You might think Tennessee cities are all about high-end country music stars and expensive real estate. But let’s clear up that misconception.
Many of the cities in Tennessee offer a low cost of living, making them some of the most affordable places around.
From the vibrant streets of Nashville to the soulful corners of Memphis, the Volunteer State offers an array of cheap places to live that won’t have you breaking your piggy bank.
Our methodology for identifying Tennessee’s cheapest places to live is straightforward. We use Saturday Night Science and Census data to consider multiple factors, including median home prices, average rent costs, and incomes. After comparing 100 cities, we arrived at this affordable list.
$43,494 median income · $767 median rent · #6 home prices in Tennessee
Located in
Haywood County, TennesseeAnother Memphis suburb, Brownsville ranks as the cheapest place in the state. It’s an hour or so north of Memphis, halfway to Nashville.
The overall cost of living index of 83 includes low index values for utilities (94), services (100), and healthcare (57). The Hatchie National Wildlife Refuge provides affordable outdoor fun for the family.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
$49,719 median income · $848 median rent · #36 home prices in Tennessee
Located in
Rhea County, TennesseeDayton, located in the heart of Tennessee, is a great place to call home without breaking the bank. The city has a median home value of $264,804 and a remarkably low median rent.
Dayton is a small manufacturing center with a diverse industrial base, including companies involved in furniture, clothing, and automobile parts. The city is also known for hosting major bass fishing tournaments at Chickamauga Lake and is home to educational institutions such as Bryan College and Chattanooga State Community College.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
$52,917 median income · $742 median rent · #4 home prices in Tennessee
Located in
Madison County, TennesseeHumboldt, north of I-40 near Jackson, ranks as the third most affordable city with living costs 10.6% below the state average and average home prices ranking fourth lowest in the state. A typical home in Humboldt costs approximately $155,460.
Renters benefit from Humboldt’s $52,917 average income to with $742 average rent.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
$37,432 median income · $800 median rent · #1 home prices in Tennessee
Located in
Lauderdale County, TennesseeData | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
$45,938 median income · $781 median rent · #9 home prices in Tennessee
Located in
Chester County, TennesseeHenderson is a city of 6,411 located a half-hour southeast of Jackson. Freed-Hartman University is an anchor of the Henderson community, with about 2,000 students in total.
The median rent in Henderson is $781, while a home will only set you back around $177,752. Not too shabby for a median household income of $45,938 (and remember, the student population makes that number seem lower than it really is).
Nature-lovers don’t have to spend a dime to have a good time in Henderson because the gorgeous Chickasaw State Park is right in your backyard. Besides hiking and camping, you can also rent rowboats and pedal boats for the charming Lake Placid.
Henderson is also incredibly safe, with an overall crime rate 30% below the statewide average. Additionally, the cost of living in Henderson is cheap, with housing costs 21% lower than your typical Tennessee city.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
$47,179 median income · $791 median rent · #30 home prices in Tennessee
Located in
Warren County, TennesseeData | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
$42,343 median income · $775 median rent · #25 home prices in Tennessee
Located in
Lawrence County, TennesseeLawrenceburg claimed the seventh place on our list of the cheapest cities in Tennessee. Located in the southern region of the state, its low $240,472 average home price and competitive $775 average rent rank 25th and 19th respectively within Tennessee.
The city’s overall cost of living at 85 falls below the national and state average. Shiloh National Military Park is near Lawrenceburg for free fun to keep your wallet full.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
$50,870 median income · $739 median rent · #8 home prices in Tennessee
Located in
Obion County, TennesseeYou might want to have a job before you choose the eighth most affordable place to live in Tennessee, Union City. The unemployment rate here is way above the national average.
But, don’t let this scare you. You’d be doing yourself a favor if you moved to the UC because this city has a lot to offer. Discovery Park of America is located here and some of the best Tennessee BBQ at Bad Bob’s BBQ.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
$37,581 median income · $696 median rent · #5 home prices in Tennessee
Located in
Campbell County, TennesseeLa Follette, located in Tennessee, is a city that offers an affordable cost of living for its residents. With a median home value of $161,647 and a median rent of $696, La Follette provides reasonable housing options for those looking to settle down.
