advantage - it is taxed at less than one percent. In comparison, other alcohols in France can be taxed at over 50 percent. The reason for this is to protect the French wine industry, which is worth around €20 billion a year.
Electricity
When compared with the rest of Europe, France benefits from relatively low household electricity prices, despite rising costs of energy. However, this trend began before France put in place its energy price shield, which has been the government's way of protecting households from severe price increases amid the cost of living crisis.
READ MORE: Explained: How is France keeping its inflation rate (relatively) low?
According to Eurostat, in 2019, at €0.1765 per kWh, the average cost of electricity in France was still 26.5 percent cheaper than the EU average.
This is in part due to the fact that France is less exposed to energy shocks than some other European countries due to its nuclear sector. The country is unusual among European nations in the size of its nuclear industry – and around 70 percent of electricity comes from its own domestic nuclear power plants.
In 2023, French households will still see their electricity bills go higher, but prices rises will be capped to 15 percent, representing a rise of about €20 per month for the average customer.
Cell phone plans and roaming charges
According to data from the American Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the average phone plan in the United States costs about $114 per month or $1,371 per year. In comparison, for French consumers, the average cost of a basic mobile package - with at least 10G of data - was about €16 to €20 per month in 2022. In 2021, the average price paid per month by French consumers was €17.75.
As most French phone plans offer unlimited roaming within the EU, holidaying with a French cell plan can also be quite affordable.
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When travelling from your home country, the following items might be worth stocking up on to help save you a few extra euros when shopping in France.
Things that are surprisingly expensive
Washing powder
If you ever visit Andorra, the small country found in the Pyrenees mountains between Spain and France, you might come across droves of French people stocking up on washing powder. Many French people go to Andorra to shop - as sales taxes are very low or non-existent, especially for luxury items and things like alcohol and tobacco. Cleaning products, like washing powder, are also at the top of many French people's shopping lists when crossing the border.
A large part of the reason washing powder is so pricey in l'Hexagone is because the TVA (value-added tax) is 20 percent for all cleaning products. It's betting more expensive too - from 2006 to 2015, detergents and cleaning products increased in price by up to 44 percent in some cases, according to Familles rurales.
When compared with the UK, a study by Which.UK found that the most expensive laundry detergent cost on average 40p per wash, with the cheapest coming out to 8p per wash. In comparison, the cheapest per cycle in France was €0.15 and the most expensive was €0.50.
Light bulbs
While light bulbs were once something that foreigners may have packed in suitcases to bring to France in order to avoid high prices, the growth and advent of LED lights has meant that the bulbs have a much longer lifespan. An LED lightbulb's projected lifespan is 25,000 hours.
Nevertheless - lightbulbs are still a bit more expensive in France than in the UK, though French prices are quite average when compared to other European countries, like Germany.
In France just a few years ago (in 2016) an individual LED bulb could cost between at €10 to €15. These prices were prohibitive for many households, so the French government launched an operation called "mesampoulesgratuites.fr" (My free lightbulbs) that gave low-income houses up to 10 LED bulbs at a discounted price (or for free).
In 2023, at Monoprix, you would be able to find a two-pack of standard 60w LED light bulbs for €12.50, but for the exact same product at Sainsbury's in the UK you would pay £5.
Towels
In the United States, you can go into Target and buy a standard bath towel for $3 to $10. However, in France, if you were to attempt the same purchase at Monoprix, you would struggle to find a bath towel for under €8. Most bath and shower towels on the Monoprix website were listed for about €13.
Pricing will depend where you shop - for instance, the brand Auchan might be more affordable than Monoprix.
If you shop at Ikea in France you will likely have to pay between €8 to €10 at minimum for a shower/ bath towel (which seems to be the standard price for Ikea stores in other EU countries).
Paint
Many Brits have noticed over the years that paint tends to be more expensive in France than the UK. Several bloggers have shared that paint was one of the top sources of frustration when renovating their French homes.
A litre of paint is typically sufficient to cover one wall (depending on size), and in the UK you can expect to find budget paints that could be available for as little as £2 to £3 per litre, while the more established brands sell paint for between £5 and £20 per litre, if not more.
