Global study ranks the real value of minimum wages in Asia for 2025

This comparison shows the value of minimum wages in Asia after accounting for cost of living, highlighting regional differences.

Minimum wage varies greatly across the world, and the cost of living in each country affects how far those wages stretch. A number that seems high in one country may provide relatively little in purchasing power in another.

With this in mind, Moorepay analysed statutory minimum wages globally and converted them into international dollars to measure the "real value" of minimum wages.

This method reflects what each country’s minimum wage can buy compared with the equivalent amount of goods and services a U.S. dollar would purchase in the United States, as defined by the World Bank.

Read on for the rankings.

Top 5 countries by minimum wages globally:

Top 10 Asian countries by minimum wage:

Bottom 5 Asian countries with the lowest minimum wage:

Research methodology

This research was conducted by Moorepay manually on statutory minimum wages in each country using official government sources. Nominal wages were converted to annual salaries, based on a full-time work year of 2,080 hours.

To account for differences in cost of living, these figures were then converted into international dollars using Purchasing Power Parity conversion factors from the World Bank, with the international dollar reflecting the comparable amount of goods and services a U.S. dollar would buy in the United States.