Top 10 Most Expensive Shopping Streets in the World

London's New Bond Street became the world's most expensive shopping street in 2025, at 2,231 US dollars per square foot per year. That figure comes from the 35th edition of Cushman and Wakefield's Main Streets Across the World report, published in November 2025 and still the latest global ranking as of November 2026 ^[1][2].

"Best" shopping streets can be ranked by atmosphere, history or the mix of shops. Those tests are subjective. Prime headline rent is not. It is the standard commercial measure of which streets luxury retailers most want to occupy, and it is updated annually across more than 140 locations ^[1]. The list below follows the 2025 global top ten, with rents in US dollars per square foot per year.

Several famous streets from older tourist lists, including Rodeo Drive, Amsterdam's P. C. Hooftstraat and Reykjavik's Laugavegur, do not appear here because they were not among the ten highest-rent locations in the latest survey. Related Finepedia coverage of indoor retail includes the famous covered markets of the world ^[1].

Key Facts

Rents are prime headline rents from Cushman and Wakefield's 2025 report. Year-on-year changes are in local currency, as published.

Most Expensive Shopping Streets at a Glance

1. New Bond Street

New Bond Street, in London's West End, was named the world's most expensive retail destination for the first time in the 2025 Cushman and Wakefield survey, at 2,231 dollars per square foot per year ^[1]. A 22 percent rise in local-currency rents, together with a stronger pound against the dollar, lifted it above Milan and New York, which had occupied the top two places the year before ^[1][2].

The street has been a fashionable shopping address since the eighteenth century and forms part of Mayfair's network of luxury frontages, together with Old Bond Street. The report highlighted especially strong demand on the jewellery section between Clifford Street and Burlington Gardens, where limited shopfronts and global brand competition pushed rents higher ^[1][2].

For visitors, New Bond Street is a short walk from Oxford Street, but the two are different markets. Oxford Street is a high-volume high street; Bond Street is a concentrated luxury strip whose rent now sets the global benchmark. Figures are as of the 2025 report, the latest available in November 2026 ^[1].

2. Via Montenapoleone

Via Monte Napoleone (often written Montenapoleone) in Milan's Quadrilatero della Moda was the world's most expensive street in the 2024 ranking and slipped only to second in 2025, at 2,179 dollars per square foot ^[1]. Rents were unchanged in local currency, so the loss of first place was mainly London's rise rather than any fall in Milanese demand ^[1].

The street is the core of Milan's luxury district, with fashion houses occupying historic palazzi on a relatively short, walkable stretch. In 2024 it had been notable as the first European street in the survey's recent history to lead the world, ahead of Fifth Avenue ^[1]. That moment was brief, but the underlying rent, just 52 dollars a square foot behind London, shows how close the top three remain.

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Travellers come for window displays as much as for purchases. The surrounding streets, including Via della Spiga and Corso Venezia, form a compact district that is easier to walk than London's more dispersed West End luxury map ^[1].

3. Upper Fifth Avenue

Upper Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, measured from 49th to 60th Streets, remains the most expensive shopping street in the Americas, at 2,000 dollars per square foot per year ^[1][3]. Rents were flat in the 2025 report, which dropped the strip from second to third globally ^[1].

This stretch, facing the eastern edge of Rockefeller Center and running up toward Central Park, has long been associated with flagship department stores and luxury boutiques. The tenant mix has been changing, with new fashion and lifestyle flagships moving into spaces once occupied by older names, but the rent still reflects a shortage of comparable frontages on one of the world's best-known avenues ^[3].

Fifth Avenue as a whole is much longer than the section in the survey. The Cushman ranking is not a judgement on the entire street from Washington Square to Harlem; it is a measure of the prime Midtown retail pitch ^[1][3].

4. Tsim Sha Tsui

Tsim Sha Tsui, on the southern tip of the Kowloon peninsula, is Hong Kong's entry in the global top ten, at 1,515 dollars per square foot for main-street shops ^[1]. That was down 6 percent in local currency, the only decline inside the top ten, but it was still clearly ahead of Paris ^[1].

The district combines tourist traffic from the harbour, hotels and museums with dense luxury and cosmetics retail, especially along Canton Road and neighbouring streets. Hong Kong has spent several years adjusting to changes in visitor patterns, and the 2025 rent movement is consistent with a still-expensive but no longer rising market at the very top ^[1].

For a visitor, Tsim Sha Tsui is as much about the concentration of shops and the harbour setting as about any single named street, which is why the survey treats the main-street shop pitch as a district rather than one short block ^[1].

5. Avenue des Champs-Elysees

The Avenue des Champs-Elysees in Paris ranked fifth, at 1,364 dollars per square foot, with unchanged rents in the 2025 survey ^[1]. The avenue runs from the Place de la Concorde up to the Arc de Triomphe and has been France's ceremonial and commercial showcase for more than a century.