However, in France, however, while the average cost of paint is typically calculated by metre squared, and you can expect to spend between €5.5 and €13 per metre squared, if you go to a website like Leroy-Merlin you can see that a simple 1L of white interior paint costs approximately €30.
Books
In France, whether you are buying a book in a bookshop (librarie) or online, you will still end up paying more than you might expect to in a country like the UK or the US - the average price for a paperback book is €11.50.
This is because the French government has set up specific protections for independent booksellers. In 2016, France banned free book deliveries, and in 2022 the country took steps to set up a minimum delivery fee that anyone selling a book must abide by. These actions were intended to help small businesses compete with large tech firms, like Amazon.
It also means that French consumers pay higher prices than their anglophone neighbours when buying the latest best seller - but at least their local town probably has an independent book store.
Here are the things that are surprisingly cheap in France
But it's not all bad news, there are plenty of things in France that are cheaper than you might be used to.
Condoms and contraception
People under the age of 26 can benefit from free birth control, as of January 1st, 2023.
France's President Emmanuel Macron announced in December 2022 that the country would offer free condoms to people aged 18 to 25, available in pharmacies. In addition to free condoms, France also made all contraceptive methods for women and girls under 26 free of charge.
Museums visits
Once again, this applies to people between 18 and 25 years old, but this French government provision makes it so that young people can enjoy the permanent collections at France's national museums for free.
Temporary exhibitions are not free of charge, but discounts are typically in place for students.
Members of certain professions in France can also benefit from free museum visits in France - like public school teachers and journalists - and many cities offer days when museums are free for everyone. In Paris this happens on the first Sunday of every month.
Bread
This may not come as a surprise - particularly after the baguette received UNESCO heritage status - but bread is quite affordable in France. A baguette typically does not cost more than €1 and considering the fact that over 9 out of every 10 Parisians lives within a five-minute walk from a boulangerie, they are not very hard to come by.
However, baguettes could become more expensive in 2023, as French bakeries cope with rising prices for energy and raw materials (although government help is on the way for bakeries).
READ MORE: Boulangeries across France face closure as energy bills skyrocket
Wine
Once again, wine being affordable in France may not come as a huge shock - obviously you can pay hundreds or even thousands of euro for rare vintages, but the average cost of a bottle of wine is €6.50, while it's possible to get a vin de table for as little as €1.50 per litre (if you take your own container).
Wine at the pump per litre in the south of France is…cheaper than petrol
— Sophie Pedder (@PedderSophie) October 29, 2022
🇫🇷🍷 pic.twitter.com/HzdFMJQhU6
In France, the vast majority of wine consumed is French wine, meaning you're not paying import costs.
Wine - the most consumed alcohol in France - also has a special advantage - it is taxed at less than one percent. In comparison, other alcohols in France can be taxed at over 50 percent. The reason for this is to protect the French wine industry, which is worth around €20 billion a year.
Electricity
When compared with the rest of Europe, France benefits from relatively low household electricity prices, despite rising costs of energy. However, this trend began before France put in place its energy price shield, which has been the government's way of protecting households from severe price increases amid the cost of living crisis.
READ MORE: Explained: How is France keeping its inflation rate (relatively) low?
According to Eurostat, in 2019, at €0.1765 per kWh, the average cost of electricity in France was still 26.5 percent cheaper than the EU average.
This is in part due to the fact that France is less exposed to energy shocks than some other European countries due to its nuclear sector. The country is unusual among European nations in the size of its nuclear industry – and around 70 percent of electricity comes from its own domestic nuclear power plants.
In 2023, French households will still see their electricity bills go higher, but prices rises will be capped to 15 percent, representing a rise of about €20 per month for the average customer.
Cell phone plans and roaming charges
According to data from the American Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the average phone plan in the United States costs about $114 per month or $1,371 per year. In comparison, for French consumers, the average cost of a basic mobile package - with at least 10G of data - was about €16 to €20 per month in 2022. In 2021, the average price paid per month by French consumers was €17.75.
As most French phone plans offer unlimited roaming within the EU, holidaying with a French cell plan can also be quite affordable.
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