A high cost of living can impact a country’s quality of life in many ways. For those on the lower end of the economic scale, such as low-wage workers or retirees on fixed incomes, a high cost of living can make it difficult to keep up with the cost of necessities such as housing, utilities, groceries, clothing, and transportation.
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Middle- and higher-income individuals fortunate enough to cover the basics without worry will still find less left for savings, vacations, their children’s education, and retirement. A high cost of living can even make a country less appealing to vacationers and ex-pats, who get less for their money than they might elsewhere.
Computing the cost of living in a given area is typically done by measuring the cost of various goods and services, from rent/mortgage and utilities to groceries and sneakers, then comparing those amounts to the cost of the same goods and services elsewhere.
The final number is often given in respect to a baseline location, such as the notoriously pricey New York City.
No two lists of expensive countries are identical. Different research organizations use slightly different equations to compute the cost of living, and some include territories that others leave out or get their information from alternate sources. Nonetheless, viewing multiple lists reveals some identifiable trends:
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Most expensive countries in the world – Top 10
- Bermuda (UK Territory) – 225.86
- Iceland – 209.10
- Switzerland – 197.89
- Norway – 186.52
- Denmark – 171.78
- Barbados – 169.90
- Australia – 168.02
- Israel – 167.52
- New Zealand – 160.18
- Bahamas – 158.09
