Deutsche Bank’s 2026 Mapping the World’s Prices report has ranked the world’s cheapest and most expensive cities for a bottle of beer, with Melbourne topping the list for cost while Birmingham features among the most expensive despite London placing further down the table.
The cheapest and most expensive cities in the world for a pint of beer have been revealed in Deutsche Bank’s 2026 Mapping the World’s Prices report, which compares everyday living costs across major global cities. Melbourne, Australia, tops the list as the most expensive city for domestic beer, followed by Singapore and Sydney. Rounding out the top five most expensive locations are Tel Aviv in Israel and Helsinki in Finland, with Birmingham in the UK completing the top five. Perhaps surprisingly, London ranks only 11th on the list.
How the rankings work
The figures form part of Deutsche Bank’s wider annual report, which compares the cost of everyday goods and services across major cities worldwide, taking into account local purchasing power and exchange rates. For beer specifically, the report measures the price of a 0.5-litre bottle of domestic beer bought in a supermarket, meaning the rankings reflect shop prices rather than the cost of a pint in a pub or bar.
The report also includes what Deutsche Bank calls the “Oasis Index,” which combines the average cost of five beers with two packs of cigarettes as a rough indicator of the price of a typical night out. On this measure, Melbourne again ranks as the world’s most expensive city, at $111.20 (£82), with Sydney close behind in second place.
The most expensive cities for beer
According to the report, the ten most expensive cities globally for a 0.5-litre bottle of domestic beer are:
- Melbourne, Australia (£3.92)
- Singapore (£3.34)
- Sydney, Australia (£3.05)
- Tel Aviv, Israel (£2.85)
- Helsinki, Finland (£2.78)
- Birmingham, UK (£2.73)
- Dublin, Ireland (£2.69)
- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (£2.54)
- San Francisco, US (£2.53)
- Oslo, Norway (£2.47)
Australia’s prominence at the top of the table reflects a broader pattern in Deutsche Bank’s report, with Melbourne and Sydney also ranking among the most expensive cities across several of its wider cost-of-living measures, extending beyond beer to leisure spending more generally.
Where the UK fits in
While Birmingham features among the world’s most expensive cities for supermarket beer, this figure does not necessarily reflect the price of a pint enjoyed in a pub. Average UK pub prices tend to run considerably higher than supermarket prices, a gap that reflects the additional costs faced by the hospitality sector, including staff wages, business rates and energy bills.
The British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) has repeatedly warned that UK pubs face some of the highest levels of beer taxation in Europe, compounding rising operating costs that have already pushed prices higher in recent years. More broadly, beer prices have also been driven upward by increased energy costs, higher wages, general inflation, and the rising cost of ingredients such as malt, hops and glass packaging.
Where beer remains a bargain
At the opposite end of the scale, the cheapest cities in the world for a 0.5-litre bottle of domestic beer are:
- Shanghai, China (67p)
- Beijing, China (70p)
- Frankfurt, Germany (86p)
- Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (90p)
- Prague, Czechia (90p)
- Moscow, Russia (90p)
- Madrid, Spain (91p)
- Warsaw, Poland (92p)
- Lisbon, Portugal (94p)
- Berlin, Germany (99p)
Cities in China, and Central and Eastern Europe more broadly, dominate this end of the rankings, a pattern the report attributes to lower production, labour and retail costs in those regions, rather than any difference in the quality of the beer itself.
A snapshot, not a fixed picture
Deutsche Bank’s report notes that exchange rate movements can significantly affect these kinds of international price comparisons, meaning a city’s position in the rankings can shift even where local beer prices themselves remain unchanged. More broadly, the report suggests that variations in beer prices tend to mirror wider differences between cities in wages, taxation and the general cost of living, offering a useful, if imperfect, snapshot of how affordable everyday pleasures are around the world.
