How equivalent salary is figured
Each place has a price level. Divide the destination level by the origin level, then multiply by your current gross pay. The answer is labeled in the destination currency.
World cities sit on one unofficial scale where 100 is a global average. New York is 187. London is 172. Austin is 119. Example baked into this page: $90,000 in New York becomes £82,781 in London. That is $90,000 × (172 ÷ 187).
U.S. metros can also use the BEA index, where the U.S. average is 100. New York in 2023 sits at 112.5. Austin sits at 97.6. The same $90,000 becomes $78,080 in the Austin metro. That is $90,000 × (97.6 ÷ 112.5). World-city New York to Austin uses a different scale, so the two answers are not the same number.
Countries use World Bank household PPP in local currency per international dollar. The same $90,000 in the New York BEA metro becomes £56,122 for the United Kingdom as a whole. That is a national figure, not Inner London rent.
Source: stored world-city cost indexes for 100 metros. U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities, metropolitan all-items index, 2023 (December 2024 release). BEA regional price parities. World Bank, PPP conversion factor, households and NPISHs final consumption expenditure (PA.NUS.PRVT.PP). Most recent value per country. World Bank PA.NUS.PRVT.PP. 328 places are in the dropdown. There is still one canonical URL.
Worked examples on this page
These six rows use the same function as the form. They are here so the HTML has real answers even if JavaScript is off.
| From | To | Current pay | Equivalent pay | Price gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York, United States | London, United Kingdom | $90,000 | £82,781 | -8.0% |
| New York, United States | Austin, United States | $90,000 | $57,273 | -36.4% |
| New York, NY | Austin, TX | $90,000 | $78,080 | -13.2% |
| San Francisco, CA | Dallas, TX | $150,000 | $131,091 | -12.6% |
| New York, NY | United Kingdom | $90,000 | £56,122 | -37.6% |
| Germany | Canada | €80,000 | CA$140,271 | +75.3% |
Highest world-city indexes in this list
A short snapshot, not a separate URL for each city. New York is the highest city in this set at 187. The global average is 100.
| City | Cost index | $100,000 there vs global average |
|---|---|---|
| New York, United States | 187 | $53,476 |
| San Francisco, United States | 179 | $55,866 |
| London, United Kingdom | 172 | £58,140 |
| Zurich, Switzerland | 171 | CHF 58,480 |
| Geneva, Switzerland | 168 | CHF 59,524 |
| Hong Kong, Hong Kong | 167 | HK$59,880 |
| Los Angeles, United States | 166 | $60,241 |
| Singapore, Singapore | 165 | SGD 60,606 |
| Paris, France | 158 | €63,291 |
| Sydney, Australia | 156 | A$64,103 |
| Oslo, Norway | 154 | NOK 64,935 |
| Copenhagen, Denmark | 152 | DKK 65,789 |
Highest BEA indexes in this list
Official U.S. metro series. San Francisco is the highest metro in this set at 118.2. Oklahoma City is among the lowest at 91.0.
| Metro | BEA all-items 2023 | $100,000 here equals this U.S. average |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco, CA | 118.2 | $84,602 |
| Los Angeles, CA | 115.5 | $86,580 |
| Seattle, WA | 113.0 | $88,496 |
| San Jose, CA | 112.9 | $88,574 |
| New York, NY | 112.5 | $88,889 |
| Miami, FL | 111.8 | $89,445 |
| Boston, MA | 111.6 | $89,606 |
| San Diego, CA | 111.5 | $89,686 |
| Honolulu, HI | 110.2 | $90,744 |
| Sacramento, CA | 108.9 | $91,827 |
| Washington, DC | 108.6 | $92,081 |
| Riverside, CA | 107.9 | $92,678 |
What this page does not do
It does not subtract tax. An equivalent salary is still gross pay. Run take-home pay if you want a net estimate.
It does not count the drive. A cheaper index can vanish if parking is $18 a day. That is commute cost.
World-city indexes are a stored file, not a live Numbeo scrape and not an official statistical series. BEA and World Bank remain the official layers.