City-to-city, not state-to-state
A statewide cost-of-living figure blends a state's most expensive metro with its cheapest rural counties into one average — useful for a broad comparison, but too coarse if you're actually deciding between two specific cities. This calculator lets you search and compare any of 387 US metropolitan areas directly, giving you a figure specific to the city (and its surrounding metro) you're actually considering, not a statewide blend.
What counts as "the city" here
BEA's metro figures cover the full metropolitan statistical area — the named city plus its commuter suburbs — not the downtown core in isolation. Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, for example, spans several counties beyond the city of Austin itself. If you're comparing a specific neighborhood rather than a whole metro area, treat the figure here as a metro-wide baseline, not a block-by-block number.
Not every city has its own entry
Smaller towns without their own BEA metropolitan statistical area aren't individually covered — search for the nearest metro area, or fall back to the statewide figure if no metro entry matches. 387 metro areas covers the large majority of where Americans actually live, but rural and small-town cost of living isn't broken out individually in BEA's published data.
Frequently asked questions
How many cities does this cover?
387 US metropolitan statistical areas, covering every major city and most mid-sized metro areas, based on 2024 BEA data.
Is this the city itself or the whole metro area?
BEA's metro figures cover the full metropolitan statistical area — the named city plus its surrounding suburbs and commuter counties — not the city center alone.
Which is more accurate for a specific city — this or the state-level figure?
The metro-area figure, if the city you're comparing has its own metro entry — it's a narrower, more locally accurate number than a statewide average, which blends the whole state's cities and rural areas together.
Worked examples
Austin vs. Seattle
Two fast-growing tech hubs, on the all-items basis.
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA runs 13.3% pricier than Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX — a $120,000 salary in Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX carries about the same purchasing power as $135,990 in Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA.
Same pair, rent only
The same two metros, isolating just the rents basis.
Looking at rents specifically, Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA runs 25.7% pricier than Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX for tenants — a noticeably different gap than the overall-cost figure, since housing moves independently of the rest of the basket.
What affects the result
Metro boundaries are broader than a city itself
BEA's metro figures cover the full metropolitan statistical area — the city plus its surrounding suburbs and commuter counties — not just the city center. A downtown-only cost of living can run higher or lower than the metro-wide figure.
Metro rents use a 3-year moving average
Unlike state rents (a single year of ACS data), metro rents are smoothed over three years for sample-size reasons. A fast-moving rental market shows up with a lag in the metro figure — see the model assumptions below.
Common mistakes to avoid
- ✗Comparing a specific neighborhood's rents to a metro-wide index — the metro figure averages across the whole metropolitan area, not any one neighborhood.
- ✗Forgetting that metro rents lag real-time market conditions by design (the 3-year average).
Practical takeaways
- ✓For city-to-city comparisons, pick the metro area each city belongs to — not the state — for the most locally accurate figure.
- ✓Check the rents-only basis separately when housing cost specifically (not overall cost of living) is the deciding factor.
Key terms
- Regional Price Parity (RPP)
- A BEA index measuring how price levels for the same mix of goods, services, and rent differ across US states and metro areas, expressed as a percentage of the national average (100). An RPP of 110 means prices there run about 10% above the national average; 90 means about 10% below.
- Rents basis
- A narrower index covering only tenant rents and an imputed owner-equivalent rent value — not a homeowner's actual housing cost (mortgage, property tax, insurance). See the model assumptions for the full disclosure.
- Equivalent salary
- The salary in a second place that buys the same real purchasing power as your salary in your home place — calculated as salary x (index in the second place / index in your home place).
More questions answered
How many metro areas are covered?
387 US metropolitan statistical areas are covered, alongside all 50 states and DC — search for any of them in the calculator above.
Is a city's downtown more expensive than its metro-wide average?
Often, yes — but BEA's metro figures cover the whole metropolitan statistical area (city plus suburbs), not the urban core specifically, so the published index is a metro-wide average, not a neighborhood-level figure.
Model assumptions & disclosures
Source: BEA Regional Price Parities, 2024 vintage. Every figure on this page comes from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis's Regional Price Parities (state table SARPP, metro table MARPP), released February 19, 2026. This is the same government data behind BEA's own real personal income statistics — not a third-party cost-of-living estimate. BEA's next release (the 2025 vintage) is scheduled for December 10, 2026; figures here will not reflect that update until this site's data is regenerated afterward.
Pre-tax — state and local income tax are not modeled. Regional Price Parities measure differences in the price of goods, services, and rent across places. They say nothing about what you'd actually keep after state or local income tax, sales tax, or property tax — all of which vary independently of cost of living and are real, separate factors in any relocation or job-offer decision.
The "Rent only" basis is a renters' index, not a homeowner's housing cost. BEA defines this series specifically: rents RPPs are estimated only for observed tenants' actual rents and an imputed rental-equivalent value for owner-occupied homes — they do not include a homeowner's own mortgage payment, property tax, insurance, or maintenance costs. If you own your home, switching to "Rent only" shows what a tenant pays in each place, not your own housing expense — it is never a stand-in for "housing costs" broadly.
Metro-area rents are a 3-year average, not a single-year snapshot. BEA estimates state-level rents from a single year of Census American Community Survey (ACS) data, but metro-area rents from a smoothed 3-year ACS average — metro areas are smaller geographies and need the extra years of data for a reliable sample. That smoothing is real: Coeur d'Alene, ID's metro rents index moved from 99.7 to 117.2 and back to 105.6 across the three years folded into the 2024 figure alone. A metro rents number is a multi-year average, not "as of 2024" the way the all-items and state figures are.
Not financial advice. This calculator provides an estimate to help you plan a comparison, not a guarantee of what you'd actually pay or earn in either place. Combine it with your own research — including actual job offers, tax rates, and cost quotes for your specific situation — before making a relocation or compensation decision.