The 11 most expensive cities in the world

A man looking at New York skyline — New York City, as well as Singapore, ranked No. 1 in the Economist Intelligence Unit's 2022 Worldwide Cost of Living ranking.
Alexander Spatari/Getty Images

The Economist Intelligence Unit recently published its Worldwide Cost of Living survey results.
Singapore and New York are the most expensive cities among the 172 analyzed in the survey.
An analyst at EIU said high prices for things like groceries and personal care is one big reason behind New York's spot.

From Los Angeles on the West Coast of the US to Geneva, Switzerland in the heart of Europe, people in different cities are feeling the pain of high costs of living.

This is especially the case for those living in New York City and Singapore per the Economist Intelligence Unit's (EIU) Worldwide Cost of Living survey results.

These two locations tied as the No. 1 most expensive cities in a recent ranking from EIU. The survey of price comparisons — from August 16 to September 16 — included 172 cities where researchers looked at over 200 goods and services, including clothing, transport, and food. Kyiv, Ukraine, was not included in the current survey due to the Russian invasion of the country.

"To gather the price data, our researchers survey a range of stores, including supermarkets, mid-priced stores and higher-priced speciality outlets, as well as an array of service providers," the report's methodology stated. "The reported prices are not the recommended retail prices or manufacturers' costs, but the actual costs charged."

Cody Feldman, senior analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told Insider that this year was pretty unique in regards to price changes. Feldman said that "2022 was marked by the surge in inflation that we've been seeing over the past year," with the economic recovery from the pandemic and supply constraints due to the war in Ukraine with Russia as two main reasons behind skyrocketing prices in the world's biggest cities.

Zooming into the city results, there are several reasons for New York City's placement in the ranking. Feldman said it "can be seen due to expensive prices in groceries, personal care, domestic help, and fashion." These expensive prices in these areas contributed to the city being No. 1 for the first time. Singapore tied with New York at No. 1 this year.

As the report states, the "rankings are also driven by exchange rates against the dollar" — another reason for New York City's rank as well as Singapore's.

"A stronger currency and a higher inflation rate have enabled these two cities to push Tel Aviv (Israel), which was top in the rankings last year, into third place," the report stated.

Feldman said Singapore's movement in the rank is "mostly due to high transport, clothing, and food prices, as well as Singapore having largely more stable exchange rate movements against the US dollar compared to other currencies." While Singapore tied for second in the 2021 ranking, the country has been at the top of the ranking for the majority of the last 10 years.

On the other side of the US from New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco in California are considered expensive cities. Los Angeles tied for fourth with Hong Kong. San Francisco ranked No. 8. Additionally, San Diego and Boston are two of six US cities part of the top 10 "biggest movers."

Overall, US inflation has been elevated in 2022. The Consumer Price Index saw a 7.7% year-over-year growth rate in October, below September's change of 8.2%.

Two Switzerland cities also were part of the top 10. Zurich ranked just above Geneva, ranking sixth and seventh respectively.

Feldman said one main takeaway about this year's global results is that "while this year has been marked really by a lot of the geopolitical tensions that we've been seeing and marked by some of the key inflation rates, that ultimately some of those pressures will start to ease in the coming year as we see inflation starting to come back down."

Per the report, "prices have risen by an average of 8.1% in local-currency terms over the past year in the world's biggest cities."

"This is the fastest rate for at least 20 years, reflecting a global cost-of-living crisis sparked by the war in Ukraine and continuing covid-19 restrictions in China," the report said.

Below are the most expensive cities per the new report. We included their index scores from the report. Those scores are based on comparing cities' cost of living to New York City, which was assigned a score of 100.

10 (tie). Sydney, Australia