Often, travelers like to compare prices of hotels nights and meals they have paid during their last trips, but expats, digital nomads, and other people who are considering a move to another country have to take more costs into account. The Economist Intelligence Unit has published a report that compares the cost of living in more than 100 large cities across the world. Here are the most expensive and the most budget-friendly cities to live in.
Top 10 most expensive cities to live in 2020 are:
- 1. Singapore
- 1. Hong Kong
- 1. Osaka, Japan
- 4. New York, USA
- 5. Paris, France
- 6. Zürich, Switzerland
- 7. Tel Aviv, Israel
- 8. Los Angeles, USA
- 9. Tokyo, Japan
- 10. Geneva, Switzerland
A major trend that the Cost of Living Index has reported in its past reports continues with European cities becoming cheaper, and Asian and US cities becoming more expensive.
If you have recently made a tourist trip in one or two ranked cities, but didn’t notice lower prices in Switzerland or any major price hikes in Singapore, the reason maybe that the Cost of Living index doesn’t list cities by absolute prices. The cities are ranked by weighted prices that are relative to spending patterns.
The collected prices reflect costs for 160 items in each city. These include food, drink, clothing, household supplies and personal care items, home rents, transport, utility bills, private schools, domestic help and recreational costs.
Let’s take a couple of real life examples. I toured Switzerland last summer, and compared to EU countries that surround it, Switzerland felt almost prohibitively expensive. Big Mac about 16 euros, and so on. But when the income level in the country is high, the price feels normal for locals.
Yes, everyone who has visited Paris knows how expensive it can be, but the most pleasant city (loved by tourists as well) Nice on the Mediterranean coast has far more reasonable cost level to visit and live in.
Top 10 cheapest cities to live in 2020:
124. New Delhi, India
125. Bangalore, India
126. Chennai, India
127. Lusaka, Zambia
128. Caracas, Venezuela
129. Karachi, Pakistan
129. Buenos Aires, Argentina
131. Almaty, Kazakhstan
132. Tashkent, Uzbekistan
133. Damascus, Syria