3 of the World’s 10 Most Expensive Cities Right Now Are in the U.S., New Report Finds

Everything is getting more expensive these days—and, as a consequence, so is the overall cost of living. That’s especially true if you call a city your home. 

To assess just how expensive it is to live in cities around the world, Numbeo has been releasing an annual cost of living index since 2009, when, according to its website, the company was founded “to provide comprehensive information on consumer prices, allowing individuals to estimate their own expenses.” While most of the top of 2026’s list is taken up by cities in a single country, three U.S. cities also made the top 10.

Numbeo uses crowdsourced data and other manually gathered figures to create its list, which is “based on estimated average expenses for a four-person family in a given city,” per its methodology page. The rankings consist of two cost of living indexes—one with rent and one without—as well as indexes for rent, groceries, restaurants, and local purchasing power. 

The majority of the spots at the top of the 2026 list are taken by cities in Switzerland: Zurich is ranked No. 1, with a cost of living score of 118.5 without rent and 97.1 with it. 

The first U.S. city to pop up on the list is New York at No. 7—two spots down from its ranking in 2025. Its cost of living score with or without rent is 100 (the same as 2025). Reykjavik in Iceland comes in eighth, followed by Honolulu with a score of 98.2 (without rent) and 82.9 (with rent). San Francisco rounds out the top 10 with scores of 97.6 and 90 for without and with rent, respectively. (Both cities were in the 2025 Top 10, but in different positions: San Francisco was in seventh, and Honolulu in eighth.)

More U.S. cities pop up in the Top 25: Seattle comes in 12th, followed by Washington, D.C. in 16th, San Jose in 17th, Boston in 18th, Charleston in 19th, Oakland in 22nd, and Berkeley in 25th. You can see the Top 25 below. 

The 25 Cities With the Highest Cost of Living

1. Zurich, Switzerland
2. Geneva, Switzerland
3. Basel, Switzerland
4. Lausanne, Switzerland
5. Lugano, Switzerland
6. Bern, Switzerland
7. New York, New York, United States
8. Reykjavik, Iceland
9. Honolulu, Hawaii, United States
10. San Francisco, California, United States
11. Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel
12. Seattle, Washington, United States
13. Oslo, Norway
14. Singapore, Singapore
15. London, United Kingdom
16. Washington, DC, United States
17. San Jose, California, United States
18. Boston, Massachusetts, United States
19. Charleston, South Carolina, United States
20. Copenhagen, Denmark
21. Bergen, Norway
22. Oakland, California, United States
23. Trondheim, Norway
24. Ramat Gan, Israel
25. Berkeley, California, United States

For the full ranking of 479 cities, check out Numbeo’s post.