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At Time Out, we live and breathe city life – but we’re all too aware that it ain’t cheap to live in the world’s most exciting cultural centres, nightlife hubs and places to be when it comes to amazing food, shopping and entertainment.
That’s why Numbeo’s annual Cost of Living index is so enlightening, and it’s just landed for 2026. The research evaluates the costs of rent, restaurants, groceries, and local purchasing power, and combines all of these to give us two cost of living rankings – one that includes rent and one that does not.
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You might be wondering why there’s one without rent costs included, but as travellers, it’s handy to know which places are the most expensive for just the day-to-day costs, right?
So, topping that list (and coming second after New York when rent is included) is Zurich. Its overall cost of living index score is 118.5, with a groceries index of 115.4, restaurant score of 121, and local purchasing power of 164.4.
However, Switzerland is notoriously pricey, and Swiss cities actually occupy the top six spots, with Geneva, Basel, Lausanne, Lugano and Bern closely following behind the country’s largest city. As for the rest of the top 10, New York (unsurprisingly) comes in at number 7, the brilliant Icelandic capital Reykjavik comes in at number 8, and two other hubs in the USA round out the list.
These are the 10 cities with the highest cost of living
- Zurich, Switzerland
- Geneva, Switzerland
- Basel, Switzerland
- Lausanne, Switzerland
- Lugano, Switzerland
- Bern, Switzerland
- New York, United States
- Reykjavik, Iceland
- Honolulu, United States
- San Francisco, United States
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