Cost of Living inAsuncion, Paraguay
Image credit: Alphabet Citizen
Purchasing Power vs. United States
Based on GDP per capita (PPP). Paraguay: $16,296/capita.
How Far Your Money Goes
Prices are 69% lower than the global benchmark (New York City = 100).
Income Category
Happiness
6.0 / 10
#58 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 Paraguay; Asuncion-specific enrollment notes are still being verified.
Quality
Limited public-school fit
Expat access
Possible for resident families
conditionalInstruction
Spanish / Guarani
Language fit is more manageable.
PISA / outcomes
Qualitative only
Using curated quality notes for now.
Why this quality rating
Paraguay's public schools can work for local families, but quality varies and the strongest options for internationally mobile households are usually private schools in and around Asunción.
Why the expat-access rating looks like this
Resident foreign families can usually enroll, but Spanish- and Guaraní-influenced schooling plus uneven school quality make the public path a situational fit for expat families.
📋 Homeschooling
Legal with school enrollmentParaguay permits homeschooling through "educación en casa" provisions. Students must be enrolled at a school for assessment and certification purposes. Paraguay has become popular with expats for its low taxes and cost of living.
Homeschool legality in Paraguay — 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 Asuncion, Paraguay.
Full-time nanny (5 days)
$475-$675
monthly · confidence 0.65
Live-in / 24-7 nanny
$850-$1,150
monthly · confidence 0.65
Source: curated family relocation research
Getting Around
The concrete mobility picture for Asuncion: airport access, urban transit, and rideshare practicality.
Airport
International airport
Silvio Pettirossi gives Asuncion the country’s main practical air gateway for regional travel and onward long-haul connections.
Urban transit
Bus-first urban transit
Asuncion is still road-led and bus-first, with daily mobility relying on buses and road traffic rather than rail-based transit.
Rideshare
App-hailed rides available
App-hailed rides are a practical fallback for airport runs and cross-city trips when buses are too indirect or slow.
Source: User-curated family relocation research (initial seed) (2026-04-14)
Healthcare
System strength, outcome signals, facility coverage, and self-pay visibility in Paraguay.
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
GoodGood national coverage and strong doctor availability help, but hospital capacity looks tighter.
Public care
MixedA visible public hospital footprint help, but patients still shoulder a meaningful share of costs.
Private care
MixedA meaningful tracked hospital and clinic network help, but the private footprint is not very visible yet and self-pay pricing transparency is still sparse.
UHC coverage
79/100
2023
Physicians
3.89/1k
2022
Hospital beds
1.04/1k
2022
Out of pocket
36%
2023
Outcome signals
Life expectancy
74.0 yrs
2024
Maternal mortality
58/100k
2023
Neonatal mortality
8.6/1k
2024
International patient readiness
LimitedMultiple facilities have websites and there is visible specialty depth help, but the private footprint is still thin and price transparency is still sparse.
Pricing transparency
LimitedMultiple facilities have crawlable websites help, but published self-pay prices are scarce.
Facility coverage
Self-pay pricing visibility
No verified self-pay prices are published for the tracked facilities in Paraguay 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 |
|---|---|
| Agriculture & Farming | — |
| Manufacturing | — |
2025 annual wages in Asuncion, Paraguay · Source: ILO ILOSTAT (sector aggregate) (national)
Price Comparison vs. US
Visa Information (US passport)
Short-stay entry
US passport holders can stay up to 90 days without a visa.
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 Asuncion compared with the US?
Your money goes about 2.3x further in Asuncion than in the US, based on the current PPP estimate.
Is Asuncion cheaper or more expensive overall than New York City?
Asuncion is cheaper overall than New York City — overall living costs are about 69% cheaper than the global benchmark (New York City) for Asuncion.
How does rent in Asuncion compare with New York City?
Rent in Asuncion is about 90% cheaper than the global benchmark (New York City).
How expensive are groceries and restaurants in Asuncion?
Groceries in Asuncion are about 68% cheaper than the global benchmark (New York City), and restaurant prices are about 70% cheaper than the same benchmark.
About Asuncion
Asuncion is the capital of Paraguay, a riverside city of about 1.48 million sitting on the eastern bank of the Paraguay River in the country's southwest, just across from Argentina. As the political, financial, and commercial core of a landlocked agricultural economy, it concentrates government, banking, and the headquarters of soy, beef, and energy-trading firms tied to the Itaipu dam. Relocators should weigh that Paraguay offers one of South America's more accessible residency programs, costs of living undercut most regional capitals, and the climate is humid subtropical with very hot summers and mild winters. Spanish and Guarani are co-official and both appear in daily life, and the small but growing expat community is concentrated in trade, agriculture, and remote-work roles.
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