In 2026, Armenia became the most expensive country in the South Caucasus in terms of cost of living. This conclusion was reached by the aggregator website Numbeo, which published a fresh ranking in which the republic took 87th place in the world. For comparison, Georgia is only in 116th position, Azerbaijan is in 122nd, Turkey is in 93rd, and Russia is in 104th place in the list.
The Numbeo ranking is formed on the basis of an analysis of expenses on food, restaurants, transportation, and utilities, while the cost of renting and buying housing is considered separately. This approach allows us to assess the daily expenses of residents without reference to the real estate market, which in many countries strongly distorts the overall picture.
New York with an index of 100% was taken as the starting point in the study. If the index of a city or country is 120, this means that living there is 20% more expensive than in New York. Armenia's cost of living indicator was 40.9, which formally makes it noticeably cheaper than a metropolis in the USA, but more expensive than all its closest neighbors in the region.