The 20 cities with the highest cost of living

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth makes her way to the steps after a tree planting ceremony at Government House in Hamilton, Bermuda November 26, 2009. REUTERS/Hans Deryk
The city with the highest relative cost of living in the world is Hamilton, the capital of Bermuda.

That’s according to rankings published by data company Numbeo. The company continuously updates its data and just published its Cost of Living Index Rate for 2017. The list is calculated relative to New York City, which has an index of 100. If a city has a cost of living index of 130, it is 30 percent more expensive than New York; if a city has an index of 70, it is 30 percent less expensive.

Hamilton has a rating of 141.59, nearly 10 points higher than the second-most expensive city on the list, Geneva, Switzerland.

Here’s the top 20:

Hamilton, Bermuda: 141.59
Geneva, Switzerland: 131.69
Basel, Switzerland: 129.61
Zurich, Switzerland:
129.03
Venice, Italy: 119.03
Zug, Switzerland: 118.94
Lausanne, Switzerland: 116.72
Bern, Switzerland: 115.97
Stavanger, Norway: 111.85
Lugano, Switzerland: 110.85
Trondheim, Norway: 110.77
Reykjavik, Iceland: 109.11
Oslo, Norway: 106.25
Bergen, Norway: 103.74
Nassau, Bahamas: 102.98
New York, NY, United States: 100.00
Honolulu, HI, United States: 99.37
San Francisco, CA, United States: 98.97
Anchorage, AK, United States: 98.48
Washington, DC, United States: 95.24

As a relatively small island nation of fewer than 65,000 people, a large percentage of Bermuda’s goods are imported. According to The World Bank, the country has the fourth-highest tariff rate in the world, significantly increasing the cost of groceries, vehicles, gas, electronics and other household goods.

Perhaps the biggest reason for Hamilton’s astronomical cost of living is accommodation: In 2015 the average price of a single-family home was $1.2 million, according to Coldwell Banker Bermuda Realty.

AC45F racing sailboat Oracle Team USA sails during a training race ahead of the America’s Cup World Series sailing competition on the Great Sound in Hamilton, Bermuda, October 16, 2015. REUTERS/Mike Segar
You’ll notice that seven of the top 10 most expensive cities are in Switzerland. Luckily for Swiss workers, the country has the third-highest average annual wage in the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) at $58,389, behind just Luxembourg and the United States.

People enjoy the sunny weather as they sit on the Sechselaeutenplatz square in front of the opera house in Zurich March 20, 2014. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann
New York City, the most expensive city in the U.S., checks in at 16th place, just above Honolulu and San Francisco.

The company published this map showing the cost of living in nearly 500 cities around the world. Red dots indicate expensive cities and green less expensive.

Courtesy of Numbeo
For comparison, the least expensive city in the world is Thiruvananthapuram, India, with an index of just 19.83. Eight of the 10 least expensive cities are in India.

Bottom 20

445. Chandigarh, India: 25.93
446. Goa, India: 25.88
447. Ahmedabad, India: 25.86
448. Surat, India: 25.85
449. Lucknow (Lakhnau), India: 25.81
450. Jaipur, India: 25.62
451. Vadodara, India: 25.53
452. Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine: 25.29
453. Sumy, Ukraine: 24.75
454. Indore, India: 24.38
455. Lviv, Ukraine: 24.32
456. Hyderabad, India: 24.05
457. Kochi, India: 23.58
458. Visakhapatnam, India: 23.54
459. Nagpur, India: 23.47
460. Coimbatore, India: 23.36
461. Bhubaneswar, India: 23.25
462. Cairo, Egypt: 22.29
463. Mangalore, India: 21.89
464. Thiruvananthapuram, India: 19.83