Quick game: where does everyday life cost the most? Switzerland? Close. New York? It's actually the measuring stick. The winner is a pink-sand island in the Atlantic.
How it's scored
Numbeo, a website where people report the prices they really pay, ranks countries every year. New York is set at 100. A score of 80 means everyday prices, rent included, are about 20% lower than in New York. The 2026 list has 155 countries and territories.
The expensive club
Bermuda wins with 123.5, the only place pricier than New York. Then come the Cayman Islands, Switzerland, the US Virgin Islands and Singapore.
Spot the pattern? Six of the top ten are islands. When almost everything arrives by ship or plane, you pay for the trip too. And some islands attract rich people with low taxes, which pushes prices up even more. Paradise, it turns out, charges for delivery.
The cheap end
Libya comes last with 12.3, just under India and Pakistan at 12.4. So life in Bermuda costs about ten times more than in Libya.
And us?
Switzerland is Europe's most expensive country. Romania lands at 27.8, number 91 out of 155, so roughly a quarter of New York prices. Before you celebrate: our wages aren't a quarter of New York's either. Well, they're less.
What the list won't tell you
Cheap doesn't mean easy. In many cheap countries, salaries are low too, and some are going through war or crisis. The index tells you what things cost, not how hard it is to pay for them.
And Numbeo is crowd-sourced, not official statistics. That's exactly how we'll use it on this channel: one price, many countries, and then the salaries right next to it.