LaFollette is a vibrant city that seamlessly blends growth and modern amenities with its small-town charm. LaFollette provides a delightful mix of mountainous landscapes, a nearby lake, and a forty-five-minute commute to Knoxville. Whether you’re a visitor or a potential resident, LaFollette welcomes you to experience its unique appeal and hopes you’ll choose to make it your home.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
$44,653 median income · $763 median rent · #24 home prices in Tennessee
Located in
Roane County, TennesseeHarriman, located in eastern Tennessee 45 minutes from Knoxville, is the tenth cheapest city in Tennessee with a cost of living index at 85. The city’s 6,090 residents appreciate a housing market with average costs 2.0% below the state average.
The TVA Wetland Viewing Area and Trails and Kingston City Park offer free things to do on the weekends.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Tennessee’s statewide median.
Tennessee statewide median: $333,651
Tennessee statewide median: $69,595
On the map
Where your money goes furthest in Tennessee
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How we determined the most affordable places to live in the Volunteer State for 2026
Determining affordability for places in Tennessee boils down to how much it costs to live here.
You need to understand your costs relative to what people in the rest of the state are paying.
With that logic in mind, we derived several cost of living statistics from the latest Census American Community Survey 2020-2024 for Tennessee using Saturday Night Science. We indexed the cost of living statistics across the following categories:
- Housing
- Transportation
- Services
- Groceries
- Healthcare
- Utilities
These are then weighted together to produce an overall cost of living index where 100 is the United States average. Anything below 100 is relatively affordable. Anything over 100 is relatively expensive.
We applied the biggest weight to housing as it typically accounts for 25% or more of your budget. Additionally, housing costs are the highest variant cost across a state. We then compare these cost of living metrics for each place in Tennessee to figure out which is the least expensive.
The “Cost of Living Index” allows you to rank all of the 100 places in Tennessee that have more than 5,000 people from least expensive to most expensive. Any ties went to the larger city.
The place in Tennessee with the lowest cost of living according to the data is Brownsville.
We updated this article for 2026. This report reflects our eleventh time ranking the cheapest places to live in Tennessee.
The full plate
Cheapest Places To Live In Tennessee
Click any column to sort. Search by city name.
| Rank | City | Population | Cost Of Living Index | Median Income | Home Prices | Rent |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brownsville | 9,622 | 83 | $43,494 | $163,990 | $767 |
| 2 | Dayton | 7,625 | 83 | $49,719 | $264,804 | $848 |
| 3 | Humboldt | 7,787 | 84 | $52,917 | $155,460 | $742 |
| 4 | Ripley | 7,658 | 84 | $37,432 | $140,001 | $800 |
| 5 | Henderson | 6,411 | 84 | $45,938 | $177,752 | $781 |
