Abstract. This study investigates the use of co-located NO2 and CO retrievals from the TROPOMI satellite to improve the quantification of burning efficiency and emission factors over the mega-cities of Tehran, Mexico City, Cairo, Riyadh, Lahore and Los Angeles. Local enhancement of CO and NO2 above megacities are well captured by TROPOMI at relatively short averaging times. In this study, the Upwind Background and Plume rotation methods are used to investigate the accuracy of satellite derived ∆NO2 / ∆CO ratios. The column enhancement ratios derived using these two methods vary by 5 to 30 % across the selected megacities. TROPOMI derived column enhancement ratios are compared with emission ratios from the EDGAR v4.3.2 and MACCity, 2018 emission inventories. TROPOMI correlates strongly (r = 0.85 and 0.7) with EDGAR and MACCity showing the highest emission ratio for Riyadh and lowest for Lahore. However, inventory derived emission ratios are higher by 60 to 80 % compared to TROPOMI column enhancement ratios across the six megacities. The short lifetime of NO2 and different vertical sensitivity of TROPOMI NO2 and CO explain most of this difference. We present a method to translate TROPOMI retrieved column enhancement ratios into corresponding emission ratio, accounting for these influences. Except for Los Angeles, TROPOMI derived emission ratios are close (within 10 to 25 %) to MACCity. For EDGAR, however, emission ratios are higher by ~80 % for Cairo, 30 to 45 % for Riyadh and ~70 % for Los Angeles. The air quality monitoring networks in Los Angeles and Mexico City are used to validate the use of TROPOMI. Over Mexico City, these measurements are consistent with TROPOMI, EDGAR and MACCIty derived emission ratios. For Los Angeles, however, EDGAR and MACCity are higher by a factor 5 compared to TROPOMI. The ground-based measurements are consistent with a poorer burning efficiency in Los Angeles as inferred from TROPOMI, demonstrating its potential to monitor burning efficiency.