Cost of Living on the Oaxaca Coast (Real Monthly Numbers)

Ask ten people what the cost of living on the Oaxaca coast looks like in real monthly numbers and you will get ten different answers. Most of them are honest — the number just depends on where you live, how you live, and which month you are asking about. This is the plain version: realistic ranges for rent, food, utilities, transport, and healthcare across Puerto Escondido, the Mazunte–San Agustinillo strip, and Huatulco, with the caveats attached.

The numbers

How to Read These Numbers

Every figure below is in US dollars, and every figure is a range, not a point. We have assumed the peso trading around 17–18 to the dollar, which is roughly where it has sat for most of 2026; if the exchange rate moves, these numbers move with it. The costs assume you are renting and living the way the coast actually lives — shopping at the mercado, eating at the local comedor, taking the colectivo. Live like a tourist and you will pay tourist prices. That is a choice, not a law.

One more thing before the numbers. Most of what you find when you search for the cost of living in Oaxaca, Mexico per month describes Oaxaca City, the state capital — inland, cooler, and noticeably cheaper than the coast. These figures are for the coast, where rent and imported goods cost more and seafood costs less. The coast also runs on two seasons: the quiet months from May to October, and high season from November to April, when visitors arrive, short-term prices climb, and long-term rents drift up a little too.

Rent & housing

Housing: Rent and Short-Term Stays

Housing is the biggest line in any budget here, and the honest ranges are wide. In Mazunte and San Agustinillo, a simple two-bedroom house with a kitchen and a terrace rents for $400–$800 a month on a yearly lease. In Puerto Escondido, the same kind of place runs $600–$1,200, and the neighbourhood decides almost everything: La Punta and Brisas de Zicatela sit at the top of the range, the centre and Rinconada at the bottom. Huatulco runs $700–$1,400, with La Crucecita the cheapest option and the bays the most expensive.

Season matters more than newcomers expect. From November to April many landlords prefer short-term rentals to tourists, and a house that leases for $700 a month will fetch $80–$150 a night as a short-term stay. If you want a yearly lease, look in the low season, and expect to pay one or two months' deposit up front. Get the contract in Spanish and read it with someone who reads Spanish well. Water is sometimes included in village leases; in town, assume it is not.

Area	Long-term, 1–2 bed (USD/month)	High-season short-term (USD/night)
Puerto Escondido	$600–$1,200	$60–$180
Mazunte / San Agustinillo	$400–$800	$55–$150
Huatulco	$700–$1,400	$70–$200

If you are weighing rent against buying, the purchase side of the ledger matters too. Our guide to land prices on the Oaxaca coast lays out the per-square-metre picture town by town, so you can compare a lease against the cost of owning the ground beneath it.

Food

Food, Markets, and Eating Out

Food is where the coast is still genuinely cheap — if you shop and eat the way the coast eats. The mercado is the centre of that life. A weekly shop of fruit, vegetables, tortillas, eggs, chicken, and fish for a family of four runs about $110–$200 (roughly 2,000–3,500 pesos), and it will be fresher than anything you are used to.

Eating out follows the same rule as housing: local or tourist. A meal at a market comedor or a family fonda costs 60–120 pesos — about $3.50–$7. Tacos from a street cart run 15–35 pesos each. A sit-down restaurant with a view charges $10–$18 a plate, and the beach clubs in high season charge more. People who live here eat local during the week and splurge on weekends. The real budget-breaker is imports: wine, cheese, good coffee, and anything gluten-free cost two to three times what they cost up north, and that is how eating like home wrecks a monthly budget.

Drinking water comes in garrafones — 20-litre jugs delivered to your door for about $2 each. A couple goes through two or three a week; a family, five or six. Budget $10–$25 a month and it stops being a line item.

Services

Utilities, Internet, and Phone

Electricity comes from CFE, the federal power company, and it is the utility that moves your budget. A small house with ceiling fans and no air conditioning runs $30–$80 a month. Add air conditioning — which most people do from May to October — and the hot months add $50–$150. Water is usually cheap: $10–$30 a month where it is metered, and in the villages it is often included in the rent or delivered by truck.

Internet is the number to check before you commit to a town. Fiber reaches Puerto Escondido and Huatulco at $25–$45 a month for speeds that handle video calls. In the villages it is patchier, and plenty of people who work online pay about $60 a month for Starlink and never look back. A Telcel prepaid SIM with generous data costs $10–$25 a month. Propane for the kitchen stove — the standard way to cook — runs about $25–$35 per tank, which lasts a couple a month or two.

