10 most expensive cities to live in worldwide

Cost of living rankings shift each year as currencies swing and inflation moves. The same handful of cities still lands near the top of nearly every major survey. The reasons rarely change: scarce buildable land, a strong currency, heavy taxation, or some mix of the three. These are not simply places where a cup of coffee costs more than average. Housing, transportation, groceries and everyday services are structurally expensive, because of geography, government policy or economic strength that outpaces most of the world.

Why a city is expensive matters more than where it ranks this quarter. Zurich and Singapore sit near the top for entirely different reasons. One has a stable franc and wages among the highest in Europe. The other runs a licensing system that makes car ownership cost several times what the same vehicle costs elsewhere. In Hong Kong, mountains, country parks and the sea leave very little flat land to build on. Copenhagen's prices are inseparable from a 25 percent value-added tax and marginal income tax rates above 50 percent. New York and London are costly because they are financial and cultural capitals where demand for space never eases, and where planning rules limit how much new housing arrives.

This list covers the cities that consistently rank among the most expensive cities to live in worldwide. Each slide explains the mechanism behind one of them: currency strength, tax design, land scarcity, import dependence, or rules written specifically to make something cost more. Tokyo belongs here for different reasons than it would have 20 years ago. A weaker yen has changed what the city costs, depending on the currency a resident is paid in. Petroleum wealth and a state liquor monopoly set the floor under Oslo's prices. Tel Aviv's costs reflect an economy that ships in most of what it consumes. The list is built for anyone weighing an international move, negotiating a salary abroad, or asking why the world's most desirable addresses are also the hardest on a budget. Rankings move every year. The forces underneath them do not.

Illustration: Quartz

Zurich is expensive because its currency and its wages are both strong, and each reinforces the other. The Swiss franc has long ranked among the world's most stable currencies, which makes anything priced in francs look steep to someone earning dollars, euros or pounds.

Switzerland's economy runs on high-value sectors: banking, insurance, pharmaceuticals and precision manufacturing. Firms in those industries pay well, and local prices for housing, dining and services rise to meet what residents can absorb. A restaurant meal or a haircut in Zurich is priced against Swiss wages rather than international averages.

Housing supply is tightly constrained by Swiss zoning rules and a small overall land area. Rents and purchase prices sit well above what comparable space costs in most other European cities. Tenancy law gives renters real protections, but it has not offset demand from finance and pharmaceutical professionals moving into the canton.

Swiss consumption taxes are low by European standards, far below the 25 percent value-added tax charged in Denmark. That advantage is offset by mandatory health insurance, which every resident buys individually from a private insurer rather than funding through payroll deductions. Premiums are charged per person, so a household of four pays four times over, and the amount is not scaled to income the way a payroll contribution would be.

Food prices add another layer. Switzerland shields its farmers with tariffs and import quotas, and those costs land in grocery bills. Cross-border shopping trips into Germany and France are common enough among Zurich-area residents to have their own German label, Einkaufstourismus.

Space is the harder constraint. Zurich's built-up area is hemmed in by the lake, the surrounding hills and protected green land, leaving limited room for new stock. That scarcity, paired with the canton's concentration of wealth, keeps upward pressure on prices that shows little sign of easing.

Illustration: Quartz

Geneva carries the same Swiss cost structure as Zurich, plus a layer of demand created by its role as a center of international diplomacy. The city hosts the United Nations Office at Geneva, the World Health Organization, the International Labour Organization, the World Trade Organization and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

That concentration draws a rotating population of diplomats, treaty negotiators and NGO staff, many of them on housing allowances rather than local salaries. Landlords price accordingly. Geneva's apartment vacancy rate has sat near the bottom of the Swiss range for years. Tenants have little negotiating power, and owners have almost no reason to compete on rent.

The canton's shape compounds the problem. Geneva sits wedged between the lake, the Jura and Salève slopes and the French border. Only a narrow corridor of Swiss territory links it to the rest of the country. Little land remains available for new construction inside the cantonal boundary, and Swiss agricultural zoning keeps much of what is left off limits to developers.

