REVEALED: WHAT DEFINES LUXURY & QUALITY OF LIFE AROUND THE WORLD
A luxury lifestyle might cost more than it used to, but how does it compare with cities around the world?
4 min
A life of luxury in Australia costs more than it used to in Australia. Inflationary pressures have pushed everything from the price of real estate, extravagant dining experiences and lavish weekends away up higher than they’ve ever been before.
The price tag for luxury homes across Australia now starts at $2.52 million, up an eye watering 72 per cent from a decade ago.
But what counts as luxury varies significantly depending on location. Sydney remains Australia’s most expensive market, where luxury begins at $4 million. The Gold Coast has now taken second place at $2.6 million, pushing ahead of Melbourne’s $2.49 million entry point.
That’s according to Luxury Report, produced by real estate firm Ray White, analysed what defines luxury today.
Global comparison
Housing affordability continues to hover at crisis levels in Australia, but how does a luxury lifestyle in Australia compare with the rest of the world?
A look at real estate markets abroad quickly reveals that where you choose to live can have a huge impact on what it costs to put a roof over your head.
For example, in Monaco, a small apartment can set you back more than $38,800 per square metre. Here, more than 40 per cent of the nation’s residents are millionaires: the highest proportion of any city in the world.
According to the ninth edition of a report that offers a snapshot of how global cities compare on cost of living, quality of life and income and affordability, Sydney and Melbourne isn’t anywhere near as expensive as other cities around the world.
Which puts it perspective for the wealthy trying to grapple with whether or not they can afford to keep the holiday house, or whether to list it for sale.
The Mapping the World’s Prices 2025 report ranked the cheapest and most expensive cities around the world, with the Deutsche Bank Research Institute assessing global cost and quality of life indicators.
The report tracks what it costs to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle. This includes the prices of everything from groceries, wine, buying a city apartment, salaries and general measures of the quality of life. Other factors measured include the cost of a summer dress, a carton of cigarettes, internet data and what it costs to dine out in some of the best restaurants.
Produced by the Deutsche Bank Research Institute, the report points out that inflation making a roaring comeback over the last five years, currency swings are influencing purchasing power and the world’s cost of living leaderboard is therefore shifting quickly.
Researchers focused on the 69 cities that matter most to global financial markets, and therefore your investment portfolio.
Here’s a breakdown of the most expensive places to live around the world:
Quality of life
If you’re seeking a good quality life, the top five cities for a quality lifestyle listed in the report are Luxembourg, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Vienna and Helsinki.
Meanwhile, Zurich and Geneva have slipped out of the top five because cost of living pressures have continued to skyrocket, making these cities now the most expensive in the world to live in.
Buying an apartment
Prices for an apartment have fallen by 20 per cent in Hong Kong over the last five years, but still top the list, followed by Zurich, Singapore, Seoul and Geneve.
London and New York are just outside the top five, while Beijing comes in at ninth place, highlighting the elevated property prices in China. If you’re looking to buy an apartment, unit or townhouse in Australia, the median price in July 2025 was $686,399.
Utility bills
Electricity bills cost around $350 to $420 per quarter in most states of Australia, which is much cheaper than what Germans are forking out. Munich, Frankfurt and Berlin have the highest energy bills in the world, while Warsaw, Vienna and Prague also make the top 10, highlighting that Eastern European cities are counting the costs of the lack of cheap Russian gas.
iPhone
If you want to pick up a smartphone to keep in touch with loved ones while travelling, you’re going to pay a lot more for one in Turkey, Brazil, Egypt, India and Sweden. Seoul is the cheapest as competition with Samsung makes it even cheaper than in US cities.
Groceries
Geneva, San Francisco, Zurich, New York and Boston are the top five costly places to stock up on groceries. Even by Swiss standards, groceries in Geneva are generally expensive, while groceries in Sydney are 39.41 per cent lower than in Geneva.
Wine
Picking up a bottle of wine will set you back if you’re in Singapore, where you’ll pay more than anywhere else in the 69 countries surveyed. Jakarta, Seoul, New York and Oslo are also expensive. It’s much cheaper to purchase wine in some other lovely cities, including Rome, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Budapest and Lisbon.
Cigarettes
Incredible, Australia tops the list anywhere in the world for the price of cigarettes. Government taxes and duties applied to cigarettes aim to dissuade consumption mean that Melbourne and Sydney have been ranked as the most expensive place for cigarettes, along with New Zealand.
Restaurants
Eating out in a swanky restaurant in Australia can set you back up to $300 per person. That might sound expensive if you’re trying to feed a family of four, it’s going to be more in Zurich, Geneva, New York, San Francisco and Boston.
