pathoff← All countries for early study

Early study

Bangladesh

One of the cheapest countries here, with one of the most expensive schools.

5/5
ingredients confirmed
Every ingredient this page asks for has a figure and a source.
Tuition
~$34.2–37.3k/yr
Dhaka also has a large English-medium private sector charging a small fraction of this, and teaching in English throughout. This figure prices the international school, not the only option.
Living
~$1,300/mo
Family of three, all in, excluding fees. Compared at country level, so capital cities and large metros run higher. The price level behind it prices the basket residents buy, and a foreign renter cannot reach the cheap end of local housing — poorer countries may still sit too low here.
Education
Mid
Guardian visa
A parent needs an employer or a business
Safety
Low
A hundred-and-seventeenth of 163, fourth in South Asia, and slightly improved on the previous edition

More is being checked.

Where these figures came from

One row per ingredient. Open any of them for the source, how far we trust it, and when we last checked.

Tuition~$34.2–37.3k/yr

The American International School Dhaka, via the US Department of State’s fact sheet carrying the school’s own figures, published annual tuition of $31,200 for K–5, $34,200 for grades 6–8 and $37,300 for grades 9–12 in 2023-24, plus a one-off registration and capital fee of $15,000 for K–12 and a $1,000 annual capital fee.

Dhaka also has a large English-medium private sector charging a small fraction of this, and teaching in English throughout. This figure prices the international school, not the only option.

Confidence
printed in the source
Living~$1,300/mo

Pathoff judgement directed by evidence, not computed from it: the country’s position comes from the World Bank household consumption price level for 2024 (0.285 of the United States, CC BY 4.0 — the ICP benchmark carried forward annually by the World Bank’s own method); the US reference budget is ours. See the Pathoff method, section 12.

Family of three, all in, excluding fees. Compared at country level, so capital cities and large metros run higher. The price level behind it prices the basket residents buy, and a foreign renter cannot reach the cheap end of local housing — poorer countries may still sit too low here.

Confidence
made by us from the source
EducationMid

Pathoff judgement, no rubric yet: placed against the other countries here from general knowledge of the international-school sector. Under review — see the Pathoff method, section 9-3.

Confidence
made by us from the source
Guardian visaA parent needs an employer or a business

Pathoff outcome rubric (the Pathoff method, section 10-1), early outcome band "A guardian must be arranged": No parental status exists and no income or retirement category is published; a parent holds an employment or investor visa, with dependants attached to it. Above the floor of the band because those routes function and are widely used by the garment and development sectors.

Confidence
made by us from the source
Rule
No change known to us
Last checked
2026-09
SafetyLow

Global Peace Index 2026: rank 117 of 163, score 2.226. Converted by the Pathoff GPI formula (GPI in lib/scoring.ts)

A hundred-and-seventeenth of 163, fourth in South Asia, and slightly improved on the previous edition

Confidence
made by us from the source

What it is like here

Bangladesh has a price level under 30% of the United States and an international school in Dhaka that charges more than schools in Paris. That gap is the whole story of this page: the country is cheap and the foreign bubble is not. Add a parent with no route of their own and Dhaka’s air, and this is a posting rather than a plan.

How the process works

1

A parent secures an employment or investor visa

Work permits are issued through the investment authority; dependants attach to them.

⏱ 3–6 months
2

Decide between the international school and the English-medium sector

The price difference runs to a factor of ten, and both teach in English.

⏱ 2–4 months

Where families cluster

Dhaka (Baridhara, Gulshan)
The diplomatic quarter, the international school, and the traffic
Chattogram
The port and the industry, with far less international schooling

Open any ingredient above to see where its figure came from, how far we trust it and when we last checked. Nothing here is a substitute for the official source. Last reviewed 2026-09-04.

Photograph of Bangladesh by Wasiul Bahar, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.