- Monaco is the world’s most expensive place to buy luxury housing.
- The 2025 Knight Frank Wealth Report says $1 million buys just 205 sq ft of prime residential property.
- The tax haven is tiny and densely populated, so there’s very little space to build on.
A million dollars will only buy you about as much space as a parking spot in Monaco.
That’s according to this year’s Knight Frank Wealth Report, which found that $1 million will buy just 19 square meters, or about 205 square feet, of prime residential property in the microstate on the French Riviera.
In comparison, the same amount would get you 34 square meters (about 366 square feet) in New York — the world’s sixth most-expensive market for luxury real estate.
Hong Kong is ranked second, followed by Singapore, Geneva, and London.
Monaco remains a magnet for the superrich due to its lack of income or capital gains taxes, along with its favorable climate and high-quality healthcare.
However, housing costs are exceptionally high. Monaco was also the world’s most expensive luxury rental market last year.
A Knight Frank analysis from May 2024 found that renting a 1,100-square-foot property in Monaco starts at about $19,350 a month. A $30,000 budget would likely only stretch to a modest two-bedroom apartment.
Monaco’s extreme property prices are driven by a lack of space to build more properties, resulting in a limited housing supply.
At just 510 acres, Monaco is the world’s second-smallest sovereign state after the Vatican City.
For perspective, the constitutional monarchy is smaller than New York’s Central Park, which covers 843 acres, while the entire city spans about 200,000 acres.
According to the latest World Bank data, Monaco is also the most densely populated country, with 18,681 people per square kilometer.
To address the space constraints, Monaco has been reclaiming land from the sea for decades. In 2019, Savills said it was investing more than $2 billion to extend Monaco’s coastline by a further 15 acres, creating homes for about 1,000 people.
