A weak yen turned Tokyo into a steal. A strong shekel turned Tel Aviv into the world’s most expensive city to buy McDonald’s

The Israel Land Authority controls over 90% of Israeli land, meaning development decisions in prime areas are centralized rather than market-driven, and municipalities have long favored approving commercial development over residential projects, according to an IMF analysis of the Israeli housing market. WTO data for 2025 show that Israel also applied an average tariff of 7.5% to agricultural imports, compared with just 0.1% for non-agricultural goods. Dairy remains one of the most protected sectors with a 42% average tariff.

As a result, Tel Aviv has also overtaken Zurich and Geneva atop a very specific metric: McDonald’s combo meals. A McMeal in Tel Aviv now runs $20.90—up 71% since 2016 and the highest price recorded by Deutsche Bank. 

The city also ranks in the top five globally for the cost of jeans and a summer dress, and is second-most expensive for gasoline and a new car. Gas jumped 27% in a single year, tied directly by the researchers to the Iran war’s impact on energy supply.

It’s worth noting that wages are climbing three times faster than the global average in Deutsche Bank’s survey, rising 98.5% in dollar terms since 2016 compared to the full 69-city sample. But the property price-to-income ratio ranks 57th, signaling that even with rising wages, housing costs are rising faster.

Japan’s great cheapening

In the mid-1990s, a coffee, a rental apartment or a night out in Tokyo cost more than the equivalent almost anywhere else in the world. Deutsche Bank estimates that Japan’s relative price level for the same basket of goods in the U.S. was nearly double then. 

But three decades and one collapsing currency later, that price level fell from an index reading of 173 to just 60, the steepest repricing of any developed economy Deutsche Bank tracks. The yen has lost 51% of its value against the dollar since 2012, as the central bank kept monetary policy loose to fight persistent deflation.

This means Tokyo is now a bargain next to places like New York or Zurich. A three-bedroom apartment in central Tokyo rents for about a quarter of the New York price, and a dinner for two is roughly a third of the cost in Zurich or New York, according to the report. Japan is also now the cheapest place to walk out of an Apple Store with a new iPhone. 

Meanwhile, Japan has become a magnet for travelers. Fortune reported the weak yen has helped turn tourism into Japan’s second-largest export, with visitor spending surging even as some residents grumble about overtourism.

But while the weakened yen means Tokyo is cheap for tourists, it’s not the same for the city’s workers.

Net salaries fell 18% in dollar terms since 2016 and rank 39th of the 69 cities Deutsche Bank tracks, below Madrid. A worker in Zurich earns 3.5 times as much as a Tokyo counterpart, for instance.

The Deutsche Bank report indicated that Japan’s aging and shrinking population could help catalyze AI implementation to meet labor shortages, an advantage particularly in industries where it possesses deep manufacturing and robotics expertise. 

“Ultimately, Japan’s back is against the wall demographically,” the researchers wrote. “This makes aggressive AI adoption not just a competitive advantage, but a strict economic necessity for the country’s survival over the next two decades.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com