pathoff← All countries for early study

Early study

Nepal

The cheapest country here, and cheapness is most of what it offers.

4/5
ingredients confirmed
Still unknown: tuition
Living
~$1,200/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
Thin
Guardian visa
A parent needs a job, or an arrangement
Safety
Low
A hundred-and-eleventh of 163, and the largest deterioration recorded in South Asia this 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.

TuitionNo data yet

No figure recorded, because the evidence is split. The US Department of State’s fact sheet carrying Lincoln School’s own figures gave $29,100 for grades 9–11 in 2020-21; current aggregator readings put the same grades at about half that, and at tier 2 the school’s own site publishes no schedule. Two readings that differ by a factor of two are not a figure. See the Pathoff method, section 14-5.

Confidence
no figure
Living~$1,200/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 (0.264 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
EducationThin

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 a job, or an arrangement

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 a non-tourist visa tied to employment, business or study, renewed annually; the residential visa is reserved for very large investors. Above the floor of the band because those routes do exist and are used.

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

Global Peace Index 2026: rank 111 of 163, score 2.143. Converted by the Pathoff GPI formula (GPI in lib/scoring.ts)

A hundred-and-eleventh of 163, and the largest deterioration recorded in South Asia this edition

Confidence
made by us from the source

What it is like here

Nepal has the lowest price level of any country on this site after India, and the Himalaya at the end of the street. Almost everything else counts against it for a family: no route exists for a parent to be here without a job, Kathmandu’s winter air is among the worst measured anywhere, and the schools that teach a foreign curriculum publish so little that this page carries no fee at all.

How the process works

1

A parent secures a non-tourist visa

Tied to employment, a registered business or study; there is no guardian category.

⏱ 3–8 months
2

Ask the school for a fee schedule in writing

The published readings differ by a factor of two, so ask before you budget.

Timing not confirmed

Where families cluster

Kathmandu (Lazimpat, Maharajgunj)
Every international school, and the worst winter air
Pokhara
Cleaner, calmer, and no international school

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 Nepal by Bernard Gagnon, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.