From the middle of November through the beginning of January, more than 1,500 Christmas markets are held across Europe. That's a lot of public squares filled with festive crowds, twinkling lights, and open-air stalls hawking handmade holiday goods and mulled wine.
For travelers whose yuletide coffers are only slightly fuller than Bob Cratchit's, one way to keep your financial mood relatively merry and bright is to focus your Christmas market-going on destinations with a low cost of living.
Admission to the market itself will almost undoubtedly be free, but the trip will also involve expenditures for accommodations, meals, and souvenirs like the carefully crafted Christmas ornaments that are going to shatter in your luggage.
You can cut costs considerably by going where prices are cheap and the currency is weaker than at home. And you'll want to cut costs wherever you can, considering how much you'll have to pay for airfare, especially this year.
Eurochange, a British foreign currency exchange company owned by Western Union, has created a clever tool that provides a quick indication of which Christmas market destinations in Europe have the lowest costs for travelers.
Mulled wine as an affordability indicator
The Mulled Wine Index ranks the going rate for that warming holiday beverage at 55 of the most popular Christmas markets across Europe, based on Eurochange's research of publicly posted prices (and not including the deposit for a keepsake mug).
The Economist's Big Mac Index, which compares burger prices across countries, was clearly the inspiration. But the Mulled Wine Index is jollier and has booze.
Beyond the ranking's usefulness for gluggers of glühwein, the list is pretty helpful for pointing the way toward places where other prices are low and the U.S. dollar still goes comparatively far.
There are exceptions and outliers, however.
Poland, for instance, is a relatively affordable destination for U.S. travelers, with $1 currently equivalent to about 4 Polish złoty.
But Eurochange's researchers found that mulled wine is not especially cheap there, with prices at the markets in Krakow (30 złoty/$7.60), Gdansk (22 złoty/$5.60), and Wrocław (20 złoty/$5.10) closer to what's charged in otherwise more expensive destinations in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.
On the other hand, the mulled wine at the market in Gothenburg, Sweden (25 kronor/$2.50), ranks among the 10 cheapest on the list, even though Sweden as a whole regularly appears on lists of the most expensive European countries for hotels and restaurants.
So keep those caveats in mind as you mull over the Mulled Wine Index.
The Christmas cheer cheap champ for 2026
For the most part, however, a country's spot on the list is a reliable indicator of overall affordability.
That holds true, for instance, with regard to Romania, which was found to have the three cheapest prices for mulled wine across all of Europe's Christmas markets.
In Sibiu, located in the central Transylvania region, vendors charge as little as 5 Romanian leu ($1.04) per serving.
The Romanian towns of Brașov and Craiova tied for second with their typical price of 10 leu ($2.08). The country's capital city, Bucharest—named the continent's second-cheapest city in the 2026 City Costs Barometer—only charges 12 leu ($2.50).
The capital of Romania's southern neighbor, Bulgaria, comes next on the affordability ranking. A mulled wine in Sofia will set you back only €2.05 ($2.29).
Another longtime affordability stalwart, Czechia (widely known by its former name, the Czech Republic), also had a strong showing on the list, thanks to the country's average price of 62.50 Czech crowns ($2.86) for mulled wine at its holiday markets.
Europe's most expensive mulled wine, meanwhile, is sold at London's Winter Wonderland, according to the research. The price tag there of £7.40 ($9.86) per serving is, the report notes, nine times more expensive than what you'd pay in Sibiu, Romania, and is even higher than the rates in notoriously costly places such as Copenhagen, Denmark, and Geneva, Switzerland.
European Christmas markets with the cheapest mulled wine
Here are the holiday markets where you can get mulled wine for less than €3 ($3.35) in 2026, according to Eurochange's report. The location of each market is followed by the price in the local currency and the current equivalent in U.S. dollars.
- Sibiu, Romania: 5 L ($1.04)
- Brasov, Romania: 10 L ($2.08)
- Craiova, Romania: 10 L ($2.08)
- Sofia, Bulgaria: €2.05 ($2.29)
- Olomouc, Czechia: 50 Kč ($2.29)
- Brno, Czechia: 50 Kč ($2.29)
- Bucharest, Romania: 12 L ($2.50)
- Gothenburg (Christmas at Liseberg), Sweden: 25 kr ($2.52)
- Plzen, Czechia: 60 Kč ($2.75)
Markets selling mulled wine precisely at the €3 price point are in Strasbourg and Mulhouse, France; Bratislava, Slovakia; Vilnius, Lithuania; and Liège, Belgium.
To see the full Mulled Wine Index for 2026, go to eurochange.co.uk.