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Unlike Bond Street or Via Monte Napoleone, the Champs-Elysees mixes luxury frontages with large global chain stores, cinemas and cafes. That broader mix has sometimes been criticised as making the avenue less exclusive than the nearby Triangle d'Or, but it has not removed the street from the upper ranks of the rent table ^[1].

It is also a public space as much as a shopping street, used for parades, the Tour de France finish and national celebrations. The rent figure captures only the retail pitch, not that civic role ^[1].

6. Ginza

Ginza, in Tokyo's Chuo ward, was sixth at 1,257 dollars per square foot, with a 10 percent rise in local-currency rents, the strongest increase inside the top seven ^[1]. That gain stood out in an Asia-Pacific market that was otherwise slower, and it reaffirmed Ginza as Japan's, and one of Asia's, prime luxury streets ^[1][2].

The district is famous for department stores, jewellery and flagship boutiques, many of them in purpose-built contemporary stores on or just off the main Chuo-dori. Weekend pedestrianisation of parts of the street adds to its identity as a place to walk as well as to shop.

Ginza's rent is still well below the European and New York leaders, but the 2025 increase narrowed the gap with Paris and showed continued competition for a limited number of frontages ^[1].

7. Bahnhofstrasse

Zurich’s Bahnhofstrasse, running from the main railway station down towards Lake Zurich, ranked seventh at 1,051 dollars per square foot, with rents unchanged ^[1]. It is often described as one of the world's great luxury streets, with a particular strength in watches and jewellery as well as fashion.

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The street's wealth is partly a function of the city around it: a major financial centre with a high local spending power, not only a tourist parade. That helps to explain why rents can stay high even when visitor numbers fluctuate ^[1].

Bahnhofstrasse is also simply a main avenue of the city, used by trams and commuters. The luxury frontages sit on a working high street, which gives it a different feel from a short, almost purely ceremonial fashion lane such as Via Monte Napoleone ^[1].

8. Pitt Street Mall

Pitt Street Mall, in Sydney's central business district, is the highest-ranked shopping street in Australia and the only Oceanian location in the global top ten, at 795 dollars per square foot, up 4 percent ^[1]. The pedestrian mall sits between Market and King Streets and concentrates department stores and international retailers in a short, covered-in-places stretch.

The report noted that Pitt Street Mall had pulled further away from Seoul's Myeongdong, widening the rent gap from 17 percent to 22 percent ^[3]. That is a reminder that the lower half of the top ten is not tightly bunched in the way the top three are.

For visitors, the mall is the core of downtown Sydney shopping rather than a historic luxury lane. Its presence on this list is a rent fact, not a claim that it looks like Bond Street ^[1][3].

9. Myeongdong

Myeongdong, in central Seoul, ranked ninth at 653 dollars per square foot, up 1 percent ^[1]. It is one of East Asia's best-known tourist shopping districts, with a dense mix of cosmetics, fashion and street food that attracts domestic and international visitors, especially from neighbouring countries.

The modest 2025 increase left Myeongdong close enough that Vienna's Kohlmarkt, in tenth place, had closed much of the gap: the two were only about 8 percent apart, compared with 24 percent a year earlier ^[3]. Rents here are therefore high by most world standards, but no longer in a comfortable band of their own below Sydney.

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Myeongdong is more of a bustling district than a single formal avenue, and that character is part of its draw. The survey figure is for the prime pitch within that district ^[1][3].

10. Kohlmarkt

Vienna's Kohlmarkt, leading from the Hofburg towards Graben, closed the 2025 top ten at 601 dollars per square foot, up 2 percent ^[1]. It is a short, handsome baroque street of jewellers, cafes and luxury shops in the Innere Stadt, and it has been Vienna's prime retail frontage for a long time.

The report's most interesting point about Kohlmarkt was relative: it had moved considerably closer to Myeongdong, which means a historic central-European street is now within reach of a much larger East Asian tourist district on a pure rent measure ^[3]. Whether that gap closes further will be a question for later editions of the survey.

For a visitor, Kohlmarkt is part of a walk that also includes Graben and Karntner Strasse. It is quieter and more formal than Myeongdong or Pitt Street Mall, and it shows that the global top ten is not made up only of vast avenues ^[1].

Conclusion

As of the 2025 Cushman and Wakefield survey, the world's most expensive shopping streets are led by New Bond Street, Via Monte Napoleone and Upper Fifth Avenue, all at or above 2,000 dollars per square foot. Hong Kong, Paris, Tokyo and Zurich fill out the upper half of the list, with Sydney, Seoul and Vienna completing the ten.

The ranking will move again when a newer edition is published. Until then, this is the most systematic global measure available, and it is a better guide to "top" shopping streets than an unranked list of famous names. It does not try to say which street is the most pleasant to walk, only which one retailers will pay the most to occupy.