Getting around

Transport

You do not need a car on this coast, and most people who settle here go without one for the first year. Colectivos and local buses cost 10–25 pesos per ride — roughly $0.60–$1.50 — and the run from Puerto Escondido to Mazunte is about $2–$3. Mototaxis cover short hops in town for a similar price, and taxis within a town run $2–$5. A monthly transport budget without a car lands around $30–$80, and that includes the occasional trip to the next town over.

If you do buy a vehicle, make it a used SUV or pickup — the dirt roads are real, and so is the rainy season. Budget $100–$250 a month for fuel, basic insurance, and maintenance. Long-distance buses to Oaxaca City run about $30–$50 each way, and airport shuttles from Puerto Escondido or Huatulco run $15–$30 depending on where you are headed.

Health

Healthcare Costs

Healthcare is the line that surprises people pleasantly. Mexico's public system, IMSS, allows residents to enroll voluntarily for roughly $300–$500 USD a year, which covers consultations, medications, and hospital care at public clinics. It is not private medicine and it is not always fast, but it is real coverage at a price that does not exist up north.

Many residents combine it with private care. A consultation at a private clinic runs $20–$50, a specialist $40–$80, and dental work is dramatically cheaper than in the US or Canada. International health insurance runs $80–$200 a month depending on age and coverage, and it is the sensible answer for anything serious — a major emergency will send you to Oaxaca City or Mexico City. Pharmacies sell generics at prices that make a pharmacy run feel like a mistake in the exchange rate.

The budgets

Monthly Budgets by Town

Here is the whole thing in one table: what a single person, a couple, and a family of four should expect to spend per month in each stretch of the coast. These are total budgets — rent, food, utilities, transport, healthcare, and a little margin for life — for people renting, cooking mostly at home, and living local. They assume no car payment, no school fees, and no private insurance premium. Add any of those and you add the top of the range, or more.

Household	Puerto Escondido	Mazunte / San Agustinillo	Huatulco
Single person	$1,000–$1,500	$850–$1,300	$1,100–$1,600
Couple	$1,600–$2,300	$1,400–$2,000	$1,700–$2,500
Family of four	$2,600–$3,800	$2,300–$3,300	$2,700–$4,000

Read the ranges, not the midpoints. The villages come in cheapest because rent and food both run lower. Huatulco runs highest because it is a planned resort town with resort prices for housing. Puerto Escondido sits in the middle with the widest spread: you can live there for less than Mazunte if you pick the right neighbourhood, or more than Huatulco if you pick the wrong one.

So, is Oaxaca expensive? Compared with a US or Canadian city, no — most people find their monthly costs drop by a third to a half while the quality of life rises. Compared with Oaxaca City or inland Mexico, yes; the coast carries a premium, and it is a premium most people happily pay for the Pacific. The honest summary is that this is not the bargain Mexico of your imagination, and it is not the expensive Mexico of a resort. It is a fair-priced Mexico, and the number at the bottom of the page depends more on your habits than on the town you choose.

Rent decides the budget. Get housing right and the rest of the table falls into place; get it wrong and no amount of cheap tacos will save you.

The gaps

The Line Items People Forget

Every budget on this page has a blind spot, and the blind spots are usually the same ones. First, setup costs. Your first month in any rental means first month's rent plus one or two months' deposit, then furniture, appliances, and a first market run that will be bigger than you expect. Set aside one to two months of living costs before the first month is even paid.

Second, the season. Rent month to month and December through April will cost you more — sometimes much more — and the electricity bill climbs with the heat. Third, the imported grocery habit, which quietly adds $100–$300 a month to anyone who keeps eating as they did up north. Fourth, healthcare before you are settled: if you arrive without coverage, buy a travel or short-term policy for the first few months while you sort out the longer options.

Fifth, the paperwork of being here. A temporary residency visa costs a few hundred dollars in fees and requires proof of income or savings, and renewals cost money every year. Many residents pay a gestor — a local fixer for paperwork — $50–$150 a month to handle bills, visas, and the annual tax declaration; for some people it is the best money they spend. And sixth, the currency. The peso moves, and if your income is in dollars, a good month and a bad month can differ by more than the whole food budget.

If this article has you thinking about the purchase side of the coast — and the monthly number is only half of the decision — our complete guide to buying land in Oaxaca walks through titles, closing costs, and the process end to end, and our honest breakdown of what a $50,000 budget buys on the coast shows how far a land purchase goes in each town. The running costs are the part you pay every month. The land is the part that compounds.