Why measure prices in work time?
A price on its own says little. A kilo of rice costs about 8 riyals in Saudi Arabia and about 155 rupees in Pakistan, but what matters is how long you work to pay for it. Dividing a price by what an hour of work earns turns every price into minutes and hours, which you can compare across countries and currencies.
The two comparisons
Work time on the average wage shows how long the average employee in each country works (8 hours a day, 26 days a month) to buy the item. What my salary buys there converts your salary at today's exchange rate and shows how much of the item it would buy in each country. It is a rough picture of why money sent home goes further, the same idea as our salary worth at home calculator.
Where the numbers come from
- Food prices (rice, 12 eggs, 1 litre of fresh milk, 1 kg of chicken): official average prices where published (Saudi GASTAT, the UAE Ministry of Economy, India's Department of Consumer Affairs, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, Bangladesh's TCB, the Philippine Statistics Authority); Numbeo for Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and Jordan; market reports for Egypt and Nepal. Chicken in Pakistan, Egypt and Nepal is the live-weight price, and eggs in Egypt, India and Nepal are farm or wholesale prices, so shop prices are higher.
- Petrol: the regular grade, from our fuel prices page and official prices in each home country.
- Electricity: a typical household rate per kWh for an expatriate tenant; see our electricity bill calculator for the full tariffs.
- Gold: today's world price for 22-carat gold, without the shop's making charge.
- Average wages: national labour surveys. For Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain we use the average for expatriate workers; elsewhere the average for all employees. The UAE and Oman publish no average wage.
Prices differ between cities and shops, and wages differ hugely between jobs. Treat the results as a guide, not a measure of your own budget.
Frequently asked questions
Why is the Gulf average wage so different from my salary?
Averages mix very different jobs. In Saudi Arabia, for example, non-Saudi employees average about 4,131 riyals a month and Saudi employees about 11,100. Many workers earn much less than the average.
Is this the same as purchasing power parity?
It is a simpler version: a handful of everyday items instead of a full basket. For a broader comparison, use our salary worth at home calculator, which uses the World Bank's purchasing power data.
How often are the prices updated?
Every three months, and petrol every month. The date of the figures is shown on the page.
Last reviewed: October 2026.
This page was translated from Arabic. If something is unclear or wrong, please tell us.