Cost of Living inCairo, Egypt
Image credit: Daniel Mayer
Purchasing Power vs. United States
Based on GDP per capita (PPP). Egypt: $16,798/capita.
How Far Your Money Goes
Prices are 78% lower than the global benchmark (New York City = 100).
Income Category
Happiness
4.0 / 10
#125 globally
GDP per Capita
City Population
Monthly Costs
Rent
Food
Transport
Utilities
Education
Child Education
Public-school quality + expat access, alongside international and private school cost — the two paths a relocating family weighs.
Public schools
Public-schooling rules are set nationally for Egypt; Cairo-specific enrollment notes are still being verified.
Quality
Limited public-school fit
Expat access
Possible, rarely the expat path
hardInstruction
Arabic
Language fit is more manageable.
PISA / outcomes
Qualitative only
Using curated quality notes for now.
Why this quality rating
Egypt's public-school system is not the route most internationally mobile families choose when they have private or international alternatives.
Why the expat-access rating looks like this
Resident access can exist, but Arabic-medium instruction, crowding, and uneven quality make the public route a hard sell for most expat families.
📋 Homeschooling
Legal with MOE supervisionEgypt allows homeschooling under certain conditions with Ministry of Education oversight. Students must be enrolled in a school for official exams. The process is bureaucratic. Many expat families in Cairo use international schools instead. American and British school options are extensive.
Homeschool legality in Egypt — check current regulations before committing.
Source: User-curated family relocation research (initial seed) (2026-04-14)
International & private schools
Childcare & Domestic Help
Current nanny and household-help pricing snapshot for Cairo, Egypt.
Full-time nanny (5 days)
$145-$210
monthly · confidence 0.65
Live-in / 24-7 nanny
$190-$260
monthly · confidence 0.65
Source: curated family relocation research
Getting Around
The concrete mobility picture for Cairo: airport access, urban transit, and rideshare practicality.
Airport
Major international gateway
Cairo International Airport is Egypt’s main long-haul gateway and the country’s busiest airport.
Urban transit
Metro and bus
Cairo Metro gives the city a real rail backbone and combines with a large bus network, though congestion and first/last-mile gaps still make some family trips less seamless than in stronger European or East Asian transit cities.
Rideshare
Uber available
Uber operates in Cairo and is a routine fallback for airport runs and gaps outside the metro network.
Source: User-curated family relocation research (initial seed) (2026-04-14)
Healthcare
System strength, outcome signals, facility coverage, and self-pay visibility in Egypt.
Method: country metrics come from public system indicators, facility coverage reflects mapped providers we can inventory, direct pricing only reflects observed self-pay pages, and relative care cost can fall back to broad cost-of-living healthcare indices. Sparse pricing does not imply sparse healthcare availability.
Healthcare system
LimitedMaternal mortality is low help, but doctor staffing is lighter and hospital capacity looks tighter.
Public care
LimitedPublic funding looks lighter, patients still shoulder a meaningful share of costs, and country-level outcomes are weaker weigh on this rating.
Private care
LimitedThe tracked private-style network still looks thin and self-pay pricing transparency is still sparse weigh on this rating.
UHC coverage
71/100
2023
Physicians
0.67/1k
2020
Hospital beds
1.06/1k
2021
Out of pocket
57%
2023
Outcome signals
Life expectancy
71.8 yrs
2024
Maternal mortality
17/100k
2023
Neonatal mortality
13.9/1k
2024
International patient readiness
LimitedPrice transparency is still sparse and headline outcomes are less reassuring weigh on this rating.
Pricing transparency
LimitedPublished self-pay prices are scarce and few facilities expose web pages we can verify weigh on this rating.
Facility coverage
Self-pay pricing visibility
No verified self-pay prices are published for the tracked facilities in Egypt yet.
This usually reflects low online price transparency rather than a lack of healthcare providers.
Notable facilities
System metrics: World Bank WDI · Updated 2026-06-01
Safety & Governance
Street Safety
Source: Numbeo where a city row is matched; otherwise World Bank WGI and country-level safety context.
Political Stability
World Bank WGI scale: -2.5 to +2.5.
Wages by Sector
| Sector | Median |
|---|---|
| Administrative & Support Services | — |
| Agriculture & Farming | — |
| Arts, Entertainment & Recreation | — |
| Construction | — |
| Education | — |
| Finance & Insurance | — |
| Healthcare & Social Work | — |
| Hospitality & Food Service | — |
| Information & Technology | — |
| Manufacturing | — |
| Mining & Quarrying | — |
| Other Services | — |
| Professional & Scientific Services | — |
| Public Administration & Defence | — |
| Real Estate | — |
| Retail & Wholesale Trade | — |
| Transport & Logistics | — |
| Utilities | — |
2024 annual wages in Cairo, Egypt · Source: CAPMAS (region-adjusted)
Price Comparison vs. US
Visa Information (US passport)
Short-stay entry
US passport holders can obtain a visa on arrival.
Quick comparison FAQ
Structured from the deltas already shown on this page — no invented facts, no extra data sources.
How far does your money go in Cairo compared with the US?
Your money goes about 7.8x further in Cairo than in the US, based on the current PPP estimate.
Is Cairo cheaper or more expensive overall than New York City?
Cairo is cheaper overall than New York City — overall living costs are about 78% cheaper than the global benchmark (New York City) for Cairo.
How does rent in Cairo compare with New York City?
Rent in Cairo is about 95% cheaper than the global benchmark (New York City).
How expensive are groceries and restaurants in Cairo?
Groceries in Cairo are about 78% cheaper than the global benchmark (New York City), and restaurant prices are about 76% cheaper than the same benchmark.
About Cairo
Cairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world, with about 9.6 million residents in the city proper and over 22 million across Greater Cairo on the Nile. The city anchors Egyptian government, media, and finance, hosts Al-Azhar and Cairo University, and serves as a regional headquarters for many multinationals operating across North Africa. Relocators typically settle in Maadi, Zamalek, or the New Cairo and Sheikh Zayed satellite cities, where international schooling and Western-style housing cluster. Practical constraints include dense traffic that makes cross-city travel slow, currency volatility that has sharpened since 2022, hot dry summers with seasonal dust storms, and Arabic fluency that materially shapes daily integration outside expat enclaves.
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