Prague One of the Top 5 Biggest Movers In 2018 Global Cost of Living Survey

The annual Economist Intelligence Unit’s Worldwide Cost of Living Survey has been released and while the Czech capital is considered neither the most nor least expensive city in the world, the report did turn up some shareworthy data related to Prague.

Out of 139 countries, Prague ranked 82 overall with an index score of 67 meaning that it’s about a third cheaper for cost of living than New York (100), which represented the median by which other all countries were compared to.

What’s notable is that Prague shot up 13 spots in the ranking and 5 index points this year, representing one of the most dramatic increases of the 2018 report.

Among the top five most increasingly expensive cities to call home over the past 12 months: Mexico City and Santiago, rising 23 and 20 places respectively, followed by St Petersburg, Kiev, and Prague.

The survey studied 400 individual prices across 150 products and services in 133 cities across 93 countries between March and September last year.

This year Singapore is the most expensive city in the world—half of the cities in the top ten are based in Europe, with Paris, Zurich, and Oslo among the ten priciest.

Analysts say that the global cost of living has risen to 74%, up slightly from 73% last year. This remains significantly lower than five years ago when the average cost of living index across the cities surveyed was 85.5%