About CostOfLivingData
Free, transparent, government-sourced cost-of-living data for every US city.
Our mission
Deciding where to live is one of the biggest financial decisions most people ever make. Yet most cost-of-living sites are walled off behind paywalls, stuffed with affiliate links, or repackaged from scraped sources of questionable quality. We built CostOfLivingData to be the opposite: a free, fully-sourced reference that shows you the raw numbers and cites every source.
Whether you're considering a move across town or across the country, looking for the safest county to raise a family, or just curious how your rent compares to your neighbor's — this site exists to give you the data and get out of your way.
What we publish
- •32,000+ city pages — housing prices, rent, income, taxes, transport, schools, climate, air quality
- •3,144 county pages — health indicators, natural hazard risk scores, demographics
- •50 state pages — aggregated data and top-city rankings
- •4,000+ city-vs-city comparisons — side-by-side cost breakdowns
- •Data studies & rankings — most affordable, safest, healthiest, best for X
- •Calculators — salary purchasing power, relocation budget, cost-of-living adjustment
Our data sources
Every number on this site comes from a named public-sector source. We do not scrape data from other commercial sites, we do not accept paid placements, and we do not estimate or model data that isn't published by a primary source.
| Source | Vintage | Coverage |
|---|---|---|
| US Census Bureau (ACS 5-Year) | 2023 | Income, housing, demographics |
| HUD Fair Market Rents | FY 2025 | Rent by bedroom count |
| FEMA National Risk Index | v1.20 (2025) | Natural hazard scores |
| CDC PLACES | 2023 | County health indicators |
| BLS Consumer Expenditures | 2023 | Grocery / food prices |
| NOAA Climate Normals | 1991–2020 | Temperature, precipitation |
| EPA Air Quality System | 2023 | Median AQI by county |
| Zillow Research | 2024–2026 | Observed rent data |
| Tax Foundation | 2025 | State income, sales, property tax rates |
See our full methodology for how we join and normalize these sources.
How we make money
This site displays Google AdSense ads. We do not take sponsorships, we do not run affiliate links, and we have no commercial relationships with real estate agents, relocation companies, or any of the data sources cited above. The data you see is not tilted in favor of any advertiser.
If a city's numbers look bad, we show you they look bad. If a state has the highest property tax in the country, we say so. We make this commitment because the only reason this site has any value is if the data is trusted.
Editorial & correction policy
Rankings, studies, and written analyses are authored and reviewed in-house. Data pages are generated automatically from our data pipeline — you can read exactly how every number is computed in our methodology.
If you find an error — wrong number, broken link, outdated source — please contact us. We aim to fix factual errors within 72 hours and note the correction on the affected page.
Get in touch
Corrections, licensing questions, partnership inquiries, or press requests — please use the contact page.