Pricele #37: Apples (1 kg) in Australia 🇦🇺
The puzzle for 6 August 2026 asked what a kilogram of apples costs in Australia. Here is the answer and the context behind it.
The answer
Apples (1 kg) · Australia
$3.69
5.26 AUD
About 9 minutes of the average local wage buys a kilogram of apples.
More expensive than 77% of the 32 countries in the game.
Source: Numbeo (crowd-sourced), retrieved 2026-08.
About apples
Apples separate the countries that grow them from the countries that fly them in. They need a temperate climate and cold storage, so in tropical and high-income import markets a kilogram can cost several times what it does in a producing country, which is why the top of this table looks nothing like the top of the others.
Where Australia sits
Of the 32 countries priced for apples, Australia ranks #8 from the top at $3.69, 1.3× the median of $2.84.
Australia combines high wages with high retail costs and long domestic supply lines. Groceries are concentrated between two supermarket chains, which the country's competition regulator has repeatedly examined, and fuel carries an excise that puts it above US levels but well below European ones. The GST is a flat 10% and most basic food is GST-free, so the tax explanation for expensive Australian groceries is weaker than it looks: what you are paying for is distance and wages, not tax. That distinction shows up clearly in the work-time column, where Australia looks far more ordinary than its dollar prices suggest.
| Nearby on the apples table | USD | Local | Work time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sweden | $3.23 | 30.8 SEK | 9 min |
| Germany | $3.31 | 2.87 EUR | 9 min |
| Australia | $3.69 | 5.26 AUD | 9 min |
| Switzerland | $3.72 | 3.01 CHF | 7 min |
| Norway | $3.75 | 35.59 NOK | 8 min |
What else costs what in Australia
| Item | USD | Local | Work time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big Mac | $5.69 | 8.5 AUD | 13 min |
| Coca-Cola (330ml can) | $2.21 | 3.5 AUD | 5 min |
| Cappuccino | $3.95 | 5.63 AUD | 9 min |
| Milk (1 litre) | $1.76 | 2.51 AUD | 4 min |
| Eggs (dozen) | $5.04 | 7.18 AUD | 12 min |
| Gasoline (1 litre) | $1.28 | 1.82 AUD | 3 min |
| Diesel (1 litre) | $1.64 | 2.32 AUD | 4 min |
| Electricity (100 kWh) | $28.30 | 40 AUD | 65 min |
| Natural gas (100 kWh) | $11.00 | 15.5 AUD | 25 min |
| Cigarettes (20-pack) | $24.38 | 37.56 AUD | 56 min |
| Beer (330ml) | $1.27 | 1.96 AUD | 3 min |
| Spirits (750ml bottle) | $34.77 | 53.57 AUD | 80 min |
| Mobile data (1 GB) | $0.44 | — | 1 min |
| A day's healthy diet | $3.07 | 4.76 AUD | 7 min |
Go deeper
See the full table for apples in every country or everything priced in Australia.