Cost of Living in Austin, TX

Population & Growth of Austin, TX

Austin is home to an estimated 1,002,632 people as of 2025, making it the fifth most populous city in Texas. While the city's population has grown only about 0.4% a year over the past five years, a decade of rapid growth across the metro has pushed housing costs up significantly.

As rent and home prices climb, many Austin residents are downsizing and running out of room for their belongings. Renting a storage unit is an affordable fix, with a 5x10 unit averaging about $61 per month. If you're moving, Extra Space Storage has locations in Hyde Park, Mueller, and Old West Austin to hold your things between homes. Find a storage unit in Austin!

Cost of Living in Austin, TX by Household Size

A single adult in Austin needs to earn at least $42,077 per year to cover essentials. A family of four should budget closer to $100,776 annually for the same categories at household scale—roughly 139.5% more than a single person needs. A family of four's cost is driven up by the need for larger living spaces in the competitive Austin housing market, increased grocery trips, and more.

What Salary Do You Need to Live in Austin, TX

Based on U.S. median household income adjusted for local cost of living in 2026, you'd need to earn around $78,993 per year to match the standard of living a typical American household has nationally—about 3.33% lower than the U.S. Average of $81,604. For essentials only, MIT's Living Wage Calculator puts the floor at $42,077 after taxes for a single adult covering housing, groceries, transportation, and healthcare.

• Is $60,000 a good salary in Austin? For a single person, yes, it covers the basics and sits well above the essentials-only floor. It's about 24% below the $78,993 benchmark, though, so savings may be tight.

• Is $90,000 enough? For a single adult, $90,000 comfortably covers typical Austin costs and is about 14% above the benchmark. How much you can save depends largely on your housing costs.

Austin's median household income is $90,430, which is above the benchmark. Texas doesn't allow cities to set their own minimum wage, so Austin follows the $7.25 federal rate, or roughly $15,000 a year full-time, far below what it takes to live here.

Taxes in Austin, TX

Texas has no state or local income tax, so Austin workers keep more of each paycheck than they would in a state that taxes income, such as Minnesota. Property taxes offset some of that benefit, since Texas rates run higher than in most states, and landlords factor them into rent. The combined sales tax rate in Austin is 8.25%.

How Does Austin, TX Compare to the Rest of Texas?

As of 2026, Austin's cost of living is 5.1% higher than the Texas state average—a bigger gap than the 3.2% difference from the national average, showing how much pricier Austin is relative to the rest of the state.

Cost of Living in Austin, TX Changes Over Time

Austin's cost of living has stayed close to the national average over the past five years. As of 2026, it sits about 2% below the U.S. average, up from 4.3% below in 2025, largely because utility bills have risen. Housing has driven the longer-term trend. Median rent in Austin rose roughly 8.2% between 2021 and 2026, and median home sale prices rose about 12.3%. A decade of in-migration, including many high-earning tech workers, pushed prices up across the metro, and new construction has only recently begun to catch up with that demand.

Compare Austin Cost of Living to Other Nearby Cities

How does Austin compare to other cities nearby? San Marcos' cost of living is 11.6% lower than Austin’s, with the biggest gap in housing. See the full city-by-city comparisons below.

• Cost of Living in San Marcos, TX—12% lower than Austin

• Cost of Living in Seguin, TX—6.4% lower than Austin

• Cost of Living in Belton, TX—3.7% lower than Austin

• Cost of Living in Temple, TX—10.1% lower than Austin

• Cost of Living Index—C2ER: Our cost of living calculator is powered by data from the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER), a trusted nonprofit organization that collects and compares prices across hundreds of U.S. cities. The C2ER Cost of Living Index measures everyday expenses like housing, groceries, transportation, utilities, healthcare, and other common goods and services, so you can see how costs stack up in different places. Each city's score is benchmarked against a national average of 100, which makes comparisons easy. For example, a score of 110 would indicate costs about 10% higher than the national average. We update our calculator twice a year to reflect the latest C2ER data. While these numbers represent citywide averages, it's important to keep in mind that your actual expenses may vary depending on your lifestyle and the neighborhood you choose. The category comparisons and dynamic figures throughout this page pull directly and automatically from this C2ER dataset via our CMS integration, so they stay current without manual updates each refresh cycle.

• Salary Benchmarks—Census/ACS and MIT Living Wage Calculator This page uses two distinct salary benchmarks, kept separate because they answer different questions. The "salary needed to live" figure is a cost-of-living-adjusted equivalence: U.S. median household income (Census/ACS) multiplied by the city's overall C2ER index, divided by 100—representing what a typical American household would need to earn locally to match the purchasing power they'd have nationally. The essentials-only figure referenced alongside it, and reused in the household-size breakdown, comes from MIT's Living Wage Calculator, using the after-tax, single-adult, no-children estimate as the baseline. The family-of-four figure in the household-size section uses MIT's "2 adults, both working, 2 children" scenario for consistency across cities. These figures are checked and refreshed manually as part of each city page's content update.

• Taxes—State and Local Tax Authority Sites: State income tax status, combined sales tax rate, and local income tax rate (where applicable) are researched and verified manually against each state's Department of Revenue or equivalent tax authority site as part of each city page's update.

• Cost of Living Over Time—Historical C2ER Data: Year-over-year cost-of-living trend figures are calculated in-house by comparing the city's current C2ER Cost of Living Index score against its own past C2ER reports, checked and calculated manually as part of each city page's content update.

• Population and Income Context—Census/ACS: Population figures, growth rates, and median household income come from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, checked manually at each refresh.

• Neighborhood-Level Pricing—AreaVibes: Where a page identifies a specific cheaper neighborhood or suburb, median rent and home price comparisons are sourced from AreaVibes listing data, checked manually at each refresh. 

• Update Cadence: C2ER data refreshes automatically twice a year via our CMS integration. All other figures on this page—salary benchmarks, tax rates, CPI trends, Census data, and neighborhood pricing—are manually reviewed and updated as part of each city page's content refresh cycle.