Raising a baby in Albania is proving particularly costly, both in absolute terms and relative to household incomes.

According to a calculation by Remitly, basic baby products needed during the first year of life cost around €5,532 in Albania. That amount is equivalent to roughly 66% of the country’s average annual salary, according to data published by Euronews.

This places Albania as the second-most expensive country in Europe in terms of baby-related costs relative to average annual wages, behind Moldova, where the cost reaches 88.8% of the average yearly salary. Across the 36 countries analyzed, the average is just 20.9%.

Albania also ranks among Europe’s most expensive countries in absolute terms. With an estimated first-year cost of €5,532 for basic baby products, it ranks ninth among 38 European countries analyzed.

Countries with higher nominal costs include Spain, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Italy and Lithuania.

But the comparison looks markedly different when wages are taken into account. The countries ranking above Albania in absolute costs generally have significantly higher average incomes, meaning that baby-related expenses represent a much smaller share of household earnings.

In Switzerland, for example, basic baby products account for around 8% of the average annual salary, while in the Netherlands they represent approximately 9.4%. In Albania, the figure rises to 66%.

The figures highlight the significant gap between the cost of raising a child and average earnings in Albania, making the first year of a child’s life a particularly substantial financial burden for families.