The World's Most Expensive City Is...

Three American cities and two Swiss cities were cited as being among the 10 most expensive cities in the world, according to the newly published Economist Intelligence Unit’s Worldwide Cost of Living 2023 report.

The report number-crunched price data on more than 200 commonly used products and services to measure inflation averages in 173 major cities; the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and the Venezuelan capital Caracas were not included in the report.

The ranking for the world’s most expensive city resulted in a tie between Singapore and Zurich, Switzerland. Another Swiss city, Geneva, tied with New York City for third place.

Rounding out the top 10 were Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Paris, an eighth place between Copenhagen and Tel Aviv, and San Francisco. The Syrian capital Damascus placed last among the 173 cities.

“The survey has been designed to enable human resources and finance managers to calculate cost-of-living allowances and build compensation packages for expatriates and business travelers,” said the report’s authors. “It can also be used by consumer goods firms and other companies to map pricing trends, determine optimum prices for their products across cities and understand the relative expense of a city to formulate policy guidelines.”