Mumbai is the most expensive Indian city for expatriates and has been ranked at 147 in the Mercer’s 2023 Cost of Living survey out of 227 cities across five continents.

According to this survey, the second and third place among expensive Indian cities are held by New Delhi (169) and Chennai (184), respectively. The rankings of other cities listed are Bengaluru (189), Hyderabad (202), Kolkata (211), and Pune (213).

Mercer’s Cost of Living survey compares the cities on the cost of more than 200 items, including housing, food, transportation, clothing, utilities, household goods, and entertainment.

The data provides relevant information that employers require to mobilise their business in various parts of the world amid the ongoing macroeconomic instability. It helps international employers design efficient and equitable compensation packages for over 400 locations throughout the world for their expat employees.

Recently, Mumbai had outperformed Bengaluru and Delhi in terms of annual housing price growth in the ‘Prime Global Cities Index Q1 2023’ report by real estate consulting firm Knight Frank.

Housing rental prices have shown a rise for all the Indian cities surveyed. Mumbai has observed the biggest surge in rental prices with an increase of 13-15 percent. In other surveyed cities like Bengaluru, New Delhi, Chennai and Pune, housing rentals have shown an uptick of 5-7 percent. Meanwhile, Hyderabad and Kolkata have increased modestly by 2-3 percent.

Nonetheless, among Indian cities, besides Mumbai, the other surveyed cities — Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Pune — offer accommodation costs that are over 50 percent lower than Mumbai. Out of these cities, Kolkata claims the lowest cost of expat accommodation, providing a more economical option for residents and expats, according to the report.

Across the globe, Hong Kong, Singapore and Zurich are found to be the most expensive cities for expats. Copenhagen and four cities from Switzerland, including Zurich, are among the global top 10. New York city, Tel Aviv and Nassau are also among the 10 most expensive cities for expatriates. On the other hand, Havana is the least expensive city due to currency devaluations last year along with the Pakistani cities of Islamabad and Karachi.

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India Mobility Leader for Mercer, Rahul Sharma said, "We have observed a change in the relative positioning of Indian cities in the global ranking, which can be attributed to multiple factors.”

“In particular, the shifting order is partly influenced by currency volatility and the inflationary increase in prices of goods and services in other regions, such as Europe, that has played a role in pushing down the overall rankings of Indian cities,” Sharma added.

As per the report, Mumbai (147) and Delhi (169) offer a cost-efficient destination for global MNCs looking to mobilise their business overseas, with lower cost of living and expat accommodation rates compared to major cities in the Asia Pacific region like Shanghai, Beijing, and Tokyo.

Mumbai and Delhi are among the top 35 expensive cities in Asia for expatriates, out of those surveyed in 2023. However, Mumbai’s ranking drops down one spot within Asian cities, to 27th position from the previous year (2022).

(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)