Cost of Living Calculator

Multiply what you spend today by the ratio of the two metro areas' price levels. That is what the calculator does, using the Bureau of Economic Analysis's Regional Price Parities for 2024. A couple spending $120,000 a year in Boston, MA, where the price level is 108.3, would need about $110,249 in Jacksonville, FL, where it is 99.5, to live the same way. That is $9,751 a year, or 8.1%.

That may be smaller than you expected. The official figures cover everything households buy, and most of it (groceries, cars, fuel, restaurant meals, repairs) costs much the same across the country. The big regional differences are in rents and, in some places, utilities. Rents in Boston, MA are 148.4% of the US average and in Jacksonville, FL 109.8%; goods cost 99.7 and 96.2. So the answer depends heavily on how you will pay for housing. Many retirees sell a paid-off house and buy the next one for cash, so their housing cost in the new city is property tax, insurance and upkeep rather than rent. Others keep the old house for a few years. Some travel back several times a year to see children and grandchildren. Each of these moves the real figure away from the headline.

Used carefully, the comparison answers the question that matters most: how much less would your portfolio need to supply each year? At a 4% withdrawal rate, every $10,000 cut in annual spending is the same as having $250,000 more saved. A move that also ends state income tax on your IRA withdrawals, or frees equity from an expensive house, can be worth considerably more than the price-level difference alone.

They measure how the prices of everything households buy differ between places, relative to the US average of 100. The Bureau of Economic Analysis builds them from Consumer Price Index price quotes and from rents reported in the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, weights each category by what households there actually spend, and publishes them every year for every state and metropolitan area (BEA). The 2024 figures used here were released on February 19, 2026. We round them to one decimal place.

BEA publishes an all-items figure and four components, and the calculator shows all five:

• All items. The overall price level, and the only figure the calculator uses for the equivalent spending. The weights are BEA's, not ours.
• Goods. Food, clothing, vehicles, fuel, furnishings and other goods. These vary least from place to place.
• Housing (rents). Rents for comparable housing, from the American Community Survey. This is where most of the regional difference lives.
• Utilities. Electricity, gas, water and other household utilities. Coastal California and Boston stand out.
• Other services. Services other than rent and utilities: restaurant meals, recreation, repairs, personal care and the like.

Two limits matter for retirees. First, there is no separate healthcare or transportation figure. BEA gives hospitals, physician services and prescription drugs the national price level everywhere, because the regional price data for them vary too much from year to year and do not match its national medical price index (BEA, Survey of Current Business, March 2022). Car prices and fuel sit inside goods; transit fares and car repairs sit inside other services. Second, many smaller metros in the same state carry identical goods and other-services figures in BEA's table; every Florida metro on this list except Miami and Tampa shows goods at 96.2 and other services at 98.9. For those places, the local detail comes almost entirely from rents and utilities.

Each city in the list uses the figures for the whole metropolitan statistical area it sits in, as BEA defines it. That matters: the Boston, MA figure covers Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH, which includes expensive inner suburbs and cheaper outer towns alike, and the Sarasota figure covers North Port, Bradenton and Sarasota together. The table lists every city, the BEA metro area it maps to, and its 2024 price levels.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities by state and metro area, 2024 data released February 19, 2026.

Most of them sit within a few points of the national average. Of the ten retirement destinations we added to the list, the price levels run from 85.4 to 103.2:

• Sarasota, FL (North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, FL): all items 102.4, rents 128.0. $120,000 in Boston, MA is about $113,463 there.
• Naples, FL (Naples-Marco Island, FL): all items 103.2, rents 129.4. $120,000 in Boston, MA is about $114,349 there.
• Fort Myers, FL (Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL): all items 102.3, rents 125.1. $120,000 in Boston, MA is about $113,352 there.
• Tampa, FL (Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL): all items 100.9, rents 125.8. $120,000 in Boston, MA is about $111,801 there.
• The Villages, FL (Wildwood-The Villages, FL): all items 85.4, rents 51.7. $120,000 in Boston, MA is about $94,626 there.
• Ocala, FL (Ocala, FL): all items 95.2, rents 86.2. $120,000 in Boston, MA is about $105,485 there.
• Tucson, AZ (Tucson, AZ): all items 96.9, rents 91.8. $120,000 in Boston, MA is about $107,368 there.
• Asheville, NC (Asheville, NC): all items 96.5, rents 93.4. $120,000 in Boston, MA is about $106,925 there.
• Myrtle Beach, SC (Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle Beach, SC): all items 93.6, rents 83.1. $120,000 in Boston, MA is about $103,712 there.
• Charleston, SC (Charleston-North Charleston, SC): all items 101.0, rents 119.8. $120,000 in Boston, MA is about $111,911 there.

The Gulf Coast of Florida is not cheap by these measures: rents in Naples, Sarasota and Fort Myers are a quarter or more above the national average. Tucson, Asheville, Ocala and Myrtle Beach are below average on rents. The Villages is the outlier, with a rent figure about half the national average; its rental market is small and unusual, so price the homes you would actually buy before you rely on it.

Your income does not move with you. A worker who relocates can negotiate a raise for a more expensive city. A retiree's Social Security, pension and portfolio pay the same wherever they live, so every point of difference in the price level goes straight into your budget. In a cheaper city the saving is yours to keep. In a more expensive one, the portfolio has to cover the gap for the rest of your life.

