What Rio de Janeiro costs
Rio is cheap until Carnival — and expensive exactly where you are paying for a view rather than for what you get.
- Lean
- €29–33 a day per person
- Comfortable
- €104 per person
- Biggest line
- The room
A daily budget in Rio is easy to keep low: the metro is cheap, lunch is sold by weight, and the beach costs nothing. All of that changes around Carnival, in February or early March, when a room is a different line from the rest of the year.
The prices below are per person, in euros; a hotel room is split between two, and the night is May's average, the cheapest month.
Total: half a hotel room, lunch, dinner, two metro rides and Sugarloaf. A lean day, with a hostel, two inexpensive meals and four metro rides, is €29–33.
What actually costs money
- Sugarloaf — one ticket for both cable cars, to Urca and to the summit. Foreign visitors pay the full rate; it is lower only for Brazilians and residents of Rio state.
- Christ the Redeemer — the train from Cosme Velho is €22, the van from Copacabana €22; transport is included in both. Get to Paineiras on your own and you pay the price in the table.
- The metro — the same fare for every ride, whatever the distance; the card is topped up at the station.
Where you pay for the view
A restaurant right on the front in Copacabana or Ipanema charges for the sea, not the plate: the same dish two streets back costs less. The same goes for rooftop bars and for hotel rooms with a sea view across the six lanes of Avenida Atlântica.
Where you save without losing anything
Lunch by weight is an institution — you choose at the counter, it is weighed and you pay by the kilo, so lunch costs as much as you take. Breakfast is had at a padaria, not in the hotel. The beach, Arpoador, the Tijuca trails and the view from Niterói cost little or nothing.
The same comparison for 143 places: hostel, hotel, getting into town and a day pass. Travel costs →
Before you go
Short answers to what people ask most before setting out.
What does a day in Rio cost?
€29–33 a head with a hostel, two meals and the metro; €104 with a hotel shared by two, restaurants and Sugarloaf. The gap is the room; food and transport are cheap either way.
What do the viewpoints cost?
Sugarloaf is €34 for a foreign visitor. The statue runs from €15 by van from Paineiras to €22 by cog railway from Cosme Velho — transport is included, and the starting point is the only difference between those prices.
How much does Carnival put prices up?
The room: the average night in Copacabana is almost three times higher in February than in May. If Carnival is not why you are coming, keep the trip out of February and early March.
Ready for Rio de Janeiro?
Where to next
Rio de Janeiro in 3 days
→Three days in which the viewpoints are not booked but waited for — in cloud Corcovado shows you nothing and…
São Paulo · 360 km
→A city with no postcard and the best restaurants on the continent — you come for the table, not the view
How well does Rio de Janeiro suit you?
→Six questions: a score for this place and others like it.
Front row for the next trip
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