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All NRIs

What does your life cost somewhere else?

Your household’s spending restated at another city’s price level, with money sent to India kept separate.

Illustration comparing everyday household costs across two cities

NRIWallah team

Updated September 2026 · 3 min read

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Most cost-of-living sites price a standard basket, a litre of milk, a coffee, a transport pass, a two-bedroom flat, and average it into an index. That describes a city reasonably well, but not a household. Your spending depends on your rent or mortgage, school fees, a car, how many children you have and whether you support parents. Two families on the same street can spend twice as much as each other.

So this tool starts from what you already spend, and restates it at another city’s price level.

Money sent to India is kept separate

Rupees sent to your parents buy Indian goods at Indian prices, whether you send them from Harrow, Sharjah or Singapore. If you add that money to your monthly spending and then adjust the total for the cost of living in Dubai, you have adjusted your parents’ grocery bill for Dubai prices. Moving from London to Dubai changes what your own life costs, not what your family in India needs. That is why remittances are a separate input.

Where NRIs live

The defaults are areas with large Indian communities: Harrow and Wembley in London, Edison in New Jersey, Brampton in Ontario, Parramatta in Sydney, and Sharjah and Bur Dubai in the UAE. Central London is included for contrast. It costs roughly 40% more than Harrow, in the same city and under the same tax system.

Why expensive areas are not proportionally expensive

If Kensington rents are 2.5 times Harrow’s, Kensington is not 2.5 times as expensive to live in. Food, clothing, fuel and most services cost much the same across a country; mainly housing varies by area.

The model applies 1 + 0.35 × (local rent ÷ national rent − 1), reflecting housing’s share of about 35% of a typical budget. An area at 1.5 times the national rent comes out at about 1.18 times the national cost of living.

Exchange rates and India

A rupee buys much more inside India than the exchange rate implies: the purchasing power rate is around 20 rupees to the international dollar, while the market rate is several times higher. Converting a UK household budget to rupees at the market rate therefore greatly overstates what it costs to live the same way in India.

That cuts both ways. People who convert at the market rate expect to be far better off in India than they will be, and people who compare gross salaries can dismiss an Indian offer that is in fact comparable.

What it does not cover

  • Earnings. The salary comparison runs the same price levels through each country’s tax and social security and gives an equivalent gross salary. The two tools share a dataset.
  • Things bought at world prices. Imported goods, foreign travel, international schools, cars and premium electronics cost more in India relative to local incomes, so a household that spends heavily on them will find India dearer than the tool suggests. One that spends on domestic help, local food and services will find it cheaper.
  • Healthcare. Free at the point of use in the UK and a real cost in India, and not included here. See retiring in India.

This is not a basket of groceries. Comparison sites price a standard shopping list, then average it. That tells you what bread costs, not what your life costs — nobody actually consumes the basket. This starts from what you already spend and asks what the same standard of living costs somewhere else, at purchasing power rather than the exchange rate. Every answer is a range, because the underlying rent data deserves nothing narrower.

Where you live now

Everything you actually spend on yourself and your household here — rent or mortgage, bills, food, transport, schooling, leisure. Not savings, and not money you send to India.

Where you're thinking of moving

Kept separate on purpose. Rupees sent home buy Indian goods at Indian prices no matter where you send them from, so this figure does not scale with where you live.

a month in buys the same life in for about

a month — realistically somewhere between and .

What this means

  • Treat to as the answer rather than the single figure. The range is wider where the rent and price data for an area is thinner.
  • The you send to India each month is kept separate: rupees buy the same in India wherever you send them from, so that part isn't scaled by the move.
  • This compares what a household spends. It leaves out tax and pay; to weigh a job offer, use the salary comparison.
The link holds the numbers above, so whoever opens it sees the same result. Saving keeps those numbers in your account.Nothing is stored by us.

Keep this result. An NRIWallah account saves it and sets NRIWallah up for where you live, so you don't type it all again.

Save it

What the exchange rate would have told you

Converted at today's rate, is — more than you actually need. The rate flatters the move. only of what you actually need. The rate makes the move look far worse than it is. almost exactly what you need — an unusually honest exchange rate for this pair.

Country versus area

Country to country
Area adjustment
Where you'd actually live

Only the housing share of a budget really varies by area, so an area at 1.5× the national rent is roughly 1.18× the national cost of living — not 1.5×.

The rent behind it

Money you send home

What this can't tell you

Purchasing power is an average across a whole consumption basket, and no household is average. If you spend heavily on imported goods, foreign travel, international schooling or a car, India is far dearer than the factor implies — those are traded at world prices. If you spend heavily on domestic help, local food and services, it is far cheaper. The number above is the middle of a distribution you may sit nowhere near.

It also says nothing about what you can earn in each place. For that, use the salary comparison, which runs the same price levels through each country's tax system.

Price levels last reviewed .

Common questions

Because the data does not support a single figure. Rents for London areas come from official statistics and are solid. Rents for Dubai neighbourhoods come from property listings with inconsistent bedroom counts and are little better than a ranking. Indian city figures rest on an assumption about how metro prices compare with a national average that includes rural India, the largest uncertainty in the model. Each area has a confidence level, and the range widens with it.
Yes. Fremont to Plano, Kensington to Harrow, Mumbai to Pune: same currency and same tax system, so the model isolates the effect of the area alone. With no currency conversion involved, these are also the most reliable comparisons the tool makes.
Rents are the latest published figures at the last review, and the exchange rates for the remittance line update daily. Purchasing power factors are 2025 values, which change slowly. Rents go out of date fastest, especially in fast-moving markets such as Indian metros and Dubai, so check the review date beneath the calculator and treat anything more than a year old as a rough guide.

Thinking about a move?

If you’re weighing a relocation and want the tax, housing and schooling picture rather than just the price level, tell us where you’re moving between.

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Every rate and threshold here is sourced, dated and shown on the page — but tax rules change, and we would rather be told than be wrong. Reports go to the team that maintains the tool. If you can point at the official source, that gets it fixed fastest.

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How we source and review these numbers is set out in our methodology.

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