Your spending mix is also different from the average household the price levels are weighted for. Housing often costs less because the mortgage is gone. Commuting disappears. Healthcare takes a larger share every decade: households headed by someone 65 to 74 spent 11.9% of their budgets on healthcare, and those 75 and older spent 16.0% (BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey, 2018 data). Because the price levels do not capture regional differences in medical prices, check the doctors, hospitals and Medicare plans in the new area yourself.

And the move has to last. A job move can be reversed in a few years. A retirement move is usually made once, around 65, and has to work at 85, when you may no longer drive and may need a specialist every month. The city that suits an active 66-year-old should also suit that older self.

• Housing, the way you will pay for it. If you will buy for cash, compare property tax rates and homeowners insurance quotes, not rents. Insurance premiums in hurricane and wildfire regions can change the answer; get quotes on specific houses before you commit.
• State and local taxes. Income tax on IRA withdrawals and pensions, whether Social Security is taxed, property tax, sales tax, and any state estate or inheritance tax. None of these are in the price levels.
• Healthcare access. The distance to a major hospital and to the specialists you already see, and whether local doctors accept Medicare or your Medicare Advantage network.
• Transportation after you stop driving. A city with no transit can mean paying for rides or moving again later.
• Distance to family. Flights to see grandchildren, and the cost of help if one of you needs care and your children live far away.
• Long-term care prices. Assisted living and home care prices differ widely by region. Our long-term care guide covers how to plan for them.

Sometimes by more than the price level does. A retiree drawing $150,000 a year from IRAs pays state income tax on all of it in most states and none of it in some. Florida has no personal income tax, no inheritance tax and no gift tax (Florida Department of Revenue), and a few other states also have no broad personal income tax. Most states do not tax Social Security benefits, and many of the ones that do exempt them below an income threshold. States treat pensions and IRA withdrawals differently again, so read the rules for the state you are considering on its revenue department's site.

Leaving a high-tax state takes more than a new driver's license. States look at where you are domiciled, meaning where your life is centered. New York, for example, also treats you as a resident for tax purposes if you keep a permanent place of abode there for more than 11 months of the year and spend 184 days or more in the state (New York State Department of Taxation and Finance). If you keep a home in your old state, keep records of where you spend each day.

A move also changes the math on Roth conversions. Converting while you still live in a high-tax state costs state tax on every dollar; converting after you move to a state without income tax does not. Our guide to Roth conversions before RMDs explains the timing.

Original Medicare moves with you; a Medicare Advantage plan usually does not. With Original Medicare you can go to any doctor or hospital in the US that takes Medicare (Medicare.gov). Medicare Advantage plans cover a defined service area. If you move out of it, you get a Special Enrollment Period that begins the month you move (or the month before, if you tell your plan first) and runs for two full months after. If you do not choose a new plan, you are returned to Original Medicare when the old plan drops you (Medicare.gov).

That move is also one of the few times you have a guaranteed right to buy a Medigap policy without medical underwriting. If you leave a Medicare Advantage plan because you moved out of its area and switch to Original Medicare, you can buy Medigap Plan A, B, D, G, K or L (and C or F if you were eligible for Medicare before 2020) from insurers in your old or new state, applying as early as 60 days before and no later than 63 days after your plan coverage ends (Medicare.gov). If you already have a Medigap policy, ask your insurer and the new state's insurance department what the move does to it before you go. Our Medicare guide covers the enrollment rules.

Often more than the lower running costs. Selling a house in an expensive metro and buying a smaller or cheaper one elsewhere can free several hundred thousand dollars of equity, and that money can fund years of spending or a cash reserve. Up to $250,000 of gain is excluded from tax, or $500,000 for a married couple filing jointly, if you owned the home and lived in it as your main home for at least two of the five years before the sale (IRS Topic 701). Gains above that are taxed as capital gains.

Count the costs of the move as well: selling costs on the old house, closing costs on the new one, moving, furnishing, and the year or two it takes to learn what the new place really costs. Our downsizing guide works through a full example.

1. Run the comparison with your real spending. Enter last year's total spending, not an estimate, and note the overall difference and the rent and utilities components.
2. Rebuild the budget line by line. Use the Personal Budget Planner with local property tax, insurance quotes, Medicare costs and travel home.
3. Rent before you buy. Spend a season there, ideally the worst one: August in Phoenix, January in Minneapolis.
4. Check the medical map. Find the hospitals and specialists you would use and confirm they accept your coverage.
5. Rerun your withdrawal plan. Put the new spending figure into the Retirement Withdrawal Calculator and see how much longer the portfolio lasts, or how much more you could give or spend.

Illustrative example: the people and figures below are hypothetical, not real clients. Numbers are calculated from the stated assumptions.

Tom and Carol Reyes, 64 and 62, live near Boston in a house they own outright and spend $120,000 a year. They have $2.4 million invested, most of it in IRAs, and Tom's Social Security will start at 67. Their daughter lives in Jacksonville with two grandchildren. The calculator shows the same lifestyle would cost about $110,249 there, a difference of $9,751 a year.

That was less than they had read elsewhere, and they did not count on all of it. Most of the gap is in rents, which do not apply to them: they would buy for cash. They will fly back to Boston twice a year to see their son, and their homeowners insurance quotes near the coast were high. Rebuilding the budget line by line, they landed at about $112,000, a saving of roughly $8,000 a year.

The bigger gains were elsewhere. Florida has no personal income tax, so their IRA withdrawals and the Roth conversions they plan before Tom's required distributions begin would no longer carry state tax. And their Boston house would sell for well above what a smaller house near their daughter costs, freeing equity they could hold as a cash reserve. None of that shows in a price index, which is why they treated the calculator as the first step, rented for a winter and a summer, and only then sold.