Which cities cost the most to live in?
🇨🇭Zurich·Cost of living
Pick your city. See how it stacks up against 43 cities worldwide.
I live in , where the cost basket runs at 118.5 of New York's.
Cost-of-living index · Zurich · New York = 100
118.5
Ranked 1st of 43 · +18.5% vs New York
Where Zurich sits on the scale
Anchors of the range.
For context: the city basket at the top costs roughly 5.1× what the city at the bottom does. New York sits in the middle, where every index on this page is anchored at 100.
Most expensive
🇨🇭Zurich
118.5
+18.5% vs NYC
Baseline · NYC
🇺🇸New York
100.0
United States
Most affordable
🇪🇬Cairo
23.2
-76.8% vs NYC
The full ranking
43 cities, sorted by cost basket.
Each bar is the city's basket against New York at 100. Your row is highlighted; continent colours tint the rest so you can scan regions at a glance.
01
🇨🇭
ZurichSwitzerland
118.5
02
🇨🇭
GenevaSwitzerland
116.5
03
🇨🇭
BaselSwitzerland
112.4
04
🇺🇸
New YorkUnited States
100.0
05
🇮🇸
ReykjavikIceland
98.9
06
🇺🇸
HonoluluUnited States
98.2
07
🇺🇸
San FranciscoUnited States
97.6
08
🇮🇱
Tel AvivIsrael
91.4
09
🇳🇴
OsloNorway
90.2
10
🇸🇬
SingaporeSingapore
87.7
11
🇬🇧
LondonUnited Kingdom
87.5
12
🇩🇰
CopenhagenDenmark
85.7
13
🇳🇱
AmsterdamNetherlands
82.6
14
🇫🇷
ParisFrance
78.6
15
🇮🇪
DublinIreland
76.7
16
🇭🇰
Hong KongHong Kong
75.2
17
🇦🇺
SydneyAustralia
75.1
18
🇦🇹
ViennaAustria
73.9
19
🇦🇺
MelbourneAustralia
70.8
20
🇩🇪
BerlinGermany
70.0
21
🇰🇷
SeoulSouth Korea
68.2
22
🇨🇦
TorontoCanada
67.5
23
🇦🇺
BrisbaneAustralia
64.8
24
🇳🇿
WellingtonNew Zealand
63.0
25
🇳🇿
AucklandNew Zealand
62.5
26
🇦🇪
DubaiUnited Arab Emirates
61.8
27
🇨🇿
PragueCzech Republic
59.6
28
🇪🇸
BarcelonaSpain
59.2
29
🇺🇾
MontevideoUruguay
57.2
30
🇵🇹
LisbonPortugal
54.2
31
🇯🇵
TokyoJapan
54.2
32
🇦🇷
Buenos AiresArgentina
48.8
33
🇲🇽
Mexico CityMexico
45.9
34
🇨🇱
SantiagoChile
41.9
35
🇹🇭
BangkokThailand
41.4
36
🇿🇦
JohannesburgSouth Africa
40.4
37
🇿🇦
Cape TownSouth Africa
39.6
38
🇧🇷
São PauloBrazil
36.8
39
🇵🇪
LimaPeru
35.5
40
🇲🇦
CasablancaMorocco
35.2
41
🇨🇴
BogotáColombia
32.8
42
🇰🇪
NairobiKenya
32.0
43
🇪🇬
CairoEgypt
23.2
EuropeAsiaAmericasSouth AmericaAfricaOceania
What makes Zurich expensive (or not)
The shape of the basket.
Two cities can share the same headline number and live two completely different stories. Here is Zurich's number broken apart, with each component set against the median city in the dataset.
Rent#4 of 43
+32.1 above median
Groceries#1 of 43
+46.3 above median
Restaurants#2 of 43
+57.2 above median
Purchasing power#2 of 43
+54.9 above median · good for residents
If you moved
Moving from Zurich to , category by category.
Positive bars mean Zurich is more expensive than Lisbon in that category. Negative bars mean the opposite. The headline gap is +119% on the full basket.
Rent
+83%
Groceries
+130%
Restaurants
+128%
More expensive in ZurichCheaper in Zurich
Cost meets wages
43 cities at a glance.
Each dot is a city. The horizontal axis is the cost basket; the vertical axis is the local purchasing power index. The four NYC-anchored quadrants name themselves: top-left is the affordable-with-good-wages corner; bottom-right is the squeeze.
EuropeAsiaAmericasSouth AmericaAfricaOceania
Three cities worth the asterisk
What the rankings hide.
Singapore is expensive on one line.
Rent in Singapore runs at index 73.1, far ahead of its own grocery (77.3) and restaurant (55.5) prices. Pull rent out of the basket and Singapore lands in mid-tier territory.
Buenos Aires squeezes hardest, dollar for dollar.
Headline rank: 32 of 43. But local purchasing power is only 45.4 of NYC's. The combination is the worst cost-to-wages ratio in the dataset.
Johannesburg gives back the most.
A basket of 40.4 against purchasing power of 108.9. The combination is the best cost-to-wages ratio in the dataset — though wages and basket are not the whole story.
Compare countries instead?
See how 25 countries rank by cost of living, weighted across all their major cities. A broader view of global affordability.
→
My Finance Tools · Personal cost-of-livingFree account
This index averages the basket. Yours is not the average.
Two people in Zurich can live a 30% different life on the same headline index, depending on rent, transport and how often they eat out. Plug your actual accounts into My Finance Tools, and we re-price your basket every month: same methodology, your numbers. Move cities, change jobs, retire abroad — the basket moves with you.
Re-priced monthly against 43 cities
Multi-currency, multi-bank, automatic
Read-only · no payments · no trading
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Next steps
Four calculators sized to the same question.
PPP-adjusted salaries
See what a $100k offer in San Francisco is worth in Lisbon, Tokyo or Mumbai. Same dollars, very different lives.
Compare→
Salary breakdown
Convert between yearly, monthly, weekly and hourly rates. See what your salary actually looks like at every scale.
Break it down→
Am I saving enough?
Enter your savings rate. See how it ranks against 29 OECD economies.
Find out→
Start investing
Ensure your money works for you. A beginner-friendly guide to building wealth in any currency.
Read the guide→
Frequently asked
A fixed basket (rent + groceries + restaurants + transport + utilities + personal services) is priced in every city and converted to USD at market rates. New York is fixed at 100, so every other city's number is "X% as expensive as New York." The component indices use the same construction, each independently anchored to NYC.
Wages relative to local prices, also anchored to NYC = 100. A value of 150 means a median worker in that city can afford 50% more of the basket than a median worker in NYC. It is the single most useful number for comparing cities, because a low cost city with even-lower wages is not actually cheaper to live in.
Rent carries the largest weight at around 40%, followed by groceries (~15%), restaurants (~15%), and transport / utilities / services at roughly 10% each. Those weights are held constant across cities so the index measures price differences, not lifestyle differences.
No. The basket is priced pre-tax, and the purchasing power index uses gross wages. Two cities with identical baskets but very different tax regimes show the same number here. The take-home calculator under Next steps handles the after-tax view.
A composite of OECD harmonised cost-of-living series, national statistics offices (LFS, BLS, ONS, BFS, etc.) and crowd-sourced city pricing. Data is refreshed quarterly. For a single city, consult the source directly; for cross-city comparison, the basket methodology here is more consistent.
The page refreshes quarterly. Spot prices in any single category, especially rent and utilities, can drift faster than that. Use the headline number for orientation, not for negotiating a relocation package.