| 6 | McMinnville | 13,844 | 85 | $47,179 | $255,402 | $791 |
| 7 | Lawrenceburg | 11,844 | 85 | $42,343 | $240,472 | $775 |
| 8 | Union City | 10,982 | 85 | $50,870 | $167,472 | $739 |
| 9 | La Follette | 7,273 | 85 | $37,581 | $161,647 | $696 |
| 10 | Harriman | 6,090 | 85 | $44,653 | $239,088 | $763 |
| 11 | Rockwood | 5,566 | 85 | $47,791 | $230,191 | $774 |
| 12 | Milan | 8,244 | 87 | $43,886 | $181,686 | $805 |
| 13 | Lexington | 7,962 | 87 | $49,057 | $216,845 | $720 |
| 14 | Savannah | 7,412 | 87 | $39,712 | $196,053 | $758 |
| 15 | Newport | 6,881 | 87 | $31,250 | $227,027 | $720 |
| 16 | Sweetwater | 6,532 | 87 | $45,451 | $256,822 | $619 |
| 17 | Erwin | 5,988 | 87 | $47,487 | $223,111 | $614 |
| 18 | McKenzie | 5,631 | 87 | $37,236 | $189,718 | $663 |
| 19 | Bolivar | 5,144 | 87 | $39,028 | $147,015 | $808 |
| 20 | Martin | 10,915 | 88 | $43,381 | $214,361 | $859 |
| 21 | Paris | 10,338 | 88 | $41,012 | $213,854 | $780 |
| 22 | Pulaski | 8,285 | 88 | $48,538 | $250,196 | $835 |
| 23 | Dunlap | 5,678 | 88 | $45,589 | $273,219 | $868 |
| 24 | Madisonville | 5,241 | 88 | $39,878 | $286,953 | $726 |
| 25 | Dyersburg | 15,979 | 89 | $52,064 | $165,487 | $782 |
| 26 | Elizabethton | 14,374 | 89 | $46,975 | $229,442 | $740 |
| 27 | Fayetteville | 7,057 | 89 | $49,223 | $254,902 | $779 |
| 28 | Lewisburg | 12,861 | 90 | $48,341 | $299,243 | $872 |
| 29 | Millington | 11,289 | 90 | $49,979 | $238,393 | $1,111 |
| 30 | Covington | 8,587 | 90 | $42,254 | $208,119 | $933 |
| 31 | Smithville | 5,288 | 90 | $33,192 | $285,425 | $740 |
| 32 | Knoxville | 195,185 | 91 | $54,039 | $369,216 | $1,191 |
| 33 | Morristown | 31,527 | 91 | $47,917 | $266,073 | $882 |
| 34 | Jefferson City | 8,579 | 91 | $60,638 | $304,012 | $851 |
| 35 | Church Hill | 7,139 | 91 | $65,526 | $261,209 | $1,019 |
| 36 | Lafayette | 5,727 | 91 | $51,736 | $269,410 | $896 |
| 37 | Jackson | 68,435 | 92 | $53,032 | $227,078 | $1,145 |
| 38 | East Ridge | 22,070 | 92 | $62,247 | $257,872 | $1,147 |
| 39 | Greeneville | 15,646 | 92 | $49,889 | $248,040 | $650 |
| 40 | Winchester | 9,799 | 92 | $62,782 | $359,609 | $974 |
| 41 | Memphis | 618,980 | 93 | $51,736 | $144,710 | $1,181 |
| 42 | Kingsport | 56,262 | 93 | $52,490 | $254,341 | $907 |
| 43 | Bristol | 27,636 | 93 | $58,162 | $234,603 | $842 |
| 44 | Tullahoma | 21,103 | 93 | $60,979 | $293,828 | $886 |
| 45 | Portland | 13,449 | 93 | $72,647 | $332,794 | $1,141 |
| 46 | Manchester | 12,944 | 93 | $57,500 | $325,769 | $978 |
| 47 | Alcoa | 12,222 | 93 | $65,714 | $314,718 | $1,282 |
| 48 | Red Bank | 12,010 | 93 | $63,983 | $307,145 | $1,283 |
| 49 | Lenoir City | 11,110 | 93 | $67,259 | $411,984 | $932 |
| 50 | Cleveland | 48,829 | 94 | $58,559 | $311,237 | $1,034 |
| 51 | Columbia | 45,441 | 94 | $63,719 | $374,476 | $1,197 |
| 52 | Shelbyville | 24,661 | 94 | $55,073 | $313,350 | $1,056 |
| 53 | Springfield | 19,255 | 94 | $59,465 | $331,464 | $1,139 |
| 54 | Athens | 14,471 | 94 | $53,929 | $260,344 | $846 |
| 55 | Crossville | 12,428 | 94 | $48,802 | $304,997 | $815 |
| 56 | Clinton | 10,239 | 94 | $68,882 | $332,661 | $962 |
| 57 | Mount Carmel | 5,472 | 94 | $68,866 | $262,492 | $643 |
| 58 | Cookeville | 36,088 | 95 | $51,375 | $320,762 | $917 |
