Despite the increase in public service bills and daily expenses, three of the cheapest cities in the world are in Pakistan, according to a global index of life costs.
The 2025 2025 cost of living index ranked Lahore and Karachi as the third and fourth cheapest cities in the world, Islamabad also listing at 314th place out of 327 cities questioned.
The index compares global subsistence costs according to the cost of living in New York, the factoring of rent, grocery, restaurant price and purchasing power.
According to the report, Zurich, Lausanne and Geneva in Switzerland were classified as the most expensive cities in the world, with New York in fourth place.
The Swiss cities Basel and Bern took the fifth and sixth places, while San Francisco and Honolulu in the United States ranked seventh and eighth respectively. Reykjavik, Iceland and Boston, the United States, finished the first ten most expensive cities.
At the other end of the spectrum, Coimbatore in India was named the cheapest city in the world, followed by Alexandria in Egypt. Lahore and Karachi proved to be 85% cheaper than Zurich, while Islamabad was 83% cheaper.
