Cost of Living in Nouakchott
Where this figure comes from. No cost survey covers Nouakchott, so the $1,000 a month above is our own estimate rather than a measurement. On 330 of our 921 city guides the figure is built from a published Numbeo basket, a one-bedroom rent in the centre plus one person's monthly costs without rent, converted to USD; this city is not one of them. Treat it as a starting point and check current rental listings before you budget against it. How we source everything.
Budget around $1,000 a month. A one-bedroom runs roughly $250 to $500, with Tevragh Zeina, the diplomatic and business quarter, at the top and the older districts considerably cheaper. Market produce is inexpensive and the fish landed at the Port de Peche is among the best value anywhere on the Atlantic coast, sold straight off the boats in the afternoon. Imported goods carry a heavy markup. Utilities are modest and power is generally available. Eating out is limited and cheap, mostly Mauritanian and Senegalese. The ouguiya was redenominated in 2018, so older prices need a factor of ten applied.
Where to Work in Nouakchott
Connectivity is weak but improving. Mauritania has submarine cable capacity landing at Nouakchott and fibre reaches parts of the city, with speeds workable for ordinary remote work in the better districts. Mobile data from Mauritel, Mattel and Chinguitel covers the populated areas and is the usual fallback. Power is reasonably reliable in the centre. There is almost no coworking. Sand is a genuine equipment hazard here and gets into everything. The time zone is GMT with no daylight saving, which makes European and West African work straightforward. Anyone staying through the harmattan should also plan for dust, since it works into laptop fans and connectors and is a genuine cause of hardware failure here.
Getting Around Nouakchott
Shared taxis and minibuses cover Nouakchott cheaply and are the normal way to move, though the city is spread out and largely low-rise across a flat sandy plain, which makes walking unrewarding. A car helps considerably. Nouakchott-Oumtounsy International Airport opened in 2016 about twenty five kilometres north with connections to Paris, Casablanca, Istanbul, Dakar and Nouadhibou. The other route out is the iron ore train from Nouadhibou, which is among the longest trains in the world and carries passengers free on top of the ore. Anyone taking the ore train should know it runs about seven hundred kilometres, takes the better part of a day, and offers no shelter at all on the open wagons.
Sorting transport? Book an airport transfer, or compare car rental on Auto Europe and QEEQ.
Visas for Nouakchott
Mauritania issues visas on arrival at Nouakchott airport and at the main land borders for most nationalities, valid for thirty days and payable in euros in cash, which is the part people are unprepared for. Applying in advance at an embassy is also possible. A yellow fever certificate is required from travellers arriving from endemic countries. There is no remote work visa. Travel to the north and east of the country carries security advisories and the border regions with Mali should be checked carefully before any overland plan. Anyone arriving overland from Morocco should also allow several hours at the Guerguerat crossing, which involves a stretch of unmarked no man's land between the two posts.
Best Time to Visit Nouakchott
November to March is the only comfortable window, warm at around twenty eight degrees with cooler nights and the Atlantic breeze taking the edge off. April to October is very hot, regularly above forty degrees inland, and the harmattan carries Saharan dust across the city for weeks at a time. Rain is negligible in any month. The Banc d'Arguin National Park north of the city, a UNESCO site where the Sahara meets the Atlantic, is best in winter when the migratory birds are present in enormous numbers. Anyone visiting Chinguetti should aim for the cooler months as well, since the town sits deep in the Adrar and the manuscript libraries are family-run and open on request.
Pros and Cons of Nouakchott
The case for Mauritania is a landscape and a set of experiences that exist nowhere else: the iron ore train, the Adrar's desert oases at Chinguetti and Ouadane with their medieval libraries, and the Banc d'Arguin where millions of migratory birds meet the desert. Costs are low and the Atlantic fish is exceptional. The case against is that Nouakchott itself is a functional rather than an attractive city, connectivity is limited, the heat is severe for most of the year, and security advisories apply to much of the country. Mauritania also only abolished slavery in law in 1981 and criminalised it in 2007, and the practice persists in forms that human rights organisations continue to document.
Who Nouakchott Is For
Nouakchott suits people with a working reason to be here in mining, fisheries, development or diplomacy, and travellers using it as the base for the Adrar and the ore train. It suits French and Arabic speakers, since English is genuinely rare. It does not suit anyone looking for a comfortable city, anyone needing strong connectivity, or anyone travelling in summer, because the heat here is not something to work around. It also suits birdwatchers, since the Banc d'Arguin is one of the most important wintering sites on the East Atlantic flyway and holds millions of shorebirds each season.
Photo: Ammar Hassan / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
