Purchasing Power Parity · Barbados
Cost of living in 🇧🇧 Barbados vs the United States
Barbados has a US-relative price level of 1.095 (US = 1.0) — about 9% more expensive than the United States. Reference year 2025.
What US salaries are worth in Barbados
| US income | Feels like (US-equivalent) | Cost of a US lifestyle |
|---|---|---|
| $50,000 | $45,662 | $54,750 |
| $80,000 | $73,059 | $87,600 |
| $120,000 | $109,589 | $131,400 |
| $180,000 | $164,384 | $197,100 |
| $250,000 | $228,311 | $273,750 |
“Feels like” = income ÷ price level; “cost of a US lifestyle” = income × price level. Try your own number in the interactive calculator.
How the sources compare
Each provider measures Barbados's price level slightly differently; a tight spread means high confidence.
These sources disagree — the figure above is the World Bank figure alone, decided by a person, not a blend.
Exchange regime: hard peg. BBD 2 = USD 1, fixed since 1975 and held by the Central Bank of Barbados; the World Bank official rate reads exactly 2.00 in every year. There is no exchange-rate story, so Penn World Table's 1.992 (twice the US price level) is a provider anomaly and the World Bank's 1.095 is preferred.
Checked 2026-09-09 against secondary sources; the authority's own page could not be read.
Cost of living around the world
Every country shaded by its price level relative to the US (darker = more expensive). Barbados is outlined.
Countries with a similar cost of living
- 🇮🇱 Israel — price level 1.088
- 🇨🇭 Switzerland — price level 1.113
- 🇳🇷 Nauru — price level 1.125
- 🇮🇸 Iceland — price level 1.162
- 🇫🇲 Micronesia — price level 1.024
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Frequently asked questions
- How expensive is Barbados compared to the United States?
- Barbados has a price level of 1.095 relative to the US baseline of 1.0 (about 9% more expensive than the United States), based on the World Bank figure alone — the sources disagree and a curated exchange-regime register names the one to believe, reference year 2025.
- What is a $100,000 salary worth in Barbados?
- In purchasing-power terms, $100,000 stretches to about $91,324 of US-equivalent lifestyle in Barbados; conversely, sustaining a $100,000 US lifestyle there costs about $109,500.
- Where does the Barbados cost-of-living data come from?
- Real price-level figures from the World Bank, IMF World Economic Outlook, OECD, Eurostat and Penn World Table, refreshed at build time. For Barbados the sources disagree (hard peg): BBD 2 = USD 1, fixed since 1975 and held by the Central Bank of Barbados; the World Bank official rate reads exactly 2.00 in every year. There is no exchange-rate story, so Penn World Table's 1.992 (twice the US price level) is a provider anomaly and the World Bank's 1.095 is preferred.