Pricele #101: Cigarettes (20-pack) in Singapore 🇸🇬
The puzzle for 9 October 2026 asked what a pack of 20 cigarettes costs in Singapore. Here is the answer and the context behind it.
The answer
Cigarettes (20-pack) · Singapore
$11.61
15.6 SGD
About 44 minutes of the average local wage buys a pack of 20 cigarettes.
More expensive than 85% of the 49 countries in the game.
Source: WHO Global Health Observatory, tobacco tax survey 2024 (most sold brand).
About cigarettes
No other item in the game is this deliberately priced. Tobacco taxes are set to make cigarettes unaffordable, and the WHO tracks the result precisely because it is a policy instrument rather than a market outcome. Australia's pack costs more than thirty times Lebanon's, and the same manufacturers sell in both.
Where Singapore sits
Of the 49 countries priced for cigarettes, Singapore ranks #8 from the top at $11.61, 2.5× the median of $4.58.
Singapore imports more than 90% of its food, so grocery prices are set by shipping and wholesale markets rather than local farming. Fuel and vehicle costs are deliberately high as congestion policy, which is why petrol here sits near the European range despite low taxes elsewhere in the economy. GST is 9% and applies to groceries with no exemption. Singapore is one of the few high-income countries that taxes food at the full rate on principle, preferring to compensate lower-income households directly rather than through the tax code. It is the clearest case in the table of a country whose food prices are set almost entirely offshore.
| Nearby on the cigarettes table | USD | Local | Work time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Israel | $10.35 | 39 ILS | 30 min |
| Switzerland | $10.44 | 9.2 CHF | 18 min |
| Singapore | $11.61 | 15.6 SGD | 44 min |
| France | $13.54 | 12.5 EUR | 45 min |
| Netherlands | $13.54 | 12.5 EUR | 41 min |
What else costs what in Singapore
| Item | USD | Local | Work time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big Mac | $5.78 | 7.45 SGD | 22 min |
| Coca-Cola (330ml can) | $1.55 | 2.1 SGD | 6 min |
| Cappuccino | $5.15 | 6.61 SGD | 19 min |
| Milk (1 litre) | $3.12 | 4 SGD | 12 min |
| Eggs (dozen) | $3.69 | 4.73 SGD | 14 min |
| Apples (1 kg) | $4.39 | 5.63 SGD | 16 min |
| Gasoline (1 litre) | $2.47 | 3.17 SGD | 9 min |
| Diesel (1 litre) | $2.75 | 3.52 SGD | 10 min |
| Electricity (100 kWh) | $23.50 | 30 SGD | 88 min |
| Natural gas (100 kWh) | $19.10 | 24.4 SGD | 72 min |
| Mobile data (1 GB) | $0.63 | — | 2 min |
| A day's healthy diet | $2.83 | 3.7 SGD | 11 min |
Go deeper
See the full table for cigarettes in every country or everything priced in Singapore.