Home

Cost of Living Index

The U.S. Military prepares Overseas Cost of Living Allowances data on a regular basis. They assign cities around the world a COLA index relative to a COLA index of 100 for the cost of living in average U.S. location. These numbers are used to determine how much they pay foreign-posted personnel; they’re also an interesting tool to get a quick feel for how much it costs to maintain a western-style standard of living overseas. Here are some example COLA numbers from the March 2007 report:

  • Canada
    • Calgary - 130
    • Montreal - 130
    • Toronto - 136
    • Halifax - 138
    • Vancouver - 148
  • Havana, Cuba - 132
  • Lisbon, Portual - 138
  • Tokyo, Japan - 152
  • Finland - 154
  • Copenhagen, Denmark - 168
  • London, U.K.- 170
  • Paris, France - 182
  • Geneva, Switzerland - 188
Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - 10:03am
|

Comments

Andrew MacPherson's picture
Andrew MacPherson on March 28, 2007
This is particularly interesting to me in Calgary because the Nova Scotia government has been running an ad campaign here about how the opportunities in N.S. relative to the cost of living differences between Calgary and Nova Scotia. I have lived in Calgary now for 6 years and lived in Halifax while going to university and do recall the cost of living in Halifax at least to be very high. Maybe other parts of the province are cheaper but heating, transport and food are all more expensive in the Maritimes.
Marian's picture
Marian on March 30, 2007
What’s the cost of living figure for Budapest?
Peter Rukavina's picture
Peter Rukavina on March 30, 2007
All of Hungary has a COLA of 120.

Post new comment

You can comment anonymously if you must, but I would prefer it if you used your real name.
The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly. If you have a Gravatar account associated with the e-mail address you provide, it will be used to display your avatar.
Optional. If you enter the address of a website here, your name will be publicly linked to the site.
  • Adds typographic refinements.

More information about formatting options

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.