Mumbai is the most expensive city in India for expatriates living and working overseas: Mercer’s 2022 Cost of Living Survey

• Mumbai and Delhi rank among the top 40 most expensive cities in Asia for expatriates
• Kolkata is the least expensive city for expatriates, among surveyed Indian cities

Mumbai, June 29, 2022:  According to Mercer's 2022 Cost of Living survey, Mumbai (127) is the most costly city in India in terms of both living expenses and accommodation costs. This is followed by New Delhi (155), Chennai (177), Bengaluru (178), and Hyderabad (192), while Pune (201) and Kolkata (203) are the least expensive Indian cities in the ranking.

The survey also found that Mumbai, the financial hub of India, is a popular place for multinational corporations to establish operations. Organizations are, however, also considering other low cost areas like Hyderabad, Chennai, and Pune due to the greater cost of living in Mumbai.

The Cost of Living survey was conducted in March 2022. This year's ranking compares the prices of more than 200 commodities including housing, transportation, food, clothing, household goods, and entertainment in 227 cities spread across five continents. Mercer revamped its Cost of Living methodology this year with new items such as smartwatches, tablet computers and smartphones added to the basket and non-relevant items such as music CDs and video movie rentals removed.

The study highlights elements that contribute to daily costs, eg: among the assessed Indian cities, Kolkata has the lowest cost of daily necessities such as milk, breads, vegetables, etc., while Mumbai and New Delhi have the highest costs. In terms of energy, phone costs, etc., the cost of home utilities is highest in Mumbai and lowest in Chennai and Hyderabad. Watching a movie in Mumbai is most expensive whereas Hyderabad is the cheapest.

Rahul Sharma, India Mobility Leader, Mercer said, “Global supply chains for necessities have been disrupted as a result of COVID-19-related volatility, which has been exacerbated worse by the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. As a result of this uncertainty, organizations have been forced to revaluate their global mobility initiatives with a focus on the well-being of their expatriate employees, balanced with economics, along with significantly growing inflation in the majority of countries around the world.”

The survey found that Hyderabad had the cheapest housing of all the places examined in India when evaluating the country's housing market. However, Hyderabad is more expensive than Pune and Kolkata when both cost of living and housing are taken into account. Among other Indian cities, Mumbai has some of the most costly rentals, followed by New Delhi and Bangalore. The other Indian cities in the ranking (Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, and Kolkata) have accommodation costs that are over 50% lesser than those of Mumbai.

“Additionally, we have seen that petrol costs have increased in all Indian cities. Also, the price of getting a new car and other maintenance costs have gone up in all Indian cities,” Rahul Sharma added.

Given challenges of cost considerations & complexity of operating globally in today’s volatile environment - re-examining, reinventing talent mobility programs is imperative to the future talent program agenda. This could comprise applying newer economic models, using more distributed talent workforces leveraging through access to right information for location & other assessments into the talent mobilization decisions, as critical factors for mobility programs. For instance, it is not surprising that India is re-emerging to be among the contenders to relocate and setup operations for manufacturing or captives, given advantages of skill availability, relative cost competitiveness and attractiveness for mobilizing executives to conduct business in select cities”

As compared to other major cities in Asia Pacific region, including Beijing, Shanghai and Manilla, Indian cities including Mumbai and New Delhi have a lower cost of living and expat accommodation, making it a cost efficient destination for Global MNC’s to setup operations overseas. 

Four out of 10 most expensive cities to live in for the international assignees are located in Asia, including the single most expensive city in the world – Hong Kong, SAR (ranked 1). Singapore (8), Tokyo, Japan (9) and Beijing, China (10) are all on the top 10.

