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19 March 2024

World's most expensive cities: Dubai, Abu Dhabi not in Top 200

The gross returns on investment from large to small apartments ranges between 5.87 per cent and 7.21 per cent. (Patrick Castillo)

Published
By Shuchita Kapur

Three UAE cities – Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah – stack up as the more affordable cities among the more than 500 cities ranked for a mid-year 2015 cost of living index.

Compiled by Numbeo, which claims to be the world's largest database of user-contributed data about cities and countries worldwide, the index calculates the ranking based on a range of costs, including rentals, groceries, travel, eating out and clothing, etc.

According to Numbeo’s latest mid-year 2015 Cost of Living Index, Dubai ranks at #212 out of the 517 cities that its index ranks, while Abu Dhabi is ranked at #278 and Sharjah stacks up at #280 among the world’s most expensive cities.

As a comparison of the cost of living for residents, the three UAE cities rank behind other major expat hotspots including Aberdeen (#15) and London (#18) in the UK, San Francisco (#19), New York (#20) and Washington (#24) in the US, Perth (#23), Adelaide (#32) and Sydney (#47) in Australia, Singapore (#53), Wellington (#54) and Auckland (#87) in New Zealand, Hong Kong (#123), Toronto, Canada (#132), Tokyo, Japan (#135) and Doha, Qatar (#205).

Regional Top 10 most expensive cities

205

Doha, Qatar

212

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

232

Ad Dammam, Saudi Arabia

236

Beirut, Lebanon

262

Irbil, Iraq

269

Bahrain, Bahrain

278

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

280

Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

283

Muscat, Oman

285

Amman, Jordan

[Source: Numbeo]

According to Mercer’s 2015 Cost of Living Survey published last month, the annual increase in cost of living over the last year rose steeply in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

The Mercer rankings pegged Dubai as the 23rd most expensive city in the world in 2015 (up from a rank of #67 last year).

UAE capital Abu Dhabi, too, became more expensive since last year – moving from #68 in 2014 to #33 in 2015, as per the Mercer rankings.

Even as that ranking pegged Dubai and Abu Dhabi as more expensive than the Numbeo rankings calculated using user-data, both UAE cities were considerably cheaper even in the Mercer list than the other expat hotspots such as Hong Kong, Zurich, Singapore, Geneva, Tokyo, London and New York, among several others.

Dubai’s rankings as an affordable city are impacted by higher rental values, with the emirate ranked as the #14 most expensive on the rent index, which forms a part of the overall calculations.

Regionally, only Doha in Qatar has a higher rent index ranking, stacking up as world’s #10 most expensive city for rentals. Abu Dhabi is ranked at #18 while Sharjah emerges at a much more affordable #143 in the list.

World’s Most Expensive Cities: Rent Index

1

Monaco, Monaco

247.08

2

Luanda, Angola

133.83

3

San Francisco, CA, United States

108.81

4

Hamilton, Bermuda

108.27

5

New York, NY, United States

100

6

Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

98.82

7

Hong Kong, Hong Kong

88.58

8

Kowloon, Hong Kong

85.99

9

London, United Kingdom

84.6

10

Doha, Qatar

75.87

11

San Jose, CA, United States

73.18

12

Boston, MA, United States

72.38

13

Brooklyn, NY, United States

72.27

14

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

72.09

15

Singapore, Singapore

71.26

16

Geneva, Switzerland

70.15

17

Zurich, Switzerland

68.62

18

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

66.4

19

Zug, Switzerland

65.25

20

Washington, DC, United States

64.04

[Source: Numbeo]

Globally, in the latest Numbeo rankings, Swiss cities emerge as one of the most expensive while those in India make the cut as the world’s most affordable.

Hamilton in Bermuda has been ranked as the world’s #1 most expensive city, followed by Swiss cities of Geneva, Zurich, Zug, Basel and Lausanne. Interestingly, seven out of the world’s top 10 most expensive cities are in Switzerland.

Global Top 10 most expensive cities

1

Hamilton, Bermuda

2

Geneva, Switzerland

3

Zurich, Switzerland

4

Zug, Switzerland

5

Basel, Switzerland

6

Lausanne, Switzerland

7

Stavanger, Norway

8

Bern, Switzerland

9

Tromso, Norway

10

Lugano, Switzerland

[Source: Numbeo]

On the other hand, all of the world’s 10 most affordable cities are in India, with Thiruvananthapuram ranked as the world’s least expensive city according to the mid-year 2015 ranking.

In fact, Indian cities account for 28 of the world’s Top 30 most affordable cities according to the latest index. Only Rawalpindi in Pakistan (#13) and Chisinau in Moldova (#27) punctuating Indian cities’ dominance of the most affordable cities list.

 

India Dominates World’s Least Expensive Cities: Top 30

517

Thiruvananthapuram, India

516

Coimbatore, India

515

Tiruchirapalli (Trichy), India

514

Madurai, India

513

Mangalore, India

512

Bhubaneswar, India

511

Kochi, India

510

Ahmedabad, India

509

Nagpur, India

508

Kolkata, India

507

Surat, India

506

Hyderabad, India

505

Rawalpindi, Pakistan

504

Guwahati, India

503

Ludhiana, India

502

Chennai, India

501

Lucknow (Lakhnau), India

500

Amritsar, India

499

Jaipur, India

498

Jalandhar, India

497

Indore, India

496

Nasik, India

495

Bangalore, India

494

Vadodara, India

493

Vijayawada, India

492

Visakhapatnam, India

491

Navi Mumbai, India

490

Chisinau, Moldova

489

Chandigarh, India

488

Goa, India

[Source: Numbeo]