| 59 | Oak Ridge | 32,693 | 95 | $72,311 | $322,990 | $1,131 |
| 60 | Dickson | 16,424 | 95 | $69,678 | $344,966 | $1,063 |
| 61 | Soddy-Daisy | 13,231 | 95 | $75,113 | $359,449 | $1,047 |
| 62 | Kingston | 6,224 | 95 | $71,675 | $329,855 | $716 |
| 63 | Pigeon Forge | 6,375 | 96 | $53,261 | $423,694 | $1,053 |
| 64 | Jonesborough | 6,232 | 96 | $74,015 | $334,165 | $1,129 |
| 65 | Clarksville | 176,456 | 97 | $69,303 | $318,206 | $1,307 |
| 66 | Johnson City | 72,222 | 97 | $57,254 | $292,485 | $1,023 |
| 67 | Ashland City | 5,424 | 97 | $79,231 | $349,646 | $1,336 |
| 68 | Medina | 5,407 | 97 | $107,807 | $320,515 | $1,206 |
| 69 | Chattanooga | 185,783 | 99 | $64,523 | $319,579 | $1,256 |
| 70 | La Vergne | 40,243 | 100 | $81,313 | $346,622 | $1,805 |
| 71 | Sevierville | 18,397 | 100 | $52,421 | $417,023 | $1,081 |
| 72 | Maryville | 32,392 | 101 | $81,963 | $390,045 | $1,157 |
| 73 | Bartlett | 56,876 | 102 | $102,070 | $321,267 | $1,638 |
| 74 | Munford | 6,588 | 102 | $89,531 | $287,684 | $1,176 |
| 75 | Millersville | 5,836 | 102 | $71,789 | $360,650 | $1,475 |
| 76 | Collegedale | 11,330 | 103 | $70,246 | $418,364 | $1,581 |
| 77 | Atoka | 10,385 | 103 | $89,663 | $350,767 | $1,237 |
| 78 | Oakland | 9,979 | 103 | $97,798 | $353,491 | $1,992 |
| 79 | Greenbrier | 6,971 | 103 | $85,174 | $382,696 | $1,212 |
| 80 | Smyrna | 56,692 | 104 | $81,926 | $403,723 | $1,461 |
| 81 | Gallatin | 48,532 | 105 | $77,518 | $435,264 | $1,395 |
| 82 | White House | 14,631 | 106 | $90,019 | $388,293 | $1,426 |
| 83 | Pleasant View | 5,276 | 106 | $109,213 | $416,777 | $1,802 |
| 84 | Goodlettsville | 17,597 | 107 | $70,758 | $389,925 | $1,385 |
| 85 | Murfreesboro | 161,445 | 109 | $80,108 | $426,292 | $1,481 |
| 86 | Fairview | 10,009 | 109 | $91,131 | $560,109 | $1,301 |
| 87 | Hendersonville | 63,091 | 111 | $97,200 | $521,094 | $1,653 |
| 88 | Lebanon | 44,788 | 111 | $72,848 | $443,605 | $1,306 |
| 89 | Lakeland | 14,192 | 113 | $116,250 | $445,695 | $1,755 |
| 90 | Mount Juliet | 42,073 | 114 | $107,068 | $562,745 | $2,011 |
| 91 | Arlington | 15,205 | 115 | $135,105 | $409,250 | $2,164 |
| 92 | Spring Hill | 55,765 | 117 | $112,013 | $523,264 | $1,844 |
| 93 | Collierville | 51,515 | 118 | $138,598 | $509,893 | $1,691 |
| 94 | Germantown | 40,673 | 121 | $149,920 | $485,879 | $1,816 |
| 95 | Farragut | 24,634 | 123 | $142,093 | $688,601 | $1,966 |
| 96 | Signal Mountain | 8,860 | 125 | $141,008 | $623,275 | $1,852 |
| 97 | Franklin | 87,133 | 134 | $119,528 | $922,855 | $1,923 |
| 98 | Thompson’s Station | 8,294 | 136 | $132,647 | $815,216 | $2,088 |
| 99 | Nolensville | 15,074 | 144 | $177,148 | $836,736 | $2,454 |
| 100 | Brentwood | 45,556 | 164 | $182,088 | $1,393,273 | $2,825 |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024, cost-of-living data. 100 places with more than 5,000 residents.
Summary
Tennessee Affordability Summary
This is an accurate list of the most affordable places to live in Tennessee for 2026, if you’re looking at the cost of living numbers in Tennessee.
The cheapest cities in Tennessee are Brownsville, Dayton, Humboldt, Ripley, Henderson, McMinnville, Lawrenceburg, Union City, La Follette, and Harriman.
