The cheapest countries to buy a Surface Pro 9

Despite being available for around 16 months now, the Surface Pro 9 is still the latest in Microsoft’s line of iconic 2-in-1 laptops. With the Surface Pro 10 still looking a way off, you might be thinking of investing in the current model. While it isn’t expensive in laptop terms, it’s still a significant outlay — the cheapest option in the US still costs $850 plus tax. What you might not know is that the retail price is different in every country, which raises the prospect of buying abroad to get a better deal. But first, you’ll need to know the cheapest place to buy the Surface Pro 9. We’ve done the research, so you don’t have to.

We’ll find out if there are better prices to be had in other nations, but there’s another potential incentive to shop abroad. Many countries, including the US, levy a sales tax on their residents, but visitors to their shores can often avoid paying it. This is why duty-free shopping in airports is popular. As a US tourist, you may be able to avoid paying the sales tax on the Microsoft Surface Pro 9 in another country. We’ll consider this a little more below.

There are a bunch of different configurations of the Surface Pro 9, so we’ll just be looking at the cheapest model available from Microsoft in each country. Let’s take a look at the figures.

What are the cheapest countries to buy a Surface Pro 9?

We looked up the price of the Surface Pro 9 in 25 countries and converted those amounts into USD, using the exchange rate at the time of writing. The results are in the table below, listed in order of cheapest to most expensive. We’ll explain why we only looked at 25 nations a bit later.

Since we’re doing this comparison from the perspective of a US resident, we’ve added an approximate sales tax of 10% to the price of the model in the United States. This should give you a better idea of how the price you’d pay at home compares to your investment abroad.

Of the countries we surveyed, Hong Kong is the cheapest place to buy the Surface Pro 9. The $6,988 HKD is the equivalent of $893 right now, which is around $350 below the average retail price of the device across the world.

It’s worth noting that this isn’t as low as the $849.99 asking price for the laptop in the US, but that’s before the sales tax is applied. While this varies by state, this likely pushes the United States into second place on the list, with Canada in third. In any event, North Americans are getting a good deal compared to the majority of the globe.

Poland is the most expensive place to buy the Surface Pro 9, paying the equivalent of $1,622. This is almost $400 more than the average of the prices in the list, and we’ll look at some reasons for higher prices like this below. Perhaps more surprising is the disparity between the prices in different European countries. Polish residents are paying almost $600 more than their counterparts in Switzerland 1,000km away.

Remember, the amounts that you see in the list above are the maximum you’ll be paying for the base model of the Surface Pro 9 in each country. Some of those prices will have sales tax included, so if you’re able to avoid or claim back the sales tax before you leave, you might find that you’ll end up paying 10-15% less.

Can I get a better deal on the Surface Pro 9 while I’m abroad?

You might well see the Surface Pro 9 for less while you’re globetrotting. Other than the possibility of avoiding the sales tax mentioned above, we’ve only taken the price of the laptop from the official Microsoft site in each country. In many instances, the sales of the device are done by third-party sellers, which is why we only have 25 countries on our list.

We tried to look up the price in various countries across Asia, South America, and Africa, but it’s harder to get an idea of what the recommended retail price is when not buying directly from Microsoft. For example, lots of Latin American countries can’t buy directly from the brand, and instead will head to reputable online retailers such as Amazon or Mercado Libre.

If you come across the Surface Pro 9 at a crazy low price abroad, you should be suspicious and scrutinize the deal. While many third-party vendors will be honest agents, it’s possible that others may be selling stolen goods or trying to pass off a second-hard machine as brand new. If an offer looks too good to be true, there’s a reasonable chance that it is.

That said, not every discount is going to be a scam. The Surface Pro 9 has been on the market since 2022, so there may be many reasons why the retailer is able to offer a price on it that is lower than retail. Just be sure that you know the terms of any deal, and avoid it if you’re in doubt.

Should I buy the Surface Pro 9 from another country?

It’s probably apparent to you that there isn’t a strong argument for buying the Surface Pro 9 from another country. Unlike some laptops, such as the MacBook Air, the Microsoft device is more expensive in almost every other country.

Even if you can avoid the sales tax and get a better price in certain nations than those listed, it’s not going to be a substantial amount less than you’d be paying at home. Plus, you have to balance those savings against the hassle of getting the laptop home, possibly with a different software configuration than you’d get in the States and with a warranty that would be very difficult to utilize. In other words, we’d say it isn’t worth it.

Before getting into the most likely reasons for the price differences, we should first acknowledge the flaws in our comparison method. We’re translating retail prices in local currencies into US dollars, which brings constantly fluctuating exchange rates into the equation. Many of these retail prices will have been decided upon before the Surface 9 Pro launched, possibly even two years ago. A lot has happened in the currency markets since then, and it’s possible that the list would have looked very different at various times in that period based on this factor alone.

The main driver behind the price variations will be market forces which dictate the cost of getting the Surface Pro 9 on the shelves. These include labor costs, import taxes, logistics, and many more. As these costs are different in every country, the amount Microsoft has to cover before it makes a profit changes depending on the part of the world. For instance, some South American countries have a 100% import tax on non-domestically produced electronics. When these costs are passed on to the consumer, it can make certain tech ludicrously expensive in countries where many residents don’t have a high disposable income.

As always, the short answer to the question is capitalism. Microsoft makes a product, works out the break-even price in each country, and then how much more they can charge to maximize revenue. Don’t hate the player; hate the game.