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Incidentally, rent/mortgage is usually the largest expense for residents in any city. London's rent is twice as expensive as Tokyo's, that is a fact. I wonder how that always seems to be slipping from these reports.
And public transportation is obscenely expensive in London. It's handily twice as expensive as in Tokyo and 3 times more expensive than in Hong Kong. It's a joke really since it's not even that good.
Groceries are fine, but they account for a far smaller portion of your expenses in relation to something like, well, rent.
Most of these kind of rankings are specifically for western 'expat employees' on temporary postings to gauge how much of a premium their companies should be giving to those workers in their pay. So they assume that the accommodation costs are already paid by the employer and the cost indexes are for the type of stuff that an employee would need to spend day to day to maintain a similar lifestyle they would expect back home.
That's why somewhere like Ashgabat might end up high in the ranking, maybe local stuff for local people is cheap but the ranking only looks at meals in 5* hotel restaurants, or international standard gym memberships etc because they don't think international expats will be frequenting local bars or market stalls in a city like that.
These rankings are not really of any relevance to local people living in those cities, and they are not designed to be for that, though media reports often treat them as if they are.
Oslo, Norway and Stockholm, Sweden >>>>> Beijing by a country mile for expensives (all places I've been, China for 22 months). No way do I believe that list.
A country like China and cities like Beijing, Shanghai or Seoul has so many options you can find super expensive and incredibly cheap and everything in between for basically everything. Oslo is just obnoxiously expensive and that is it.
A lot of these expats tend to be professionals working with international companies around the world. Generally speaking in addition to salary they have a benefit package that includes housing allowances that greatly reduces the burden of accommodation expenses.
1. Hong Kong (China)
2. Tokyo (Japan)
3. Singapore
4. Seoul (South Korea)
5. Zurich (Switzerland)
6. Shanghai (China)
7. Ashgabat (Turkmenistan)
8. Beijing (China)
9. New York City (USA)
10. Shenzhen (China)
For whose expats? I've read, that some Swedes retire to Switzerland, because taxes are low. It's considered to be a tax haven.
Notice that San Francisco isn't on the list, in spite of rents and real-estate to have outstripped those of NYC.
Usually people on an Ex-Pat package have a place to live taken care of. Schools for children may be negotiable, or a driver....but the ex-pats I knew had basically everything taken care of. Their money was almost straight bank.
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