Spirits (750ml bottle) prices by country
Spirits (750ml bottle) costs from $2.00 in Philippines to $69.64 in New Zealand, across 42 countries priced in US dollars and in local currency.
This is the widest spread of any drink here, and two different things cause it. One is excise duty, which is usually charged per litre of pure alcohol and can be most of the shelf price in the Nordics or Oceania. The other is that the most sold spirit is soju in Korea, vodka in Poland and whisky in India, and those are not comparable products at comparable prices.
The numbers
| Country | USD | Local | Work time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Philippines | $2.00 | 117 PHP | 59 min |
| South Korea | $2.12 | 2,937.5 KRW | 9 min |
| China | $3.32 | 24 CNY | 36 min |
| Tanzania | $3.35 | 9,000 TZS | 3.1 h |
| Brazil | $3.43 | 19.43 BRL | 46 min |
| Thailand | $3.83 | 136.8 THB | 66 min |
| Nigeria | $3.97 | 6,321.43 NGN | 10.7 h |
| Mexico | $4.09 | 76.33 MXN | 61 min |
| Egypt | $4.53 | 220 EGP | 2.5 h |
| Peru | $6.03 | 22.43 PEN | 1.8 h |
| Pakistan | $6.31 | 1,759.5 PKR | 12.6 h |
| Chile | $7.31 | 6,990 CLP | 70 min |
| Colombia | $9.24 | 37,773 COP | 3.5 h |
| South Africa | $9.32 | 170 ZAR | 2.1 h |
| Spain | $9.62 | 8.89 EUR | 48 min |
| Romania | $9.86 | 45.29 RON | 75 min |
| Hungary | $10.11 | 3,696 HUF | 71 min |
| Czechia | $10.20 | 239.85 CZK | 57 min |
| Italy | $11.15 | 10.3 EUR | 48 min |
| Germany | $11.60 | 10.71 EUR | 32 min |
| Uruguay | $12.09 | 486.75 UYU | 1.6 h |
| Japan | $12.88 | 1,962.86 JPY | 48 min |
| Poland | $13.02 | 51.66 PLN | 1.6 h |
| Indonesia | $13.13 | 214,285.71 IDR | 6.0 h |
| Vietnam | $14.43 | 350,000 VND | 5.2 h |
| Israel | $16.85 | 63.48 ILS | 49 min |
| Lebanon | $16.91 | 1,513,000 LBP | 5.3 h |
| Argentina | $17.20 | 16,000 ARS | 4.9 h |
| Costa Rica | $17.57 | 9,214.29 CRC | 2.8 h |
| Portugal | $18.26 | 16.87 EUR | 2.0 h |
| Sweden | $21.38 | 229.29 SEK | 61 min |
| Netherlands | $22.03 | 20.35 EUR | 66 min |
| Canada | $23.50 | 32.45 CAD | 64 min |
| Switzerland | $24.20 | 21.32 CHF | 43 min |
| United Kingdom | $24.77 | 19.29 GBP | 83 min |
| Ireland | $27.83 | 25.7 EUR | 83 min |
| France | $29.39 | 27.14 EUR | 1.6 h |
| Ghana | $30.85 | 459.75 GHS | 25.3 h |
| Turkey | $31.76 | 1,050 TRY | 7.9 h |
| Norway | $34.72 | 378.75 NOK | 72 min |
| Australia | $34.77 | 53.57 AUD | 80 min |
| New Zealand | $69.64 | 117.85 NZD | 3.2 h |
Source: The WHO Global Health Observatory's 2024 alcohol tax survey, standardised to a 750ml bottle of the most sold brand of the most sold type of spirit, which is not the same drink in every country. Full methodology.
What the spread shows
The cheapest spirits in the game is in Philippines at $2.00; the most expensive is in New Zealand at $69.64. That is a 34.8× difference for the same thing, against a median of $12.48 across all 42 countries.
Ranking by earnings instead of dollars rearranges the table. Ghana has the longest wait, about 25.3 hours of the average local wage, while in South Korea it is roughly 9 minutes. A country can look cheap in dollars and expensive in hours at the same time, and for most people the hours are what actually matter.