The 10 Cheapest Cities In The United States For 2026

The 10 Most Affordable Cities In The United States For 2026

1. Cleveland, OH

Review Of Cleveland by HomeSnacks User

I have lived in Cleveland, OH for five years now and I enjoy the many attractions there are including sporting events, downtown, variety of food places, and the night scene.

Downtown Cleveland, University Circle, and Little Italy are my top 3 favorite places in Cleveland. The things I do not like about Cleveland are the brutal winters due to the lake effect and crime rate in certain areas.

Review Cleveland

2. Detroit, MI

Review Of Detroit by HomeSnacks User

MICHIGAN IS A VERY GOOD STATE IN THE GREAT LAKES. IN THIS CITY HAS A POPULATION OF ABOUT 10 MILLION.

YOU’VE BEEN ON A MICHIGAN FALL COLORS TOUR OR TAKEN A DRIVE THROUGH THE COUNTRY IN THE FALL JUST TO SEE THE LEAVES CHANGING.

Review Detroit

3. Toledo, OH

4. St. Louis, MO

Review Of St. Louis by HomeSnacks User

Being in a new place is so different,everything is different but the people are great. I got tot meet some really good people along the way.

Of course the Arch stands out more than anything else in St. Louis. There is no bad side to it at all

Review St. Louis

5. Fort Wayne, IN

This little jewel up in the northern corner of the state can’t brag about a lot, but it can hang its hat on being the 5th most affordable place to live in the country for all cities with more than 100,000 people. In Fort Wayne, you can pay off your home in 2 years and 4 months or pay rent 61.5 times in a year. Plus, as you might presume, since this is Indiana and all, taxes are relatively low, as are standard living expenses.

The smartest thing to do would be to work from home, earning a high salary and just renting here. You could save a lot of money in very little time doing that in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Of course, it’s Fort Wayne. But the economy isn’t doing too badly. There’s a decent number of manufacturing and health care jobs. It’s not gonna wow you, but you’d be entertained for a little while I guess.

6. Wichita, KS

We don’t have to go very far at all to get to our next cheapest city. This is Wichita, Kansas.

Here in Wichita, the home cost to income ratio is 2 years and 5 months. That’s dirt cheap. Now let’s compare that to our most expensive city in the nation, Los Angeles. In LA, the average household incomes are only $55k. But the cost of a home here is waaay out of whack at $560,000. Meaning — while in Wichita, a family could pay off a new home in 2.4 years, — in Los Angeles, a family would have to take 10 years to pay off their home. Which likely has a tiny yard.

But what a difference. Actually, California has 16 of the 20 most expensive cities to live in America. And we wonder why there are so many California refugees.

Wichita has 397,945 people, so it’s not a tiny place. And it has a lot of very blue collar manufacturing jobs.

Review Of Wichita by HomeSnacks User

As someone from Wichita KS I call BS. Most of the towns you have on here are tiny and don’t have much to do. Kansas City KS is a small portion of KC. It goes into Missouri and there is a TON to do there!

As for Wichita, sure there is crime but not as much as they are saying. Wichita has small pockets of bad neighborhoods but what city doesn’t.

Wichita has a thriving art and music scene. Always something to do here!

Review Wichita

7. Memphis, TN

Review Of Memphis by HomeSnacks User

Very low cost of housing and no state income taxes are big advantages. Some surrounding communities have low crime and have good public schools, be careful of the local community and who you know. Not too unfriendly but fear new ideas, creativity and mistrust new people and anyone complaining about moving in to leave bad areas because of fear what would say about them. Somewhat luddite and expensive to fly in and out as Delta abandoned their hub in the small airport which is not international is keeping people out along with the reputation of the more dangerous localized areas and they’re relatively mistrusting while liberal in and near the city in a conservative state. The issues are being worked on by the new Governor and big companies such as just opening a new facility in historic but areas in need.

Good is no state income tax and low cost of housing with low property taxes and some nice areas. Bad is high cost of flights, need to be careful about where to live and go.

Review Memphis

8. Tulsa, OK

9. Winston-Salem, NC

10. Indianapolis, IN

Next 10 Cities

Methodology: How We Determined The Most Affordable Large Cities in The US For 2026

The two most important things to think about when it comes to being able to afford if you can live comes down to:

1. How much do money do I make?
2. How much do I have spend to live there?

You need to understand your costs in the context of how much money you make.

For example, if the median household earns $100,000 and spends $40,000 on housing it’s actually cheaper to live there than a place with a median income of $50,000 and housing costs of $21,000. You might spend more on housing, but you have more money overall to play with.

With that example in mind, we derived several statistics from the latest Census American Community Survey 2020-2024 around incomes and Zillow for home prices. They are:

• Median Home Price / Median Income (lower is better)
• Median Income / Median Rent (Higher is better)
• Cost of living index

We added simply median home price because high home prices generally correlate with higher expenses for all costs related to homes (heating, electricity, etc).

What you are left with is a “Cost of Living Index” by taking the average rank of each of these metrics for each city.

So we used that cost of living index in order to rank all of the 100 largest cities in the US. We updated this article for 2026. This is our eleventh time ranking the cheapest places to live in America.

The place with the lowest cost of living in America according to the data is Cleveland, OH.

Summary: The Cheapest Big Cities in America

Okay, there ya go. Our cheapest cities in the USA. The places where you can live the most comfortably on your income. After measuring every cost of living factor that makes sense, there isn’t a clear ‘region’ that has the advantage for cheap living.

The cities in the United States with the lowest cost of living are Cleveland, OH, Detroit, MI, Toledo, OH, St. Louis, MO, Fort Wayne, IN, Wichita, KS, Memphis, TN, Tulsa, OK, Winston-Salem, NC, and Indianapolis, IN.

And while this is good news for the places we mentioned, if you happen to live in Yonkers, NY, Jersey City, NJ or San Francisco, CA, you’re probably head over heels in living expenses.

So we hoped you learned something. We did. The next time you’re in over your head with bills, wondering why you paid all that money for a worthless college degree and lamenting that new car purchase you just made, remember this: You could always move somewhere in the midwest. No? Okay.

Here’s a look at the most expensive cities in America:

1. San Francisco, CA
2. Fremont, CA
3. San Jose, CA

For more reading, check out:

• Richest Places By State
• Best Places By State

Cheapest Cities In The US For 2026