Home > Relocate: City A vs City B
See what the numbers mean. Learn how the comparison works. Leave with a wider view of the decision.
Enter your salary once — we assume the same job or remote work — then compare two cities. We adjust for state income tax, cost of living, and the one-time cost of moving.
Relocate: City A vs City B is a decision-making model, not a relocation cost estimator. It estimates the relative value of staying versus relocating using published tax and cost-of-living data plus clearly stated modeling assumptions.
⚠ Estimates only, not financial advice — see the note below the results for details. US only for now.
Where you live now — no moving cost.
Where you're considering — includes the moving cost above.
Estimate only — not financial, legal, or investment advice.
Each line already includes every adjustment above it — this isn't a list to add up. Compare using the bottom line only.
Estimates only, not financial advice. Uses 2026 federal tax brackets (single filer), employee FICA payroll tax, plus an approximate state rate. Cost-of-living index from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parities, 2024 (national average = 100). Moving cost is spread evenly across the years you plan to stay, and only applied to City B since City A is where you already live.
Relocate: City A vs City B takes one salary and runs it through both cities' tax and cost-of-living rules, then adds the cost of the move itself, to see which city leaves you better off per year.
We start from the same number for both cities, since this tool assumes you're keeping your job or working remotely — it isolates the effect of location, not a career change.
We apply current federal income tax brackets, employee FICA payroll tax (Social Security and Medicare), plus an approximate state income tax rate for each city — several states, including Texas, Florida, and Washington, charge no state income tax at all.
After-tax income is divided by each city's cost-of-living index, based on the national average (index 100). The same salary can go noticeably further, or not nearly as far, depending on where you live.
Relocating has a real, one-time price tag. We spread City B's moving cost evenly across the number of years you plan to stay, since a $4,300 move isn't really a $4,300-a-year cost if you're settling in for a while. City A carries no moving cost, since you're already there.
A few terms worth knowing before you compare — this site is built to help you see the fuller picture, not just crunch numbers.
Quick check
Think you've got these 3 terms down?
A few more angles worth exploring — the numbers above are only part of the full picture.
No. Relocate: City A vs City B gives a directional estimate to help you think through a decision, not a substitute for a financial advisor. Actual moving costs, tax situations, and cost of living vary by individual circumstances.
We currently support a set of major US cities. Use the "View supported cities" button at the top of the page for the full list — we add more based on demand. This calculator is US-only for now.
The default of $4,300 is a commonly cited moving-industry estimate — originally from the American Moving and Storage Association (AMSA), which merged into ATA Moving & Storage in 2020 — for a two- to three-bedroom household moving more than 1,000 miles. Actual quotes commonly range from about $2,200 to $13,000 or more depending on distance, home size, and the services you choose — the field is fully editable.
This tool is built to isolate the effect of location alone — tax, cost of living, and the cost of the move — for someone keeping the same job or working remotely. If you're also comparing different job offers with different salaries, our Offer Ledger calculator handles that comparison instead.
Cost-of-living indices are based on the US Bureau of Economic Analysis's Regional Price Parities (RPP), a federal statistic measuring price-level differences across US metro areas relative to the national average (100). BEA publishes an updated RPP annually, typically with about a one-year lag.
Your inputs are only used in your browser to calculate a result. If you use the "Copy shareable link" button, your inputs are encoded directly into that URL — nothing is stored on a server.
Tax-year data: 2026