Living abroad can be a fantastic way to explore other cultures, but if you’re moving to Zurich, Switzerland, you’ll want to pack your wallet.
The Swiss city was found to be the most expensive city to live in on Earth, according to a 2025 mid-year cost of living index from Numbeo, a crowd-sourced database. The index “measures the relative prices of consumer goods and services—including groceries, dining, transportation, and utilities—but excludes housing costs like rent or mortgage payments.”
The site uses New York City as its baseline city (with an index value of 100) to generate cost of living index numbers for other cities around the world. Relative to that, Zurich scored 112.5, which the company said “suggests that everyday expenses” are higher than in New York.
When it comes to living expenses, residents in Zurich pay some of the highest grocery rates around the globe and must shell out quite a bit of cash to eat at restaurants.
But Zurich is not alone. In fact, all of the top six most expensive cities are in Switzerland, including Geneva at No. 2, followed by Basel, Lausanne, Lugano, and Bern. New York, the baseline city, came in at No. 7, followed by Reykjavik, Iceland; Honolulu; and San Francisco rounding out the top 10.
As a whole, Zurich is undoubtedly expensive, but there are some areas where it actually has a relatively affordable score. The city’s rent index, for example, comes in at just 68.1 (compared to New York’s rent index of 100). It’s also a city that may be worth the money: international consulting firm Mercer ranked Zurich as the best location for expats, and last year it was named the smartest city in the world.
There’s good news for travelers looking for something more affordable in Europe since every other European city on the list had a cost of living index score under 100, including popular destinations like Oslo, London, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Paris, and more.
On the other end of the spectrum was the city of Coimbatore, India, which had the lowest cost of living index number in the world at 17.1. That was followed by the Indian cities of Indore and Lucknow, as well as Lahore, Pakistan.
Overall, between 4 million and 5 million Americans are estimated to live abroad, according to the Association of Americans Resident Overseas. And as of 2022, more than 1.1 million of those were believed to live in Europe.
