Living in Kathmandu: USD 903 a Month and a 150 Day Visa Cap

Cost of Living

Monthly budgets, last verified 9 November 2026: nomads.com tiers from 9 November, Numbeo items from 6 November at 150.48983 rupees to the dollar.

Nomad tier: USD 903 a month

Beside expat USD 679, family USD 1,403 and local USD 401, the nomad tier is 2.3 times what the city itself spends. Our Singapore page prints USD 5,529, so this is 6.1 times cheaper, and Colombo at USD 1,881 is 2.1 times dearer.

WhereNext says USD 650

WhereNext scores a cost index of 18 against quality 33.4, calls the city Budget Living and models USD 650. That is USD 29 under the expat tier, 4.3% apart, so two sources agree on a foreigner's basic month. It is 62% above the local tier: the model prices an expat month.

Rent, centre and one ring out

Numbeo, 6 November: one bedroom in the centre NPR 36,108, about USD 240; outside NPR 16,460, about USD 109. Nomads.com's central studio is USD 225, within 6.7% of the Numbeo figure. That one bedroom takes 84 per cent of the average net salary of NPR 43,111, USD 286.

What a lean month costs

Rent outside the centre USD 109, broadband USD 9, utilities USD 32, mobile USD 4 and food near USD 180: about USD 334, USD 67 under the local tier. Add the hot desk at USD 103 and the month is USD 437.

Visa Options

Nepal has no digital nomad visa. The Department of Immigration's list runs diplomatic, official, tourist, study, non-tourist (working), business, NRN, residential and transit, and WhereNext's 42 verified programmes have no Nepal entry. Both read 9 November 2026.

The tourist visa and the 150 day ceiling

On arrival or from a mission: USD 30 for 15 days, USD 50 for 30, USD 125 for 90. Extensions cost USD 3 a day with a 15 day minimum and a USD 5 a day late fine, and the Department caps the stay at 150 days in a visa year, January to December. That is five months, and the counter resets in January, not after twelve months.

The US-only five year visa

Under the reciprocity schedule, US citizens and dependants can take a five year tourist visa with 180 days a year for USD 160, on a bank statement of at least USD 10,000, health insurance and a police report. No other passport qualifies.

Work is a separate permission

Only a Working Visa allows employment. A tourist visa is not a work permit and no remote work category exists, so remote workers use it and plan around the cap.

WiFi & Coworking

Internet: 27 Mbps reported, 93.01 measured

Nomads.com's community average is 27 Mbps, graded Slow. Ookla's fixed median is 93.01 down and 84.22 up at 4 ms, ranked 113rd globally (index 1 September 2026), 3.4 times the community number. Both hold: fibre in offices and newer flats is good, guesthouse wifi drags the average down.

Desks at USD 103, and a weak grid

The hot desk median is USD 103 a month, 31 per cent of the lean month above. A 60 Mbps line is USD 9 and a mobile plan USD 4. Places to work from are graded Great, free city wifi Bad. The grid is graded Bad, so a UPS for the router is the difference between a bad afternoon and a lost one. Ookla carries no mobile row for Kathmandu.

Healthcare

Hospitals are graded Okay, short of what you want for anything complex; serious cases go to Bangkok or Delhi. It is also the staging post for treks, and altitude illness is what turns a cheap month expensive: insurance with helicopter evacuation is not optional.

Safety

Safety is graded Okay, lack of crime Good, walkability Great and friendliness to foreigners Great. Traffic safety, English and nightlife are all Bad. The air is the real cost: 81 US AQI on the day this was checked against an annual 86, with the winter inversion trapping what the traffic and the brick kilns put out.

The Nomad Score is 3.93 out of 5, ranked 42nd from 299 reviews, odd beside a WhereNext quality score of 33.4. Both are honest: the people who go like it, the model measures infrastructure. Cash only, and tap water is not drinkable.