Luanda named the most expensive African city for expats

According to the survey, Hong Kong is the most expensive city for expatriates in the world, followed by Luanda, Angola, in second position. Zurich and Singapore remain in third and fourth positions, respectively, whereas Tokyo is in fifth, rises six places from last year. Kinshasa, DR Congo, was ranked sixth and appears for the first time in the top 10, rising seven places since 2015.

Other cities appearing in the top 10 of Mercer’s costliest cities for expatriates are Shanghai (7), Geneva (8), N’Djamena (9) and Beijing (10). The world’s least expensive cities for expatriates, according to Mercer’s survey, are Windhoek (209), Cape Town (208) and Bishkek (207).

Mercer's widely recognized survey is designed to help multinational companies and governments determine compensation strategies for their expatriate employees. This year's ranking includes 209 cities across five continents and measures the comparative cost of more than 200 items in each location, including housing, transportation, food, clothing, household goods, and entertainment.

In Africa, despite dropping off the top spot on the global list, Luanda, Angola (2) remains the highest ranking city in Africa followed by Kinshasa (6). Moving up one spot, N'Djamena (9) is the next African city on the list, followed by Lagos, Nigeria (13) which is up seven places. Dropping three spots, Windhoek (209) in Namibia ranks as the least expensive city in the region and globally. Johannesburg and Cape Town have also dropped fourteen and eight places consecutively.

The report pointed out that despite volatile global markets and growing security issues, organizations continue to leverage global expansion strategies to remain competitive and to grow. Factors including currency fluctuations, cost inflation for goods and services, and instability of accommodation prices, were cited as contributing to the cost of expatriate packages for employees on international assignments.

List of the most expensive African cities for expatriats