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cityparity

cityparity

by summerstateofmind
OverviewSchemaSourceRelated ServersDiscussionsAdmin
JavaScript
Remote

cityparity MCP server

Cost-of-living and quality-of-life comparison tools that AI agents can call. Point an agent at two cities and it returns take-home pay, a full cost breakdown, the equivalent salary you'd need in the target city, and the non-cash deltas people actually move for: vacation, parental leave, universal healthcare.

Hosted at https://mcp.cityparity.com/mcp. Free, no API key, rate-limited at the edge. Built on the Model Context Protocol (spec 2025-06-18, Streamable HTTP).

What it covers

About 165 cities across 69 countries. Most calculators stop at salary and rent. cityparity prices the social safety net (childcare subsidies, parental leave, statutory vacation, universal healthcare), so "the lower-salary city actually pays more" stops being a hand-wave and becomes a number.

Related MCP server: eorscope-mcp

Tools

Tool

What it does

compare_cities

Full scenario comparison between two cities: take-home, cost breakdown, equivalent target salary, lifestyle deltas, quality score.

list_cities

Discover supported city slugs, grouped by country.

get_city_summary

One-city profile: tax shape, headline costs, safety-net values.

rank_cities

Top N cities by composite quality score, with custom weights and region/country filters.

get_safety_net

Parental leave, universal-healthcare flag, vacation, public holidays for 1 to 20 cities.

get_inbound_tax_regime

Inbound-worker regimes: Italy impatriati, Portugal IFICI, Belgium expat, Poland B2B ryczałt, Greece inbound.

City slugs are kebab-case (san-francisco, hong-kong). Call list_cities first if you're unsure.

Connect

Most modern clients speak Streamable HTTP and need no install. Just point them at the URL.

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http cityparity https://mcp.cityparity.com/mcp

Claude Desktop / ChatGPT Desktop

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cityparity": {
      "url": "https://mcp.cityparity.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop config lives at ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows). ChatGPT Desktop uses …/OpenAI/ChatGPT/mcp.json. Restart the app after editing.

Cursor

{
  "name": "cityparity",
  "url": "https://mcp.cityparity.com/mcp"
}

Codex CLI

mcpServers:
  cityparity:
    url: https://mcp.cityparity.com/mcp

Stdio-only clients (this package)

If your client can't do HTTP MCP yet, the npm package in this repo bridges stdio → HTTP:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cityparity": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "cityparity-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

The bridge (this package)

cityparity-mcp is a ~150-line stdio→HTTP forwarder. It reads line-delimited JSON-RPC from stdin, POSTs each line to the MCP endpoint, and writes the responses back to stdout (streaming SSE line by line). That's the whole job: no data, no calc engine, no secrets. Read bin/cityparity-mcp.mjs if you want to verify.

npm install -g cityparity-mcp   # or use npx, as above

Env var

Default

Purpose

CITYPARITY_MCP_URL

https://mcp.cityparity.com/mcp

Override the upstream endpoint (local dev)

CITYPARITY_MCP_DEBUG

unset

Log request/response framing to stderr

Run the tests (zero dependencies, Node ≥ 20):

npm test

Methodology

The full methodology (how taxes, costs, childcare subsidies, and safety-net scoring work) is on the homepage. One thing worth flagging: RSU income is not an input. Grants are treated as source-only because they usually don't follow you across employers. If you're keeping a US employer remotely, treat the result as directional in that direction.

Privacy

Queries reach mcp.cityparity.com and nothing else. No accounts, no client-side telemetry, nothing personally identifiable logged beyond standard HTTP server logs.

License

MIT. cityparity's underlying data and calculation engine are not part of this package. This repo is the public MCP surface plus the open-source stdio bridge.

Found a bug or want a city added? https://cityparity.com/contact/

Available Tools

6 tools
compare_citiesCompare two cities for a householdA
Read-onlyIdempotent
Inspect

Compare two cities for one household: take-home pay, full cost breakdown, the equivalent target salary needed to match source net cash, non-cash lifestyle deltas (vacation, parental leave, healthcare), and a 0-100 quality score on five weighted dimensions. Use this for a head-to-head between two named cities; for a single city call get_city_summary, and to rank many cities call rank_cities. Read-only, no side effects; returns a text summary plus structured JSON. RSU income is NOT a parameter; RSU is treated as source-only because grants typically do not follow you across employers.