Private banking and watchmaking anchor the local economy alongside the international organizations. Both pay well enough to sustain restaurant, service and retail prices set by what residents can afford rather than what visitors expect.

Around 100,000 cross-border workers, known locally as frontaliers, commute into the canton each day. They come from French towns such as Annemasse and Ferney-Voltaire, earning Swiss wages while paying French housing costs. That arbitrage has become a defining feature of the regional economy, and it has pushed up property prices in the French communes closest to the border.

Cantonal and communal taxes in Geneva run heavier than in several other Swiss cantons, Zurich among them, which cuts into the salaries the city's institutions pay. Health insurance premiums rank among the highest of any canton as well. International school tuition, priced for families on diplomatic packages, adds another cost that shapes the market even for households that never pay it.

Illustration: Quartz

Owning a car in Singapore means first buying a Certificate of Entitlement — a permit, won at auction, that grants the right to register a vehicle for 10 years. The government built the system to cap how many cars use a small island, and high cost is the mechanism rather than a side effect.

The Vehicle Quota System behind the certificate dates to 1990. Permits are released in limited numbers across vehicle categories and bid for in auctions held twice a month. Prices float with demand instead of being set by the state. Add excise duty, the Additional Registration Fee and other levies on top of the permit, and the total outlay for a new car ends up far beyond what the same model costs in most countries. Electronic Road Pricing gantries charge drivers again for entering congested roads at peak hours.

The result is that the MRT rail network and the bus system serve as the default for most households rather than a cheaper alternative. That is the intended outcome on an island of roughly 730 square kilometers with no room for new highways.

Housing follows a different logic. About 80% of residents live in flats built by the Housing and Development Board, sold on 99-year leases and subsidized for eligible citizens. Resale prices for those flats have climbed as land stays finite and the population remains dense. Private condominiums, where most foreign professionals end up, form a separate and far pricier market, with additional stamp duties applied to purchases by non-citizens.

Food costs reflect another structural fact: Singapore grows very little of what it eats and imports the vast majority of its food. Hawker centers keep everyday meals cheap by global standards, while supermarket goods and restaurant dining carry the markup that comes with shipping nearly everything in.

Transport policy, land constraints and import reliance each push costs upward through separate channels.

Illustration: Quartz

Hong Kong's property prices come down to one structural fact: very little of the territory can actually be built on. Steep hills cover much of its roughly 1,100 square kilometers, and country parks protect a large share of what remains, leaving a narrow developable strip for a population above seven million.

That constraint produces some of the smallest and costliest homes in the developed world. Flats measuring a few hundred square feet are standard for middle-income households, and subdivided units carved out of older apartments house lower-income residents in spaces smaller still. Ownership sits out of reach for many working adults without family money behind them.

Government land policy compounds the geography. The administration leases land rather than selling it outright, releasing parcels to developers through scheduled sales and tenders. Land premiums from those sales make up a meaningful share of public revenue, which ties government finances to the price land fetches.

Finance reinforces the squeeze at the top of the market. Hong Kong remains one of Asia's main banking and legal centers, and salaries in those sectors sustain rents in districts such as Mid-Levels, The Peak and Happy Valley that bear little relation to median local earnings.

Public housing provides a counterweight. The Hong Kong Housing Authority accommodates a large share of residents in subsidized rental flats, and its Home Ownership Scheme sells units below market price. Waiting lists for public rental housing stretch for years, pushing many households into private rentals they can barely afford while they queue.

Groceries carry their own markup. Hong Kong grows and manufactures almost nothing it consumes, so food, household goods and fuel arrive by sea or across the boundary with mainland China, with shipping and handling folded into shelf prices. Residents regularly cross into Shenzhen for weekend shopping, where the same items cost less — a habit that shows how much of Hong Kong's expense is built into its geography rather than its tax rates.

