Cost of living in India in 2026: cheap prices, expensive imports

India’s cost of living is low for anything made or priced locally and high for anything imported. Household electricity costs about ₹7.29 per kWh, Netflix starts at ₹149 a month, Spotify Premium is ₹139 and the Big Mac Index burger is ₹236: low by any standard. Petrol is about ₹108 a litre. But the iPhone 18 Pro costs ₹1,64,900 ($1,719), more in dollars than in any other country we track. With average income at $2,760 a year (about ₹22,059 a month), that phone takes 7.5 months to earn.

We don’t track rent, groceries or transport fares, which together make up most of a household budget, and which vary enormously between Mumbai, Bengaluru and a small town. What we do track is a consistent set of everyday prices taken from Apple’s and Netflix’s Indian storefronts, Spotify, GlobalPetrolPrices and The Economist’s Big Mac Index, plus World Bank GNI per capita, all retrieved 2026-10-13.

Two Indias in one price list

Here each price is ranked against the 12 countries where we track phones and streaming (fewer where a service has no price), with 1st meaning cheapest. India's local prices crowd the cheap end and its imported phones the expensive end. The last column shows what each item costs an Indian on the average income.

4 of the 5 locally priced items are the cheapest or second-cheapest in the group. The cheapness is real but relative: because Indian incomes are a fraction of those elsewhere in the table, a low dollar price can still be a meaningful cost. The Big Mac line is a slight cheat, too. McDonald’s India doesn’t sell beef, so The Economist uses the chicken Maharaja Mac as India’s entry.

Why the iPhone costs more in India than almost anywhere

India’s iPhone 18 Pro is $520 more than the pre-tax US price and $331 more than in the UAE. Put another way, the same phone would cost about ₹1,14,992 at the American price and ₹1,33,119 at the Emirati one, against ₹1,64,900 at home. Import duties on phones and parts, 18% GST, and Apple’s decision to price India well above its other markets account for the gap, even though many iPhones sold in India are now assembled there. That is why many Indian buyers ask friends in Dubai or the US to bring a phone home.

The income gap makes it starker. At the average Indian income the iPhone 18 Pro represents about 7.5 months of earnings; at the average American income, the US price is 4.9 days. Read the full breakdown in iPhone price in India vs the USA, or see every model on the iPhone 18 Pro India page and the India vs UAE comparison.

Fuel: modest in dollars, heavy in hours

At $1.13 a litre, Indian petrol ranks 33rd-cheapest of 170 countries in dollars. In rupees it has moved from about ₹109.70 on 2026-07-03 to ₹108.09 now, a small fall of 1.5%. But a litre takes about 51 min of work at the average Indian wage, compared with the neighbours and the US:

• India: $1.13 a litre, 51 min of work
• Pakistan: $1.42 a litre, 2.0 hrs of work
• Indonesia: $1.07 a litre, 26 min of work
• United States: $1.23 a litre, 2 min of work

Central excise and state VAT make up a large part of the pump price, which is why it differs from state to state; the national trend is on the India petrol price page. The Pakistan vs India petrol guide goes deeper on the region.

Power and subscriptions priced for Indian wallets

Household electricity at $0.076 per kWh is the 33rd-cheapest of 134 countries. Businesses pay $0.122, 61% more than homes, which reflects a long-standing policy of commercial and industrial users cross-subsidising households and farms.

Streaming companies have priced aggressively for India too. Netflix offers 4 plans, from ₹149 for Mobile to ₹649 for Premium, and Spotify Premium costs ₹139 ($1.45). For someone on a foreign salary those are rounding errors; for the average Indian earner the cheapest Netflix plan is still 0.7% of a month’s income. Compare countries on the Spotify price page.

If you earn in dollars

For remote workers and visitors, India is a mix: day-to-day costs look tiny, but bring your electronics with you. The rupee was 95.91 to the dollar in our latest snapshot, against 95.39 in July, so the currency has barely moved over the period. For a full side-by-side, see India vs United States or the India country page.