Ranking
Easier on a visitor's budget
We did not survey rents. A 2026 China Briefing city-cost piece, and other explainers in the same season, put Shanghai and Beijing in the expensive band and put Chengdu, Chongqing, Xi'an, and Kunming further down. Those pieces disagree on exact figures, so this page does not copy a rent and call it current.
- 1
Chengdu
The value pick that is still an easy first inland city. You give up some English and gain meals and a lower published cost band.
- 2
Chongqing
Often grouped with Chengdu on cost, with a harder topography and a different kitchen.
- 3
Xi'an
A history city that published briefings do not price like Beijing. Check the room, not the average.
- 4
Guangzhou
Below Shanghai in the same briefings, with a food scene that justifies the trip on its own.
- 5
Hangzhou
Cheaper than Shanghai in most write-ups, closer to it in feel than Chengdu is, and easy to add by train.
- 6
Shanghai
The expensive end of this list, on purpose. You pay for the landing, the metro, and the hotels that already know foreign passports.
Kunming shows up in cost roundups as gentler still, and the air is a common reason people like it. It is not higher here because a first-timer's flights and hotels are less simple to stitch together than Chengdu's. That is a trip-planning judgment, not a claim that Kunming is overpriced.
- China Briefing, 2026 city costsOne of the briefings this order is reading. Their figures are theirs.
Questions
Why is there no price table?
Because a table goes stale, and two honest briefings already disagree. Use their pages for numbers, then check the apartment or hotel you would actually take.