Illustration: Quartz

Manhattan is the benchmark for expensive housing in the U.S., where dense demand meets a building pipeline that has never kept up with it. The borough is an island with no room to grow outward, and zoning rules across much of it cap how tall new residential towers can rise.

The city's position as a global finance and media capital keeps a steady supply of high earners competing for the same limited apartments. That competition keeps rents in the West Village, SoHo and the Upper East Side among the steepest in the country.

Rent-stabilized apartments across the five boroughs hold rents below market for a large share of tenants. That stock shrank for years as owners moved units out of regulation once rents crossed a legal threshold. The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 closed most of those exits, though it added no new supply.

Housing is only the starting point. Grocery prices run above the national average, partly because moving goods into a dense city with little warehouse space costs more than stocking a suburban supermarket. Parking commands a premium few other American cities match, which pushes many residents toward the subway, buses and taxis rather than owning a car.

Taxes compound the arithmetic. New York residents pay a city income tax on top of state and federal income tax, a stacking most other large U.S. cities do not impose. Someone weighing a Manhattan salary against an equivalent offer in Texas or Florida, neither of which levies a state income tax, is looking at a different take-home figure.

Families carry added costs from childcare and private school tuition, both well above national averages in a city where demand for seats at sought-after schools stays constant. The outer boroughs and New Jersey offer relief, which is why commuting patterns across the region keep stretching further out. Manhattan still sets the reference price the rest of the metropolitan area measures itself against.

Illustration: Quartz

London's housing costs come from a shortage decades in the making rather than a recent boom. The planning system has delivered fewer new homes than population growth required. The Metropolitan Green Belt, set out in the mid-20th century, blocks outward sprawl, and height and density limits in central boroughs cap how much supply can be added upward.

The effect is sharpest in boroughs with fast rail links to the City of London and Canary Wharf. Prices and rents there sit far above the U.K. national average. Many Londoners in their 20s and 30s cannot buy in the neighborhoods where their parents bought a generation earlier. Saving a deposit for a typical flat takes years on a middle income.

London's standing as a financial center compounds the squeeze. The city holds one of the largest clusters of international banks outside the U.S. Those salaries sustain rent levels that ordinary local pay cannot match. Teachers, nurses and transport staff have been pushed outward into outer boroughs and commuter towns in Essex, Kent and Hertfordshire, trading housing cost for travel time.

Getting around carries its own price. Transport for London charges zonal fares that rise with distance, so residents living furthest out — often because the center priced them out — pay the most to commute. Driving into central London means paying the congestion charge, introduced in 2003, and the Ultra Low Emission Zone charge for vehicles that do not meet the emissions standard. Both measures were designed to cut traffic and air pollution, and both add to the daily cost of using a car.

Stamp duty land tax adds a one-off cost to buying property. The rates are tiered by purchase price, so London transactions attract far larger bills than equivalent purchases elsewhere in the country. That tax, layered onto high prices, is one reason many London households rent for longer than their counterparts in other British cities.

Illustration: Quartz

Copenhagen is expensive because Denmark funds an extensive welfare state through steep income taxes and a 25 percent value-added tax on nearly all goods and services. That VAT rate ranks among the highest anywhere, and it sits inside the shelf price of almost everything a resident buys.

Danish income tax is progressive and layered. It combines a municipal tax, a state tax and labor market contributions, and top earners can face marginal rates above 50 percent. What residents get back is healthcare free at the point of use and tuition-free university. The SU grant pays Danish students a monthly stipend while they study, and parental leave runs far longer than most countries provide.

The trade-off lands on daily spending. Denmark has no statutory minimum wage, but collective bargaining agreements set pay floors well above most of Europe. A restaurant bill in Copenhagen absorbs those wage costs, then adds the full VAT at the register. Anything that depends on someone's time — repairs, cleaning, childcare outside the subsidized system — is priced the same way.

Cars compound the effect. Denmark's vehicle registration tax has long been among the world's highest, structured so the tax owed on a new car can approach or exceed its base price. That policy runs alongside an extensive bike lane network, and the two work in tandem: driving is costly by design, and cycling is the alternative the city has built for.

