Cost of living by country, for a working holiday

The cheapest day-to-day are Colombia, Turkey, Argentina — the lowest price levels of any destination with a working-holiday scheme. Among the classic big destinations, Japan and South Korea are the best value, while Australia, Canada and New Zealand sit at the higher-cost end.

The index is an international price-level scale, so any two countries are directly comparable — a country at 60 is roughly 40% cheaper than one at 100. On the page you can pick your own home country as the baseline (home = 100), and every destination is instantly re-shown as "cheaper" or "pricier" than home. It's built for a global audience, so no single country is assumed.

It's the World Bank's Price Level Index for household consumption (from the International Comparison Program) — the ratio of each country's consumption prices to its exchange rate, on a comparable basis. It's official, published under a CC BY 4.0 open licence, and internationally comparable by design. We use this rather than crowdsourced indices because it's authoritative and citable.

No — what you can earn matters as much as what you spend, which is why a higher-cost country like Australia can still be affordable once you're working. Use the affordability calculator to weigh local wages against local costs in your own currency. Flights and your visa are on top.