The FIRE number you need in every US state
The same lifestyle costs 27% more in California than in Arkansas. Using official federal price data, here is what financial independence actually costs in all 50 states and DC.
The headline
Every FIRE calculation starts with your annual spending, and almost every article about it quietly assumes spending is the same everywhere. It isn't. The federal government measures this directly: the Bureau of Economic Analysis publishes Regional Price Parities, an index of how expensive each state is relative to the national average of 100.
Put another way: moving from the most expensive state to the cheapest cuts roughly 5.4 years of spending off your target, or lets you retire on a portfolio about 21% smaller. Geographic arbitrage is not a lifestyle preference, it is arithmetic. The international version of this study shows a far wider spread.
How these numbers are calculated
state spending = $60,000 × (state RPP ÷ 100)
FIRE number = state spending ÷ 4%
The $60,000 baseline is a chosen reference point, not a statistic: pick any budget you like and the ratios hold. RPP values are the BEA's 2024 all-items figures, the most recent published (released February 2026). The 4% withdrawal rate is the Trinity Study convention, which is why every FIRE number below is exactly 25 times its spending figure. Want it in your own numbers? Run them through the FIRE number calculator.
Every state, ranked by cost
| State | Price level (US = 100) | Cost of a $60,000 lifestyle | FIRE number at 4% |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | 110.7 | $66,420 | $1,660,500 |
| Hawaii | 110.0 | $66,000 | $1,650,000 |
| District of Columbia | 109.9 | $65,940 | $1,648,500 |
| New Jersey | 108.8 | $65,280 | $1,632,000 |
| New York | 107.9 | $64,740 | $1,618,500 |
| Washington | 107.0 | $64,200 | $1,605,000 |
| Massachusetts | 105.8 | $63,480 | $1,587,000 |
| Maryland | 105.0 | $63,000 | $1,575,000 |
| New Hampshire | 104.2 | $62,520 | $1,563,000 |
| Connecticut | 103.6 | $62,160 | $1,554,000 |
| Florida | 103.4 | $62,040 | $1,551,000 |
| Oregon | 103.4 | $62,040 | $1,551,000 |
| Colorado | 103.1 | $61,860 | $1,546,500 |
| Alaska | 102.4 | $61,440 | $1,536,000 |
| Rhode Island | 102.3 | $61,380 | $1,534,500 |
| Virginia | 101.1 | $60,660 | $1,516,500 |
| Arizona | 100.7 | $60,420 | $1,510,500 |
| Nevada | 100.0 | $60,000 | $1,500,000 |
| Illinois | 100.0 | $60,000 | $1,500,000 |
| Delaware | 99.8 | $59,880 | $1,497,000 |
| Utah | 98.9 | $59,340 | $1,483,500 |
| Minnesota | 98.6 | $59,160 | $1,479,000 |
| Vermont | 98.0 | $58,800 | $1,470,000 |
| Pennsylvania | 97.6 | $58,560 | $1,464,000 |
| Texas | 97.1 | $58,260 | $1,456,500 |
| Maine | 97.0 | $58,200 | $1,455,000 |
| Georgia | 96.3 | $57,780 | $1,444,500 |
| Michigan | 96.2 | $57,720 | $1,443,000 |
| Idaho | 95.5 | $57,300 | $1,432,500 |
| Montana | 94.6 | $56,760 | $1,419,000 |
| North Carolina | 94.3 | $56,580 | $1,414,500 |
| Wisconsin | 94.1 | $56,460 | $1,411,500 |
| South Carolina | 93.7 | $56,220 | $1,405,500 |
| Indiana | 93.3 | $55,980 | $1,399,500 |
| Ohio | 92.8 | $55,680 | $1,392,000 |
| Wyoming | 92.7 | $55,620 | $1,390,500 |
| New Mexico | 92.2 | $55,320 | $1,383,000 |
| Tennessee | 91.9 | $55,140 | $1,378,500 |
| Missouri | 90.8 | $54,480 | $1,362,000 |
| Kentucky | 90.2 | $54,120 | $1,353,000 |
| Nebraska | 90.1 | $54,060 | $1,351,500 |
| Kansas | 90.1 | $54,060 | $1,351,500 |
| West Virginia | 89.5 | $53,700 | $1,342,500 |
| North Dakota | 89.0 | $53,400 | $1,335,000 |
| Alabama | 88.8 | $53,280 | $1,332,000 |
| South Dakota | 88.6 | $53,160 | $1,329,000 |
| Louisiana | 88.2 | $52,920 | $1,323,000 |
| Oklahoma | 87.8 | $52,680 | $1,317,000 |
| Iowa | 87.8 | $52,680 | $1,317,000 |
| Mississippi | 87.0 | $52,200 | $1,305,000 |
| Arkansas | 86.9 | $52,140 | $1,303,500 |
Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities by State, 2024 (all items). National average = 100. A $60,000 national-average lifestyle needs a $1,500,000 portfolio at 4%.
Your spending, your state, your number.
What the spread actually tells you
The gap is smaller than people assume. The most expensive state is only about 127% of the cheapest, not double. Internet advice implies you can halve your FIRE number by moving; at state level you cannot. The dramatic savings come from city-level moves, where the spread between somewhere like San Francisco and a small Midwestern town is far wider than any two states.
Housing does most of the work. RPP bundles all consumer prices, but rents diverge far more than groceries or fuel. If you already own outright, your personal price level is much closer to the national average than your state's headline number suggests, which is why paid-off housing is such a powerful FIRE accelerant.
Cheap states are cheap for reasons worth checking. Lower price levels often travel with lower wages, thinner healthcare networks and fewer specialist services, which matter more in a 40-year retirement than in a working decade. Run the sequence-of-returns maths before assuming a low-cost state removes all the risk.
Honest limitations
- Not a retiree basket. RPP measures all consumer spending, not a retiree's specific mix, which skews more toward healthcare and less toward commuting.
- Taxes are excluded. State income tax, property tax and sales tax are not in RPP. A no-income-tax state can beat a cheaper state once tax is counted, and vice versa.
- Health insurance varies independently. Premiums before Medicare differ by state and are a large early-retirement line item. See the HSA guide.
- State averages hide cities. Every state contains both expensive metros and cheap rural areas.
See what you need invested today.
Sources and further reading
All figures on this page are computed from the primary source below. The underlying dataset is public and free to check.
- U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities by State and Metro Area (2024 data, released February 2026)
- The Trinity Study, origin of the 4% withdrawal convention
Free to reuse: this table may be republished with attribution and a link to this page.