Budapest among the TOP 10 most expensive cities in Eastern Europe

According to a recently published ranking, the Hungarian capital has the 7th highest cost of living index in the Eastern European region, ahead of Moscow, Bratislava, and Prague in terms of expensiveness.

The world’s largest database of cost of living, Numbeo, has recently published the ranking of the Eastern European capitals in terms of expensiveness. The global database takes into consideration the daily cost of living in cities, including the prices of food and drinks, restaurants, travelling, shopping, etc.

Based on these, the most expensive capital in Eastern Europe is Prague.

The Czech capital is followed by Bratislava (Slovakia) in second and by Brno (Czech Republic) in third place.

The latest ranking is dominated by Czech and Slovak cities in the Top 10, many of them preceding

Budapest, which ranked as the seventh most expensive city in the region.

The Hungarian capital is followed by Warsaw and Gdynia (Poland), while the Bulgarian capital (Sofia) is in tenth place.

Interestingly, Moscow, which has long been among the most expensive cities in the world, is eleventh on this list due to the improving Russian economy, reported Hungarian news portal Azonnali.

In addition to Budapest, other Hungarian cities are also ranked among the 49 countries included in the list. Accordingly, Pécs has the 15th highest cost of living index in the region, while Szeged and Debrecen are ranked as the 20th and 21st most expensive cities in Eastern Europe respectively. Besides them, several Bulgarian, Polish, and Romanian cities are listed in the mid-range of the ranking.

The lowest cost of living indices in the region are registered by less touristically important Ukrainian and Russian cities, along with the Moldovan capital, Chisinau.

It is important to mention that the benchmark of the ranking carried out by Numbeo is New York, representing 100%. Accordingly, the listed cities are measured and benchmarked relative to NYC in the case of all the examined indices.

Considering other indices, Budapest’s purchasing power index is only 52.75%. So, people in the Hungarian capital can buy roughly half of what a New Yorker can pay for with the average salary there. As far as apartment rentals are concerned, Budapest roughly makes up 16% of New York’s rent index. This is far behind the remarkably more expensive Prague (26%) and Moscow (28%).