Finder’s Starbucks Index

Finder is not affiliated with Starbucks.*

Click on the pins below to learn how your coffee cost stacks up against the rest of the world:

The cost of coffee around the world

The cost of coffee in 26 European countries

Europeans can expect to pay the most for a tall latte compared to other regions, with an average cost of £3.19. This is 29p more than the price of a coffee in London. Our nearby neighbours in Dublin get charged 27p more for a coffee. Similarly, a cup of coffee in the European metropolises of Munich, Paris and Athens exceed the price of one in London by 66p, 58p and 23p respectively.

Prices are the steepest in Northern Europe (including countries like Ireland, Sweden and Denmark), averaging £3.84, followed by cities in Western Europe (Netherlands, Austria, France, Belgium, Monaco, Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland) at £3.72. Cities in Southern Europe (Italy, Portugal, Andorra, Spain and Greece) and in Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Russia) had a significantly lower average cost at £2.55 and £2.43 respectively.

• Cost of coffee Europe
• Table

Coffee prices across other regions

Asia, including countries such as Malaysia, Turkey and Azerbaijan, was the next most expensive region for a hit of coffee with an average price of £3.02. East Asian cities in countries such as Japan, Taiwan and Macau had the highest average cost at £3.43. This was followed by cities in Western Asian countries such as Bahrain, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates at £3.08 and cities in Southeast Asian countries such as Brunei, Singapore and Thailand at £2.71. A tall latte in South Asia (India) cost £2.68. Central Asia (Kazakhstan), at £2.59, was the cheapest Asian region on average to pick up a Starbucks tall latte.

The average cost of a coffee across the Americas (including North, Central and South America as well as the Caribbean) is £2.64. Cities in the Caribbean (Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, the Bahamas and Curacao) have the highest average price at £3.09, followed by Central American cities in Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Panama at £2.78 and North American cities at £2.59. South American cities (such as those in Colombia, Argentina, Brazil and others) have the lowest average price at just £2.31.

The least expensive part of the world to buy coffee is Africa coming in at £1.84 – although this included a sample size of just three countries: Egypt, Morocco and South Africa. The second cheapest region was Oceania at £2.58, including Australia and New Zealand.

You can find the complete list of coffee prices around the world here:

• Cost of a coffee around the world
• Table

Coffeenomics: Finder’s Starbucks Index 2019

We should expect coffee prices to be higher in wealthier countries and lower in poorer countries since there are a lot of factors impacting the cost of goods and services, including the local cost of raw materials, production and labour costs, taxes, tariffs and retailer pricing strategies.

Finder’s Index looks at the GDP-per-capita value for each country alongside the coffee cost in US dollars to see how far each country deviates from the average. In Denmark, for example, a coffee costs $6.05, whereas the expected coffee cost based on the country’s GDP of over $60,000 per capita is $4.20, meaning the coffee is 44% more expensive than it should be based on GDP. Luckily for Londoners, lattes are 6.97% cheaper than they are predicted to be based upon GDP.

Search the full table by country or index valuation:

• Finder's Starbucks Index
• Table

It must be noted here that these figures reflect local purchasing power rather than true currency valuation. This is particularly important when looking at countries that share the same currency such as those across the Eurozone. For example, if we look at Monaco, our Index suggests a coffee is 30.4% cheaper than it should be. Compare this to Finland, where the Index suggests a coffee is actually 35.3% more expensive than it should be.

Coffeenomics: Finder’s Latte Line

Our Latte Line is the GDP-weighted index average, showing a correlation between the price of coffee and GDP. For example, in the bottom left corner of the graph, you can see the correlation between a cheap tall latte and a weaker GDP in countries like Turkey, Egypt, Colombia and Argentina. On the far right of the Latte Line, you can see Luxembourg with a high GDP and a more expensive coffee price. However, within that trend, there are a few outliers, such as Monaco and Denmark. In Monaco, the cost of a tall latte is cheaper than you might expect given its strong GDP. In the case of Denmark, you can see that the sky-high cost of a coffee doesn’t correlate to GDP in the same way it does in many other countries.

• Finder's Latte Line
• Table

How did we do the research?

Collecting the data:

We asked individuals in 76 countries around the world to purchase a hot Starbucks tall latte from a store in their city and tell us how much it cost. We looked at the cost of a coffee in nearly every country where Starbucks operates; however, we could not source the data for some countries, such as Malta and Puerto Rico. The individuals were required to send us three photos; a picture of them with the coffee, an image of the receipt and a photo of the coffee menu. You can see our participants here:

Calculations used

Coffee Cost: Local coffee prices were converted to US dollars using the exchange rate on 12 September 2019 according to xe.com. Countries were then ranked based on the cost of the coffee in US dollars.

Starbucks Index: The USD coffee cost figure was plotted against GDP per capita for all countries. The resultant trendline was used to determine the average increase in coffee cost against an increase in GDP. The final index valuation is the difference between each actual plot point and the trendline – or how far each country differs from the average.

Rankings: The cost of coffee was round to the nearest two decimal places. Where prices were exactly the same, we gave them the same ranking.

Limitations of the research

The cost of a Starbucks coffee can vary significantly due to a range of variables across a country or city. Given only one coffee price was used per city/country, the data may not be representative of the area as a whole. Also, different countries measure their GDP in different ways, so the data in this study should be considered as an indicator rather than an exact measure of index value.