Country and city rankings
Every year, we see several companies, websites, and data banks release cost of living indexes, surveys, infographics etc. showing us various country and city rankings when it comes to cost of living. Each of these companies and websites design the standard for their surveys and indexes to provide information for their target audiences as we address you now, dear expats, we would like to show you the various country and city rankings when it comes to cost of living for expats worldwide using a combination of all indexes, data banks, and surveys that have been recently released to measure the international cost of living for the past year. This can be a good starting point in your negotiation of your expat Contract.
For cities, the 10 most expensive cities in the world for 2015 according to the Worldwide Cost of Living Survey from The Economist are:
- Singapore (Singapore)
- Paris (France)
- Oslo (Norway)
- Zurich (Switzerland)
- Sydney (Australia)
- Melbourne (Australia)
- Geneva (Switzerland)
- Copenhagen (Denmark)
- Hong Kong (China)
- Seoul (South Korea)
While the cities with the lowest cost of living in the world according to the same survey are:
- Karachi (Pakistan)
- Bangalore (India)
- Caracas (Venezuela)
- Mumbai (India)
- Chennai (India)
- New Delhi (India)
- Tehran (Iran)
- Damascus (Syria)
- Kathmandu (Nepal)
- Algiers (Algeria)
The survey measures the average prices of bread, wine, cigarettes, and petrol in the US as a standard measure and compared them to the average prices in various cities in the world. You can view the full report by The Economist in this link.
As for the view of cost of living for expats, the website Expatistan has made a World Cost of Living Index and measured each country per region and ranked them based on a central city which they’ve identified as Prague in Czech Republic. Each price index value was then compared to that of Prague. You can view the full price index from the community at expatistan.