Once again the crowd-sourced website Numbeo has published the global Cost of Living index for 2021. The index rates the cost to live around the world relative to New York. In their methodology living in New York is 100, so any city with a rating above 100 is more expensive to live in while any city with a rating under 100 is less expensive than New York. Understanding what things cost around the globe is really helpful for a number of reasons.
For travelers the cost of living in a city isn’t always reflected in the cost of taveling to a city, but it is usually a good indicator. And for anyone thinking about becoming a digital nomad or expat after travel restrictions are lifted, this is essential information.
Currently the site ranks 6,820,266 prices of items such as food, wine, rent, gas in 9,966 cities around the world, as entered by 567,788 contributors
Cost of Living Index by Country 2021
| Top 25 | Cost of Living Index |
|---|---|
| Jersey | 155.59 |
| Bermuda | 145.07 |
| Switzerland | 131.75 |
| Norway | 106.09 |
| Iceland | 96.77 |
| Denmark | 91.67 |
| Luxembourg | 88.28 |
| Japan | 87.77 |
| Israel | 86.63 |
| Bahamas | 85.85 |
| Singapore | 85.59 |
| Australia | 84.14 |
| Ireland | 83.11 |
| Barbados | 81.49 |
| South Korea | 81.20 |
| France | 80.62 |
| Hong Kong | 79.94 |
| Sweden | 79.17 |
| New Zealand | 79.14 |
| Seychelles | 78.92 |
| Netherlands | 78.64 |
| Belgium | 78.52 |
| Finland | 77.46 |
| Lebanon | 75.88 |
| Austria | 75.49 |
The really helpful features on the site, is that you can compare prices for living between two cities. It also allows you to calculate for costs with rent and without rent, as well as compensating for local purchasing power parity. In other words, it also lets you see average incomes of people in both cities to get a better picture of how affordable and attainable lifestyles are.
