AIRINC’s 2020 Global 150 Cities Index highlights the cities that have the ideal combination of high salaries, low taxes, costs, and quality of life. In this, our 4th iteration of the ranking since being featured in Harvard Business Review, we see a solid consistency in the top five, but several key changes in the top 20, along with some surprising regional results.
Where does your city rank?
Overall Attractiveness
Global 150 cities index
Lifestyle Rank
Global 150 cities index
Financial Rank
Global 150 cities index
AIRINC Global 150 Cities Index Ranking Methodology
AIRINC’s Global 150 Cities Index is a ranking of 150 of the top global locations according to the financial and lifestyle benefits they offer. It combines local salary levels, tax rates, living costs, and living conditions to assess how appealing each location is to live in. The data is collected by AIRINC’s own in-house survey team, who continuously research the costs and living conditions of many cities around the world to evaluate international mobility.
Financial Metrics
Salary Levels
We have developed and maintain our own international salary data base that captures location-specific salary levels for professional talent.
Costs
We price a basket of more than 350 goods and services to accurately represent the cost of living in each location.
Taxes
Our internal tax team researches the applicable national and local taxes, social security payments, and family allowances to develop representative tax models.
Lifestyle Metrics
Hardship/Quality of living
We research and evaluate each location for over 60 hardship components, classified into 11 categories that represent Physical Threat and Safety, Discomfort, nconvenience
Social Benefits
We adjust for the different levels of social and lifestyle benefits inherent in each country.
The Ranking
The Financial components are aggregated to calculate the net purchasing power of a typical salary in each city, and then converted to a common currency to allow comparison between locations. The Lifestyle metrics are weighted and grouped by category to result in a score out of 100 that allows objective assessment of the living conditions between cities. Both metrics are combined to reflect the importance of each, resulting in an overall score that allows easy city-to-city comparisons and rankings.
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Critical skills are in short supply in many locations around the world. For many organizations, transferring talent across borders to fill knowledge and skills gaps has become an essential prerequisite to meeting business objectives.
We can help by providing the data, technology, and advice to make your mobility program a success.
