What a Beer, a Date, and a Taxi Can Tell You About Your Next Expat Destination
If you have ever sat in a bar in a new city, looked at the bill, and thought “I could get used to this” – or alternatively, “how is a round of drinks this expensive?” – you already understand the basic appeal of cost-of-living indices.
Every year, Deutsche Bank’s Research Institute publishes Mapping the World’s Prices, now in its tenth edition. It covers 69 cities across six continents and tracks everything from apartment rents and net salaries to the price of a cappuccino, a taxi ride, and a pair of Levi’s. For expats weighing their next move, it makes for genuinely interesting reading – even if it should be taken with a healthy dose of scepticism.
A quick word on that scepticism before we dive in. The report draws heavily on Numbeo, a crowdsourced database of prices submitted by users around the world. The Deutsche Bank team cleans and cross-checks the data, but crowdsourced figures always carry noise. Prices vary by neighbourhood, by season, by whether you shop at the expat supermarket or the local market. The report itself urges readers to focus on broad trends rather than any single data point. So treat these rankings as a useful conversation starter, not a definitive verdict on where to live. With that large pinch of salt firmly in hand, here is what the 2026 edition has to say.
The Big Surprises
If you have not been paying close attention to exchange rates and inflation over the past few years, some of the 2026 findings will genuinely catch you off guard.
Tokyo is now one of the world’s most affordable major cities. This will surprise anyone who remembers Japan from a decade ago as eye-wateringly expensive. A combination of yen weakness and decades of low inflation has transformed the picture entirely. A meal for two in Tokyo now costs less than in Warsaw or Prague, and roughly a third of what it costs in Zurich or New York. Renting a three-bedroom apartment in central Tokyo costs about a quarter of what the same apartment would cost in New York. Japan is also the cheapest place in the world to buy an iPhone. For expats considering Asia, Tokyo deserves a much harder look than its old reputation might suggest.
Tel Aviv has become one of the most expensive cities in the world. A decade ago it was a mid-priced Mediterranean city. Today it sits near the top of almost every cost ranking – most expensive McDonald’s meal in the world, third most expensive “cheap date,” second most expensive utilities. If you are being posted to Tel Aviv, go in with your eyes open.
New York pays well but costs a fortune. The US dominates the global salary rankings, with five cities in the top ten for net pay. But once you factor in rent, New York drops 34 places in the disposable income rankings. The headline salary is real; so is the rent bill that consumes most of it.
The Oasis Index: A Fun (If Not Especially Healthy) Benchmark
One of the more entertaining corners of the report is the Oasis Index – the combined cost of two packs cigarettes and five domestic beers. We are not recommending this as a lifestyle choice, but as a proxy for how aggressively a government taxes personal vices, it is surprisingly revealing.
Melbourne tops the global ranking at US$111.20 for the combination, with Sydney close behind. Australia has applied some of the world’s most aggressive taxes on tobacco and alcohol for years, and the price reflects it. Auckland and Wellington rank third and fourthy. London, Birmingham, and Edinburgh round out the top ten, reflecting the UK’s high tobacco duties.
At the other end: Shanghai (US$10.40), Rio de Janeiro (US$11.70), and Cairo (US$12.10) are the cheapest cities in the world for this combination. If you are an expat in China, the low cost of a cold beer is one of the genuine lifestyle perks.
The Cheap Date Index: More Fun, Slightly More Wholesome
The Cheap Date Index is one of the report’s most creative constructs, and arguably its most useful for expats thinking about day-to-day social life. Deutsche Bank defines a cheap date as: one bottle of wine, one pair of jeans, one dress, two coffees, a meal for two at a mid-range restaurant, two cinema tickets, two one-way transport tickets, and a five-kilometre taxi trip.
It is a composite that captures what it actually costs to have a social life in a city – getting there, looking presentable, eating well, and getting home. As a measure of the everyday social cost of living, it is more useful than rent figures alone.
Geneva and Zurich top the index, as they top most things. Tel Aviv has surged to third. Oslo and Copenhagen round out the top five. If you are heading to Northern or Western Europe, budget accordingly.
At the affordable end: Delhi (US$103), Bangalore (US$106), and Mumbai (US$115) are the three cheapest cities in the world for a night out. South and Southeast Asia generally offer dramatically lower social costs than Europe or North America – something that matters a great deal to expats living on local packages rather than international ones.
One trend worth noting: costs has become significantly more expensive in Central and Eastern Europe over the past decade. Budapest and Prague, long popular with expats for their affordability, have seen sharp increases. Meanwhile, eight of the ten cities with the largest declines in dating costs over the decade are in Asia – with Shanghai showing the most improvement of all.
A Few Other Things Worth Knowing
Quality of life – measured across purchasing power, safety, healthcare, cost of living, pollution, and commute times – is dominated by European cities. Luxembourg holds the top spot for the second year running. No US city makes the top ten, despite their salary dominance. The cities that make the top ten for both quality of life and disposable income after rent are all European. High pay does not automatically mean high quality of life.
Rent is most punishing in New York, Zurich, San Francisco, Boston, and Singapore. If you are negotiating a relocation package to any of these cities, housing allowance is not optional.
Property prices have tripled in Budapest over the past decade – the largest gain in the sample. Hong Kong remains the most expensive city to buy, though prices are down from their peak.
Transport: London has the world’s most expensive monthly public transport pass. A taxi in Zurich costs 23 times what one costs in Cairo. Luxembourg’s is free – a useful reminder that “cheap” and “expensive” cities are not uniform across every category.
Wine and coffee: Rome has the cheapest bottle of wine in the world (US$4.60) and one of the cheapest cappuccinos. Singapore is the most expensive place to buy a bottle of wine (US$23.20). A cappuccino in Zurich (US$7.13) costs more than three times what the same drink costs in Milan. If you are a coffee drinker relocating to Switzerland, this will add up.
The Honest Caveat
These indices are a fun starting point, not a verdict. They will not tell you whether Singapore or Bangkok is the right place to raise your children, whether the expat community in Lisbon will suit you, or whether the healthcare system in your destination city will meet your family’s needs. They measure prices; they do not measure belonging, career opportunity, climate, or the things that make a place feel like home.
What they do well is surface structural differences that are easy to miss when you are focused on salary negotiations or visa paperwork. The fact that Tokyo is now one of the world’s most affordable and liveable major cities is not obvious from the outside. The fact that New York’s salary advantage largely disappears once rent is factored in is something many expats discover only after they arrive.
For a fuller guide to choosing your next destination – covering healthcare access, quality of life, visa options, and what the major expat surveys actually say – please see: Where in the World Should You Live? A Global Guide for Expats.
And wherever you end up, make sure your health insurance is sorted before you go. That is one cost we always take seriously.
Source: Deutsche Bank Research Institute, Mapping the World’s Prices 2026, July 13, 2026. Underlying data sourced primarily from Numbeo’s crowdsourced database, augmented by Deutsche Bank’s own cleaning and cross-checks. Readers are encouraged to treat individual data points as indicative rather than definitive.
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