Asia Pacific Expat Cost of Living Comparison Rankings January 2015

Hong Kong has retained the top spot (overall most expensive in Asia-Pacific) due to the extremely high housing costs, as well as high cost of schooling and limited space available. Interestingly Hong Kong falls out of the top ten city rankings when costs related to housing, education, medical and transport are excluded. This indicates that Hong-Kong is not the most expensive place for other baskets, such as groceries. It appears however that the overall high cost of living has resulted in living standards stagnating, even though the current Government is committed to promoting economic development, improving people’s livelihood, and taking forward constitutional development for more effective governance.

Singapore remains the second most expensive city in the Asia-Pacific region for expatriates. Singapore does however top the Asia-Pacific rankings when costs related to housing, education, medical and transport are excluded. A few changes have occurred over the last quarter however every city that was in the top ten list remains, with slight changes in position either up or down.

Tokyo is the third most expensive city in Asia-Pacific this quarter. Costs however are not slowing down with an increase in consumption tax (Japan’s version of value-added tax) from 5 to 8 percent; overall inflation was 3.7 percent, electricity charges rose 11.4 percent on year and gasoline gained 9.6 percent. However, the yen’s continued depreciation against major currencies over the year has caused this location to fall in the rankings.

Australia sees four of its cities in the top ten, these include Sydney fourth (14th overall), Canberra sixth (24th overall), Melbourne eighth (29th overall) and Perth tenth (32nd overall).

The cheapest Asia Pacific city is Thimphu in Bhuthan.

Xpatulator.com has been created to assist subscribers calculate expatriate pay using the online calculators and extensive database of cost of living and hardship indexes, for 780 international locations. The cost of living ranking information is updated quarterly using data collected by Xpatulator.com over the past 12 months.

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