Housing has grown more expensive as Copenhagen draws workers in biotech, shipping, design and software. The pharmaceutical expansion across the Greater Copenhagen region, led by Novo Nordisk, has added well-paid jobs. Those salaries compete for a limited apartment supply in neighborhoods such as Indre By, Vesterbro and Nørrebro. Denmark's andelsbolig cooperative model holds costs down for the residents who secure a share. Waiting lists and upfront buy-in prices keep most newcomers out. They land instead in a private rental market priced against local wages.

Illustration: Quartz

Tel Aviv is expensive partly because very little of what Israelis buy arrives overland. Land borders with Lebanon and Syria are closed, so most imported goods enter by sea, through the ports of Haifa and Ashdod, or by air. Shipping, port handling and tariffs all show up in the shelf price.

Food compounds the effect. Israel imports most of its grain and much of its animal feed. Domestic producers of dairy, eggs and some fresh produce have long been shielded by tariffs and import quotas, which limits the downward pressure cheaper foreign suppliers would otherwise apply.

Those prices turned political in 2011. A consumer boycott over the cost of cottage cheese spread into nationwide street protests about household costs, and food pricing has remained a live issue in Israeli politics since.

Value-added tax adds another layer. Israel's standard VAT rate rose to 18 percent in January 2025, up from 17 percent, and it applies broadly across groceries, electronics and restaurant bills alike.

Housing answers to a different pressure: salaries. Tel Aviv and its surrounding suburbs anchor Israel's technology sector, with multinational firms running research and development offices there alongside a dense base of startups. Those wages sit well above the national average, and apartment prices across the Gush Dan metropolitan area have tracked them upward for more than a decade.

The municipality covers roughly 20 square miles, bounded by the Mediterranean on one side and by neighboring cities on every other. Little room remains to add housing stock inside city limits, so demand spills outward into Givatayim, Ramat Gan, Bat Yam and Herzliya. Prices in those cities have climbed in turn, and commutes have lengthened for workers pushed out of the center.

Services track the same wages. Childcare, dining out and personal services in Tel Aviv are priced against tech-sector incomes rather than the national average. Residents working outside that sector carry the widest gap between what they earn and what the city charges.

Illustration: Quartz

Oslo is expensive because Norway's petroleum economy has kept wages and the krone strong for decades, and because the state deliberately prices alcohol out of casual reach. Both forces turn up on a single restaurant bill.

High pay across the Norwegian labor market is the broader driver. Service businesses — restaurants, barbers, mechanics, cleaners — pay competitive wages to keep staff, and those labor costs reach the customer directly. Anything that depends on a person's time costs more in Norway than the same work does in most of Europe. A plumber's call-out or a sit-down lunch tends to register more sharply with visitors than the supermarket receipt.

Alcohol is a separate and highly visible expense. Norway applies some of the steepest alcohol duties in the world. Wine and spirits are sold only through Vinmonopolet, the state-run retail chain, and grocery stores may stock beer only below a set alcohol strength. The policy was built around public health aims rather than revenue. The practical effect is that a bottle of wine or a round at a bar in Oslo costs far more than it would in most other European capitals.

Housing follows the same wage logic. Oslo has grown as a base for energy, shipping and technology firms. Limited supply near the center has pushed prices in districts such as Frogner and Grünerløkka above the national average. The city is hemmed in by the Oslofjord and by the protected Marka forest, which limits how far development can spread outward.

Norway's sovereign wealth fund, built from oil and gas revenue, has helped keep the economy stable and the currency comparatively resilient through global downturns. That stability supports strong domestic purchasing power, which in turn holds prices up. Electricity bills add another variable, since Norwegian power prices move with hydropower reservoir levels and Nordic market conditions. Norway also sits outside the European Union's single market and trades instead through the European Economic Area. Imported electronics, produce and other consumer goods carry costs that reflect that arrangement.