What it costs to live in Virginia
Price levels against the national average
Prices overall
0.75%
above average
Housing
5.54%
ranks 17 for shelter
A hundred dollars of shopping
$101
costs this here
Price rank
17
1 is the most expensive
What that actually means in Virginia
- Prices in Virginia run above the national average — about 0.75% above it, which puts the state at 17 nationally for cost. Shopping that would cost a hundred dollars elsewhere costs $101 here. Whether that matters depends entirely on what you earn, which is the part these comparisons usually skip.
- Virginia is unusual in a quiet way. In most states housing pulls the cost of living far away from everything else. Here it does not. Housing sits about 5.54% from the national average and prices overall sit about 0.75% from it — close together. What that means in practice is that the headline figure is honest for once. It describes rent and shopping about equally well.
- Here is the same idea pointed at a wage. Take a salary of seventy-five thousand dollars. In Virginia, at local prices, it buys what $74,442 would buy at national-average prices. Nothing has been taxed yet in that figure — it is only what the prices around you do to the money before the government touches it.
- Virginia's price level stands about 0.75% above the national average, ranking it 17 among all jurisdictions. The equivalent of a one-hundred-dollar national basket costs $101. Because the parity holds the basket fixed, it isolates price from consumption behavior — two states with identical parities can still differ substantially in what households spend, and in what they earn.
- Virginia's housing component tracks its all-items index closely, at about 5.54% and about 0.75% from the national level respectively — a divergence of only about 4.79%, against a housing rank of 17. This is the minority case nationally. Where shelter and goods parities converge, the all-items figure is a reliable summary for households of any tenure, whereas in the divergent states it describes renters and owners very differently.
- Deflating a seventy-five thousand dollar nominal salary by Virginia's all-items parity gives $74,442 in national-average purchasing power. ⚠️ This is a price adjustment only and contains no tax of any kind; state income tax, sales tax and local levies apply on top and are modeled elsewhere on this site. The comparison is also silent on wages themselves — high-parity states frequently pay more in nominal terms, and whether that offsets the price level is an empirical question this index cannot answer.
What the money buys here
A $75,000 salary
| Take-home, actual dollars | $58,041 |
|---|---|
| Price level, all itemsUS average = 100 | 100.749 |
| HousingUS average = 100 | 105.537 |
| Cheapest place to live | 35th of 51 |
Housing is where places differ most. Everything else moves far less than people expect.
Price parities are an index where the US average is 100 — a comparison between places, not a price.
The same pay, somewhere else
A $75,000 salary
| Take-home in Virginia | $58,041 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $61,593 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$5,774 |
State income tax and state price levels only. No city income tax, and no housing market.
What is expensive here
A $75,000 salary
- Housing105.537
- Goods100.298
- Services99.953
| Housing | 105.537 |
|---|---|
| Goods | 100.298 |
| Services | 99.953 |
| All items | 100.749 |
An index where 100 is the national average. Housing moves far more than anything else.
Housing, against the country
A $75,000 salary
| Cheapest housing | MS · 55 |
|---|---|
| Dearest housing | DC · 169 |
| This state, cheapest first | 35th of 51 |
A BEA index where 100 is the national average, not a house price.
Where the ranking flips
A $75,000 salary
| Virginia on take-home | 44th |
|---|---|
| Once prices are leveled | 41st |
| Places moved | 3 |
Left is rank on take-home. Right is rank once local prices are leveled by BEA parities.
Virginia against Texas
A $75,000 salary
| Measure | Virginia | Texas |
|---|---|---|
| Take-home pay | $58,041 | $61,593 |
| Worth after local prices | $57,609 | $63,383 |
| Share of pay taxed | 22.61% | 17.88% |
| State sales tax | 5.3% | 6.25% |
| Groceries exempt here | No | Yes |
| Clothing exempt at $100 | No | No |
| Property tax rate | 0.73% | 1.49% |
| Price level | 100.7 | 97.2 |
| Housing prices | 105.5 | 97.4 |
| Fuel tax | 32.6¢ | 20¢ |
| Tobacco tax | $0.60 | $1.41 |
City income tax excluded. Sales-tax row: state-only. Exemptions: Virginia, Statewide average; Texas, Harris County (Houston). Clothing: one $100 item; higher prices can change tax.
What you would need there
A $75,000 salary
| To match take-home only | $69,951 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$7,976 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 101 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Where the difference actually sits
Each line compares Virginia with the national average for that kind of spending. The overall figure is the three above it, weighted the way a typical household spends — which is why housing can pull it a long way on its own.
| What you spend on | Against national average | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Housing | 5.54% | Rent and owners’ equivalent rent |
| Goods | 0.3% | Groceries, fuel, clothing |
| Other services | -0.05% | Haircuts, repairs, childcare |
| All items | 0.75% | The three above, weighted |
What a salary is worth here
A salary of seventy-five thousand dollars, spent at Virginia prices, buys what $74,442 would buy at national average prices. That is a price adjustment only. No tax of any kind has been taken off it, and tax is a separate bill on the same money.
What this page cannot tell you
- This is one number for the whole of Virginia, and no state is one place. A big city and a rural county can sit far apart on every figure here.
- These prices were measured in 2023. Rents in particular can move a long way in a couple of years.
- And this is prices only. It says nothing about what Virginia charges you in tax, which is a separate bill and is covered elsewhere on this site.
- These parities are state-level aggregates. BEA also publishes metropolitan-area parities, and within-state dispersion between a large metro and a rural area routinely exceeds the difference between two states — so a state figure should not be read as descriptive of any particular address in Virginia.
- The underlying survey vintage is 2023, which is the most recent BEA publication rather than a current reading. Shelter parities are the component most exposed to drift between vintages, so recent local rent movements in Virginia will not be reflected here.
- Price parity and tax burden are independent quantities and this page models only the first. A low-parity state with high income tax and a high-parity state with none can leave a household in the same real position; comparing Virginia to another jurisdiction requires both figures, not either alone.
Questions people ask
Does a higher salary here actually leave me better off?
The two move together and have to be compared together. Every hundred dollars spent in Virginia does the work of $101 nationally, so a raise that matches the gap leaves you where you started.
Which part of living here is actually different?
Almost entirely housing. The goods component sits close to the national average here, so the gap you feel is rent and property rather than the supermarket.
How should I compare a job offer here with one somewhere else?
Two adjustments, not one. Prices bring a reference salary to $74,442 here, and state income tax changes the figure separately.
How does an above-average price level affect real income?
Virginia's all-items regional price parity exceeds the national average, so nominal income overstates purchasing power. One hundred dollars of expenditure purchases $101 of national-average consumption. Real income comparisons across states require deflating by parity; nominal comparisons systematically favor high-price states.
Which component drives this state's parity?
The housing parity dominates Virginia's all-items figure, diverging from the national average by more than twice the goods component. Tradeable goods arbitrage across state lines and therefore cluster near parity; housing is non-tradeable, so its parity spans a far wider range and drives most interstate variation in the headline index.
How should nominal offers be adjusted across states?
Nominal offers should be deflated by the destination parity before comparison; the reference salary is equivalent to $74,442 in national-average terms here. ⚠️ Price adjustment and tax adjustment are independent and must both be applied — a state may be simultaneously cheap and heavily taxed, or the reverse.