Cost of living in Japan
- Everything a household buys
- 89 index, EU average = 100
- Year
- 2024
- Source
- Eurostat
Japan has a price level of 89 where the European Union average is 100, measured for 2024. A household basket there costs about 11 percent less than the same basket across the Union.
Only the headline price level is published for this country. The twelve category breakdown exists for the European Union members and not for this one, and nothing here fills that gap with an estimate.
No annual inflation series covers Japan in this source, so there is no way to say from here how far the figure has drifted since it was recorded.
Japan is the 18 cheapest of the 39 countries this source measures on the same scale, which places it in the cheaper half of that group.
On the same scale it sits between Portugal at 85 and Spain at 90.7, which is the company that a rank of 18 out of 39 puts it in.
Directly comparable with 38 other countries measured on the same scale.
A price level is not a budget. It compares a standard basket between countries and takes no account of what you earn, of the difference between the capital and a small town, or of what a newcomer pays for rent as opposed to what a sitting tenant pays. Read it as a starting point for a comparison, not as a figure to plan around.
Everything a household buys
| Measure | Value | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Everything a household buys | 89 | 2024 |
| Whole economy price level | 90.9 | 2024 |
| Whole economy price level | 0.649 | 2025 |
Questions
Japan: is it an expensive country to live in?
Measured against the reference this figure uses, the price level is 89 for 2024. That is the whole answer this page can give honestly, because a price level says what a basket costs and not what your life costs.
What year is this figure from?
It is the value recorded for 2024. Price level statistics are annual and always lag, so this is the most recent one published rather than a figure for today.
Can I compare this with another country here?
Only with countries measured on the same scale. This one is quoted as index, EU average = 100, and a country quoted on the other scale is not comparable with it without a conversion nobody has measured.
Related pages
Sources
- Eurostat, prc_ppp_ind (Eurostat reuse policy, commercial reuse permitted with attribution)