Inputs: source_city (required), target_city (required), gross_salary (required), household, +3 more. Returns: source, target, equivalence, non_cash_deltas, +2 more

get_city_summaryGet a one-city profileA
Read-onlyIdempotent
Inspect

Concise profile of one city: currency, tax shape (bracket count + top rate + payroll/national insurance), headline costs (rent / groceries / transit / childcare), safety-net values (parental leave, vacation, universal healthcare), and data freshness. Lighter than compare_cities; use when the user is asking about one place rather than a comparison. Read-only, no side effects; returns a text summary plus structured JSON.

Inputs: city (required). Returns: slug, name, country, currency, +9 more

get_inbound_tax_regimeLook up inbound-worker tax regime for a cityA
Read-onlyIdempotent
Inspect

Look up a city's inbound-worker tax regime, the special reduced-tax schemes for relocating workers that general cost-of-living tools do not surface. Returns null when the country has no modeled regime (most cities). Modeled regimes: Italy impatriati (Milan, Rome), Portugal IFICI (Lisbon, Porto), Belgium expat (Brussels), Poland B2B ryczałt (Warsaw, Kraków), Greece inbound (Athens). Each entry includes the mechanic (reduction percentage or flat rate), duration, income cap if any, and a conservative eligibility hint. Read-only, no side effects; returns a text summary plus structured JSON.

Inputs: city (required). Returns: slug, city, country, regime, +2 more

get_safety_netLook up family safety net for several citiesA
Read-onlyIdempotent
Inspect

Batch lookup of safety-net values — parental leave weeks + paid percentage, universal healthcare flag, vacation days, public holidays — for 1 to 20 cities at once, plus each city's safety_net dimension score (0-100) for relative strength. This is the only tool that accepts many cities in one call: use it to line several places up on family / leave / healthcare benefits. For one city's full profile (tax shape + costs + safety net together) call get_city_summary instead; for a two-city head-to-head that includes cost-of-living use compare_cities. Read-only, no side effects; returns a text summary plus structured JSON.

Inputs: cities (required). Returns: cities, not_found, methodology_url

list_citiesList supported cities by countryA
Read-onlyIdempotent
Inspect

List all city slugs supported by cityparity, grouped by country. Call this first to discover valid slugs before any other tool; the optional country filter narrows to one country. Read-only, no side effects; returns a text summary plus structured JSON.

Inputs: country. Returns: count, country_count, groups

rank_citiesRank cities by composite quality scoreA
Read-onlyIdempotent
Inspect

Rank supported cities by composite quality-of-life score across five weighted dimensions (financial, healthcare, vacation, childcare, safety_net). Returns top N (default 10), with filters for country, countries, region (europe/asia/north_america/south_america/oceania), has_universal_healthcare, include_cities, and exclude_cities. Use this to shortlist across many cities; for a head-to-head between two named cities use compare_cities. The same scenario is applied to every city so scores are directly comparable (default: single person, 2BR rent, $100k USD-equivalent gross). Read-only, no side effects; returns a text summary plus structured JSON.

Inputs: weights, filter, scenario, limit. Returns: ranked, considered, skipped, weights, +2 more

Tool Schema Changelog

Recent tool additions, removals, and schema changes observed during successful MCP inspections.

Loading tool schema changelog…

    Deploy Server
    One endpoint for every MCP toolRayrun runs every MCP server behind one URL and holds the credentials. Each call is decided per client, tool, and argument, then recorded.ray.runAd

    TDQS

    A4.6/5.0

    Scored across 6 tools

    Disambiguation5/5

    Each tool has a clearly distinct purpose: compare_cities for head-to-head, get_city_summary for single city profile, get_inbound_tax_regime for tax schemes, get_safety_net for batch safety net, list_cities for discovering slugs, and rank_cities for ranking. No overlapping functionality.

    Naming Consistency5/5

    All tool names follow a consistent verb_noun snake_case pattern (e.g., compare_cities, get_city_summary, list_cities). No mixing of conventions.

    Tool Count5/5

    With 6 tools, the set is well-scoped for a city comparison service. Each tool covers a necessary operation (list, single summary, compare, rank, specific lookups) without being too few or excessive.

    Completeness5/5

    The tool surface covers the full workflow: discovering cities, getting single city profiles, comparing two cities, ranking many, and looking up specific tax regimes or safety nets. No obvious gaps for the stated purpose.

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