Hong Kong tops the list of world’s most expensive cities

Hong Kong has claimed the title as the world’s most expensive city for expats for the third consecutive year, according to Mercer, a financial consultant firm, which recently published its cost of living city ranking 2024.

In second place was Singapore, followed by the Swiss cities of Zurich, Geneva, Basel and Bern. Meanwhile, New York, London, Nassau and Los Angeles were ranked in seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth place respectively.

On the flipside, the cheapest city for foreign workers was Abuja in Nigeria, followed by the Nigerian city of Lagos and the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.

According to Mercer, the top ranking cities topped the list due to their higher costs in areas such as housing, transportation, as well as goods and services. In contrast, the cheapest cities had comparatively lower costs for expats due to a significant fall in the value of their currencies.

Other Asian cities that ranked highly on the list included Shanghai, Beijing and Seoul, which were positioned in 23rd, 25th and 32nd place.

The annual ranking is determined by analysing the price of more than 200 items such as transportation, household goods and food in each of the 226 cities.

Although Hong Kong has been ranked in third place for three years in a row, it was knocked down to second place in 2021 by Ashgabat in Turkmenistan, which saw a spike in living costs due to inflation and the rise of a black market for foreign exchange. Ashgabat was not featured on the list this year.