Free Cost of Living Calculator
Cost of Living Comparison Calculator
Compare US cities and states on what your pay actually buys, after federal and state income tax and after local prices. Every figure shows its own arithmetic.
BEA Regional Price Parities, 2024 vintage, released February 19, 2026. HUD fair market rents, FY2026. Tax tables for 2026.
How This Cost of Living Calculator Works
What is a Cost of Living Calculator?
It tells you what the same pay is worth in two places. This one runs your income through the 2026 federal brackets, FICA, and your state's own schedule, then divides the result by the local price level, so you're comparing take-home against prices rather than gross against gross.
What is RPP (Regional Price Parity)?
Regional Price Parities come from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. They measure price levels across states and metro areas against the national average for the same year, where 100 is that average. An RPP of 110 means prices run 10% above the national level.
It's a spatial index, not a measure of inflation. A metro can fall on this scale in a year when its prices rose, if the rest of the country rose faster.
Where the category numbers come from
BEA publishes four separate parities per metro: housing, goods, utilities, and other services. Those are the ones shown, unmodified. They matter because the headline hides them: Seattle sits 11% above the national average overall, which is groceries near par and housing about half again as expensive. Where BEA doesn't publish a metro split, this tool shows no categories at all.
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Your income and your locations live in the address bar, so the link you copy reproduces the exact result you're looking at. Paste it into a message and the other person sees your numbers, not a blank form.
BEA Regional Price Parities, 2024 vintage. 100 = national average.
US Cost of Living Map
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Email me this breakdown
Send the whole thing to your inbox so you can come back to it, or forward it to whoever you're deciding this with. We'll also tell you in January when the 2027 tax brackets and federal price data land and every number here changes.
The breakdown, then about one email a year. No sales pitch, unsubscribe any time.What this does and doesn't cover
Informational only: this is educational, not financial, relocation, tax, or legal advice. Check your own numbers before you move on them.
The data: price levels are BEA Regional Price Parities, 2024 vintage, released February 19, 2026. Rents are HUD fair market rents for FY2026. Both are area averages, so a specific neighbourhood, household size, or lifestyle will differ from them. Nothing on this page is estimated from another figure: where a source has no number for a place, the page shows no number.
Tax: 2026 federal brackets, FICA, state income tax, and mandatory state payroll deductions, all at single-filer rates and the standard deduction. Not modelled: tax credits, itemised deductions, pre-tax retirement contributions, joint filing at the state level, and all local income tax. Where a city levies its own income tax, the working note says so.
RPP measures place, not time: it compares a metro to the national average in the same year. It isn't an inflation measure and a change in it isn't a price rise.