Tel Aviv climbs cost of living index to become world’s 20th most expensive city

Tel Aviv is the world’s 20th most expensive city in terms of cost of living, and the priciest in the Middle East, according to a report released this week.

The White City ranks just below Oakland, California, and above Copenhagen, Denmark, according to figures published by Numbeo, a crowd-sourced global database of consumer prices that compares the cost of living in various countries.

Haifa placed at 31st, one slot above Chicago, and Jerusalem at 34th, below Osaka, Japan, and above Sarasota, Florida.

The next city in the region was Doha, Qatar, in 179th place.

Tel Aviv has been climbing the site’s semiannual Cost of Living index. In its mid-2019 index, Tel Aviv stood at 27th place, and a year ago was 36th.

The 2020 index included data on 440 cities. The top five most expensive cities were all located in Switzerland, headed by Basel. New York was in 11th place, San Francisco in 12th and Washington, DC, in 17th.

Overall, Israel ranks on the site as the 8th most expensive country.

The site was established as the first free database to compare cost of living, and relies on both user input and publicly available information. It bills itself as the world’s “the largest database of user-contributed data about living conditions in cities.”

In its cost of living estimate, it looks at prices for rent, groceries, restaurants, and local purchasing power, which compares average wages with ability to buy goods and services in the city.