How to read these comparisons
A price level is a single index summarising what a broad basket of goods and services costs in one country versus another — rent, food, transport, haircuts, everything — converted at market exchange rates. When a country sits at 75, the same basket costs roughly three quarters of the US price. That is why a lower salary in a cheaper country can leave more room in a budget than a higher salary in an expensive one, and why comparing raw salaries across borders is close to meaningless on its own.
Three limits are worth holding in mind before any of these numbers changes a decision. First, an averagewage is pulled upward by top earners, so more than half of workers typically earn less than the figure shown; a median would be lower, and medians are not published consistently enough across countries to compare here. Second, a national price level is a national average — a capital city can be far above it, and if your own budget is dominated by rent or imported goods, your personal price level is not the country’s. Third, none of this includes income tax, social contributions, healthcare, childcare or visa costs, all of which can move the real figure more than the price level does.
What these pages are good for is the sanity check: whether an offer in another country is actually a raise once local prices apply, and how large the gap really is. For the same question asked with your own salary rather than a national average, use the salary teleporter, and this post walks through why the ranking flips.
Salaries: OECD average annual wages. Price levels: World Bank comparative price levels, United States = 100. Data as of 2026-07-25. India’s wage figure is an estimate; all figures are ballpark values for comparison rather than precise measurements. Sources are listed on the methodology page.