About Mercer’s Cost of Living Survey 

Mercer's widely recognized ranking is one of the world’s most comprehensive, and is designed to help multinational companies and governments determine compensation strategies for their international assignees. New York City is used as the base city for all comparisons and currency movements are measured against the US dollar. The survey includes over 400+ cities throughout the world; this year’s ranking includes 227 cities across five continents and measures the comparative cost of more than 200 items in each location, including housing, transportation, food, clothing, household goods, and entertainment. The data collected provides all of the key elements employers need to design efficient and transparent compensation packages for international assignees. Learn more here.

The figures for Mercer’s cost of living and rental accommodation cost comparisons are derived from a survey conducted in March 2022. Exchange rates from that time and Mercer’s international basket of goods and services from its Cost of Living Survey have been used as base measurements.

Governments and major companies use data from this survey to protect the purchasing power of their employees when transferred abroad; rental accommodation costs data is used to assess local international assignee housing allowances. The choice of cities surveyed is based on demand for data from Mercer’s clients.

About Mercer 

Mercer believes in building brighter futures by redefining the world of work, reshaping retirement and investment outcomes, and unlocking real health and well-being. Mercer’s approximately 25,000 employees are based in 43 countries and the firm operates in 130 countries. Mercer is a business of Marsh McLennan (NYSE: MMC), the world’s leading professional services firm in the areas of risk, strategy and people, with 83,000 colleagues and annual revenue of approximately $20 billion. Through its market-leading businesses including Marsh, Guy Carpenter and Oliver Wyman, Marsh McLennan helps clients navigate an increasingly dynamic and complex environment. For more information, visit mercer.com. Follow Mercer on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Europe

Four European cities are among the top 10 list of most expensive locations. All of those four are based in Switzerland, and Zurich being ranked second within the global ranking, as being the costliest within the European cities, closely followed by Geneva (3^rd) and Basel (4^th). Other cities in Europe are Copenhagen, Denmark (11), London, United Kingdom (15), Vienna, Austria (21) and Amsterdam, The Netherlands (25).

The most expensive cities in Eastern Europe is Prague (Czech Republic) ranked 60^th out 227 cities. It is followed by Riga, Latvia (79), Bratislava, Slovakia (105) and Tallinn, Estonia (140). The least expensive city in Eastern Europe is Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina ranked 209^th.

Middle East and Africa

Tel Aviv (Israel) is the costliest city in the Middle East for international employees, ranked on the sixth position within the global ranking. The next in line for this region are cities from the United Arab Emirates, namely Dubai (31) and Abu Dhabi (61). Saudi cities such as Riyadh (103) and Jeddah (111) rank in the middle, closely followed by Amman, Jordan (115) and Manama, Bahrain (117).

In Africa, Bangui (23), Libreville, Gabon (24) and Victoria, Seychelles (38) are the three costliest cities. High in the ranking for this region we can find also Djibouti (41), Kinshasa (53) and Lagos (55). The cheapest city in Africa is Tunis, Tunisia ranked 220^th.

The Americas

New York (7) remain the most expensive city in the region, followed by Nassau, Bahamas (16). The remaining US cities are ranked between 17^th place and 112^th place, Los Angeles (17), San Francisco (19), Honolulu (20), Washington (29), Chicago (36) and Cleveland (112).

The most expensive Canadian city is Toronto (89) followed by Vancouver (108), Montreal (125), Ottawa (132), and least expensive city in Canada is Calgary (141).

In South America, Buenos Aires, Argentina (114) is ranked as the most expensive city in region, followed by Montevideo, Uruguay (123), Santiago, Chile (130), Quito, Ecuador (156), Sao Paulo, Brazil (168). Belo Horizonte (210) is the least expensive city in South America. Managua (212) the capital of Nicaragua is the least expensive city in the Americas.

Pacific

The most expensive city in Pacific is Noumea, New Caledonia (54) closely followed by Sydney, Australia (58). Auckland, New Zealand (95) is the most expensive city in New Zealand, and Wellington (120) the least expensive in the Pacific.

Top 10 Most Expensive Cities

Worldwide Rankings 2022