Buying a car
Singapore and Copenhagen actively discourage the purchase of cars and are the most expensive cities to purchase a set of wheels. In fact, the cheapest possible car will set you back around $150,000 in Singapore Dollars. That’s for a basic car like a Honda Jazz, which is the same price as a Porche in any other part of the world.
The reason cars are so expensive in Singapore is the huge population in a limited space meaning the government prioritises a clean environment and less traffic. The next most expensive places to purchase a car are Tel Aviv, Istanbul and Abu Dhabi.
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From tax residency and superannuation to offshore investments and property, the financial implications of coming home can be more complex than leaving.
3 min
Every year, thousands of Australians make the decision to pack up life overseas and come home.
After years, sometimes decades, building careers, accumulating assets, and growing families in places like Dubai, London, Singapore, or Hong Kong, the pull back is understandable.
What most don’t appreciate until it’s too late is that the return journey is often far more financially complex than the departure.
Leaving Australia is, financially speaking, a relatively clean event.
You depart, you potentially become a non-resident for tax purposes, and a new set of rules applies.
Coming back, however, means reconciling everything you’ve accumulated offshore with an Australian tax system that hasn’t been standing still waiting for you.
The Tax Residency Trap
The first and most costly mistake is misunderstanding when Australian tax residency resumes.
Many returning expats assume residency only kicks in once they’ve formally re-established themselves, signed a lease, updated their address, started a job. The ATO doesn’t see it that way.
Under Australian tax law, residency can recommence the moment you land with the intention of remaining. That means any taxable events, investment income, asset disposals, foreign account distributions that occur after that point are potentially assessable in Australia, even if they’re sitting in offshore accounts you haven’t touched.
Superannuation: The Clock Doesn’t Stop
One of the most underappreciated issues for returning expats is what’s been happening inside their superannuation fund while they’ve been away.
Contributions may have paused, but fees, insurance premiums, and investment volatility haven’t. Some returning clients are genuinely shocked by how much ground their super has lost to fees during periods of lower balances or inappropriate investment settings.
The more strategic issue is what to do on the way back. If you hold foreign pension arrangements, a UK SIPP or QROPS, a 401(k), and international savings schemes, the question of whether and how to repatriate those funds requires careful planning before you return.
Once you’re a tax resident again, distributions from certain foreign structures can be assessable as ordinary income, and the window to manage that exposure closes.
Offshore Investments Don’t Disappear
Returning to Australia doesn’t sever your obligations in the countries where you’ve been living.
Foreign-held shares, managed funds, or investment accounts will be picked up by Australian tax reporting requirements from the moment residency resumes.
The Foreign Investment Fund rules, transferor trust provisions, and the reporting obligations under Australia’s tax information exchange agreements mean these holdings need to be declared and, in some cases, restructured.
Leaving investments sitting offshore in structures that made sense as a non-resident but create compliance headaches as a resident is one of the most common and expensive mistakes we see.
The restructuring cost, if it’s even possible post-return, typically dwarfs what it would have cost to plan properly in advance.
Property: Both Sides of the Balance Sheet
There are two distinct property problems for returning expats.
The first is what they’ve held while away, an Australian property rented out during the absence.
Depending on how long the property was the main residence and how it was treated during the rental period, the CGT calculation on eventual sale can be complex.
The six-year absence rule provides some relief, but it’s not automatic and has conditions that are frequently misunderstood.
The second is re-entry into the Australian property market.
After years of asset accumulation offshore, many returnees assume they’re well-positioned to buy.
The challenge is that their financial picture, including foreign income history, offshore assets and currency, doesn’t translate neatly into Australian mortgage serviceability.
Lenders read foreign income conservatively, and what looks like a strong balance sheet can create unexpected borrowing capacity issues.
The Fix: Plan Before You Land
The single most effective thing an expat can do is start planning the return 12 to 18 months before departure.
That timeline allows for managed asset disposals under non-resident rules where advantageous, superannuation catch-up strategies, foreign structure rationalisation, and property decisions that aren’t being made under time pressure.
The irony is that most Australians sought financial advice before they left on how to exit cleanly.
Far fewer seek the same rigour on the way back in. Given the complexity involved, that’s an expensive oversight.
Coming home should be a financial clean slate. With the right planning, it can be. Without it, you’ll spend the first few years back unwinding decisions that didn’t have to be problems at all.
Brett Evans is the founder of Atlas Wealth and the author of The Expat’s Handbook.
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