List of Most Expensive & Cheapest Cities To Live In Pakistan

In This Post:
Pakistan’s Most Expensive Cities
Cheapest Cities in Pakistan
List of Most and Least Expensive Cities
More About NPMC

The cost of living in a city greatly depends on the market prices of daily use commodities. These factors have a direct impact on the rate of inflation in a particular region. The administration of every district in Pakistan is responsible to fix and implement rates for consumer essentials sold in both wholesale and commercial markets.

However, due to the lack of check and balance, a majority of markets across the country do not comply with the approved rates and sell daily essentials at much higher prices. This creates an economic imbalance in the country, making some cities extremely expensive and others highly cheap. 

According to the National Price Monitoring Committee (NPMC), here is the list of the most expensive cities in Pakistan based on the gap between market and approved prices for daily use commodities.

So, without further ado, let’s get the ball rolling!

The Most Expensive Cities in Pakistan

The largest metropolis of Pakistan, Karachi, is also the most expensive one to live in. As per the NPMC report, it has the highest price difference of 94.81% between market and approved rates by the local district administration.

The second-most expensive city in Pakistan is also in Sindh. Larkana has the second-highest gap between market and approved rates for daily essentials, which stands at 49.54%. The third spot has been secured by Sukkur with 38.77%, followed by Khuzdar in Balochistan, where a price gap of 38.53% has been recorded. 

The Cheapest Cities To Live in Pakistan

With a much lower price differential rate, the cheapest cities in Pakistan are mostly found in Punjab. According to the data released by the National Price Monitoring Committee (NPMC), Bahawalpur is the least expensive city to live in with the lowest gap of 9.25% between market and district administration rates for daily essentials. 

Bahawalpur is followed by Multan and Lahore, which have more or less the same price differential percentage of 10.35 and 10.53, respectively. On the other hand, the capital city of Islamabad has emerged as a moderately-expensive city with a gap of 19.6% between market and approved rates.

List of 17 Major Cities & Price Differential Percentages

The below table shows the ranking of the cities based on the gap in market prices and approved rates by their respective district administrations.

More About the National Price Monitoring Committee (NPMC)

The National Price Monitoring Committee (NPMC) falls under the command of the Ministry of Finance. In Jan 2021, PM Imran approved the launch of a new price monitoring system to address the shortcomings of the current system. It is known as the Decision Support System for Inflation (DSSI). 

The system monitors and tracks price hikes of daily essentials in 17 major cities in Pakistan. The list we have shared above has been formulated by NPMC using the newly-introduced DSSI system. According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), the Decision Support System for Inflation (DSSI) is going to play a crucial role in terms of gauging performances of local district administrations in some of the country’s most densely-populated metropolitan areas. 

Now that you know about the most and least expensive cities in Pakistan and the new Decision Support System for Inflation (DSSI), which has been launched to improve the performance of the National Price Monitoring Committee (NPMC), it’s time for us to wrap up. We hope this piece has provided you with all the useful information. 

Also, if you have spotted your city on the aforementioned list, then do let us know about it by emailing us at blog@zameen.com. We would also like to know your point of view on the latest initiatives introduced by the government to track, tackle and control inflation.

For more informative pieces on different types of national initiatives and major real estate developments, which are revolutionizing the urban landscapes across the country, keep reading Zameen Blog—the best lifestyle and property blog in Pakistan. You can also subscribe to our daily newsletter to stay updated with our latest blog posts.