Beijing Ranks Bottom of the Top for Expensive Expat Cities

Original Drew Pittock theBeijinger

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It’s that time of year again, when US-based consulting firm Mercer, releases their annual Cost of Living survey and expats the world over either lament or celebrate their choice of adopted home. Luckily, Beijingers have something to celebrate this year as the capital ranked tenth, down one spot from 2018 and two spots from 2019.

It wouldn’t be a story about 2020, however, without mentioning COVID-19, which did in fact influence Mercer’s data. Though the numbers were crunched in March – relatively early in the ongoing impact of the coronavirus – Ilya Bonic, Career President and Head of Mercer Strategy explained that “Border closings, flight interruptions, mandatory confinements, and other short-term disruptions have affected not only the cost of goods and services, but also the quality of living of assignees,” or folks who are placed overseas by multinational corporations and government entities. Interestingly, Mercer doesn’t seem too concerned with those of us who chose to relocate of our own volition.

At any rate, Mercer’s survey includes more than 200 goods and services including food, alcohol and tobacco, domestic supplies (in fact, cleaning supplies caused quite a stir in this year’s analysis), housing prices, transportation, personal care, and recreation and entertainment.

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So how did the rest of the world stack up? Well, six of the top ten most expensive cities are located in Asia – two less than last year – and three of them are in China. Hong Kong held onto the number one spot followed by Turkmenistan’s Ashgabat in second and Tokyo in third. Singapore ranked fifth and Shanghai placed seventh. Other cities to grace the top ten are Switzerland’s Zurich, Bern, and Geneva at fourth, eighth, and ninth respectively, and New York at sixth.

Beijing leads the world in mineral water costs

Incidentally, and counter to the intuition of anyone who actually lives in the capital, Beijing does lead the pack is cost of water, which clocked in at a resounding USD 4 for one liter of non-sparkling mineral water according to the firms "buying habits in times of lockdown" analysis.

It’s easy to conflate “Most Expensive” with glamor and decadence, however, Ashgabat’s second-place standing proves that economic and social instability is as deeply rooted a factor in the cost of living equation as it is in millionaires and billionaires per capita.

Nevertheless, for most of us, even at number ten, Beijing still remains a fairly inexpensive place to kick back for a couple of years and make a buck or two.