Does Venezuela have a cost of living problem?

Yes, but it looks different from the outside than from the inside. For a foreigner earning dollars, Venezuela is cheap: CostLiving’s moderate benchmark is $1,400 a month for a single person, with Caracas at $1,775. The problem belongs to people earning locally. Years of hyperinflation destroyed the bolivar’s purchasing power and pushed daily life onto an informal dollar economy, and while the extreme inflation of the late 2010s has eased, prices still move faster than local wages. The result is a two-speed economy: dollar earners find rent (around $291 a month at the moderate tier) and groceries manageable, while a large share of households on bolivar incomes spend most of what they earn on food alone. So the honest answer is that Venezuela has one of the world’s starkest cost-of-living gaps between currency haves and have-nots, rather than high prices in absolute terms. For the tier breakdown in dollars, see our Venezuela cost of living page.