Statistics Austria published selected findings on people living alone from its 2024/25 Household Budget Survey on 1 October 2026. Average monthly consumer expenditure among one-person households was about €2,700. People under 60 living alone spent an average of €2,770, compared with €2,610 among those aged 60 and over. The reported average was €3,080 for employed people living alone and €2,570 for pensioners. One highlighted comparison concerns transport: men aged 65 and over spent an average of €439 a month, while women of the same age spent €159. The difference is close to threefold, but it describes group averages in the survey, not the behaviour of every individual.

The survey was conducted as a sample study from late April 2024 through late May 2025. A total of 6,689 randomly selected households recorded expenses in a household diary for two weeks and answered additional questions. The coverage includes regular outlays such as food, rent and fuel, as well as major purchases such as cars or kitchens and expenses linked to occasions including the start of the school year, weddings, Christmas and holidays. Statistics Austria cautions that these expenditures are not financed only from income received in the same month. Savings, additional salary payments, bonuses, gifts, inheritances and loans can help fund purchases. Although the results are expressed as monthly averages, the collection period spans thirteen months; these figures are not a set of receipts from one specific month or a live spending count.

Across all ages, the release puts average monthly expenditure at €2,740 for men living alone and €2,660 for women. That overall difference does not apply uniformly to each age band. Among people under 60, women averaged €2,870 and men €2,700; among those aged 60 or more, women averaged €2,520 and men €2,810. Women aged 35–54 spent €3,080 compared with €2,860 for men in that band, while men aged 55–64 spent €2,960 and women €2,860. The pattern shows why one headline gender comparison cannot describe all ages. The survey defines the household as a one-person household, but age, employment and retirement status divide that population into groups with different spending averages.

Differences between spending categories also explain why the headline average needs context. For people aged 65 and over, monthly transport expenditure was €439 for men and €159 for women. Statistics Austria includes vehicle maintenance, fuel, vehicle purchases and public transport in this category; large purchases such as a car may affect the monthly average. In the same age group, men spent €218 on restaurants compared with €138 for women, and €82.2 on alcoholic beverages and tobacco compared with €36. By contrast, women reported higher health expenditure across age groups, with health spending highest among both sexes aged 65 and over. Women aged 35–54 spent about €112 a month on personal care, against €29 for men. These differences do not isolate needs, preferences or price effects; the survey classifies expenditure totals and does not prove why they differ.

The sample table also reports weighted estimates for the household population. It estimates 1.6141 million one-person households, including 733,200 classified as men and 880,900 as women. The group aged 65 and over contains an estimated 614,600 households. These figures are not a direct count of the 6,689 households that took part; they are weighted population estimates. The sample size should not be confused with the millions of households represented by the survey. The release focuses on selected sociodemographic results and does not provide a detailed uncertainty interval for every subgroup. Differences among small subgroups should therefore be read with the sampling and classification limits in mind rather than treated as exact descriptions of every household.

The data do not by themselves measure wages, saving capacity, welfare or the cost of living. Higher expenditure does not prove higher income, and lower expenditure is not a direct measure of deprivation; borrowing, savings, household choices and individual circumstances can all affect totals. Values are rounded and expenditure groups use the international COICOP 2018 classification. The survey is the 2024/25 wave of a household budget study conducted at five-year intervals; it is not a month-by-month panel or a price index. Age and gender comparisons are descriptive observations, not causal findings. This article reports the selected results published by Statistics Austria on 1 October. Further interpretation should use the full tables, methodology and later survey waves. The monthly euro amounts refer to the survey’s collection period and should not be presented as current 2026 spending levels.