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Top 10 least expensive global cities for ex-pats in 2024: Where do Indian cities rank?

Least expensive cities for expats in 2024: Indian cities have an average ranking on the cost of living index, with two cities from Pakistan ranking in the top 10 least expensive cities in 2024.

Living Cost of Index 2024 Top 10 least expensive cities in the world in 2024. (Canva)

Top 10 least expensive cities for ex-pats in 2024: We live in a global village today, with everything increasingly becoming interconnected, leading to more people opting to move overseas for career, education, or personal reasons.

For expats, relocating their lives and moving to a completely different city is not always an easy choice.

Relocating to a new city can be quite overwhelming, as there are numerous factors to take into account, with the cost of living undoubtedly ranking among the most important.

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“Cost-of-living challenges have had a significant impact on multinational organisations and their employees,” as Yvonne Traber, Mercer’s global mobility leader, stated.

While undoubtedly European cities dominate the most expensive places to live, Asian and African cities feature in the least expensive cities for ex-pats to move abroad.

Top 10 least expensive cities for ex-pats globally in 2024

So, which foreign city is the least expensive in the world for expats to relocate to?

Evaluating 226 locations and the costs of housing, transportation, food, clothes, household goods, entertainment, and other expenses, here are the least expensive cities in the world in 2024.

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Africa, Africa taxes, unpaid taxes Africa, Indian Express News

Abuja is the world’s least expensive city for ex-pats as of 2024, largely owing to the significant depreciation of the Naira, Nigeria’s national currency.

Mercer’s latest research, ‘Cost of Living City Ranking 2024,’ enlisted below are the least expensive cities for ex-pats in 2024.

Global Rank 2024	City	Country
226	Abuja	Nigeria
225	Lagos	Nigeria
224	Islamabad	Pakistan
223	Bishkek	Kyrgyzstan
222	Karachi	Pakistan
221	Blantyre	Malawi
220	Dushanbe	Tajikistan
219	Durban	South Africa
218	Windhoek	Namibia
217	Havana	Cuba

Source: Cost of Living 2024: Mercer

Notably, between 2023 and 2024, the most substantial drops in the cost of living rankings were observed in African cities (Lagos, Luanda, and Abuja), South America (Santiago), and Eastern Asia (Osaka).

This situation has primarily been driven by currency depreciation, along with the decreases in the cost of living for overseas assignees, influenced by currency fluctuations, which occurred even though inflation in many of these countries increased.

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Where do Indian cities stand on the Cost of Living Index 2024?

Indian cities have an average ranking on the cost of living index, with neither the capital, New Delhi, at 165th place, nor Bengaluru, at 195th, being classified among the world’s most expensive cities.

In contrast, Mumbai has made a notable leap to 136th place globally, reflecting an impressive rise of 11 spots since last year.

Global Rank 2024	City	Change in Rank
207	Kolkata	4
205	Pune	8
202	Hyderabad	0
195	Bengaluru	-6
189	Chennai	-5
165	New Delhi	4
136	Mumbai	11

Cherry Gupta

Cherry Gupta is an Assistant Manager – Content at The Indian Express. She leads the Top 10 section, curating list-based features on key national and international developments, and manages daily news content. She also produces SEO-driven articles and collaborates with the Lifestyle team to conduct interviews with notable artists and write workplace culture features. ... Read More