Montana cities compared
All 5 Montana metropolitan areas on the same $100,000 salary and the same $400,000 home. Billings leaves you $5,914 a year better off than Bozeman — and none of it is income tax, which is identical everywhere in the state.
Billings to Bozeman: $5,914 a year apart, same tax code
Montana has 5 metropolitan areas with a published price index, and on $100,000 with a $400,000 home they are not interchangeable: $76,632 of purchasing power in Billings against $70,719 in Bozeman — $5,914 a year, 5.9% of the salary, without leaving the state.
That gap is unusually easy to trust, because the income tax is identical in every row. Federal $13,170, FICA $7,650, Montana state income tax $4,289, and no county or city in Montana levies its own. Two things move down this table and only two: what a house costs in property tax, and what everything costs at the till.
| Metropolitan area | Buys | Behind the best | Prices | Property tax |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1Billings | $76,632 | best | 93.526 | 0.80% |
| 2Helena | $75,102 | −$1,530 | 95.675 | 0.76% |
| 3Missoula | $73,959 | −$2,674 | 96.445 | 0.89% |
| 4Great Falls | $73,535 | −$3,098 | 96.845 | 0.92% |
| 5Bozeman | $70,719 | −$5,914 | 102.51 | 0.60% |
Purchasing power on a $100,000 salary with a $400,000 home: take-home after federal, FICA, Montana income tax and property tax, divided by that area’s price level. The income tax is identical in every row — the whole of the spread is property tax and the price level. Price index 100 is the US average.
1 of the 5 price above the national average and 4 below it — inside one state, under one tax code. A single state-level cost of living number averages that away and tells you about none of them.
Property tax runs from 0.60% in Bozeman to 0.92% in Great Falls — on a $400,000 home that is $2,397 against $3,676 a year, a difference of $1,279. Each rate is that area's counties averaged and weighted by how many homes are in each, because a house pays the tax and a rural county of a few thousand homes should not weigh the same as an urban one of several hundred thousand.
The 10 Montana comparisons, resolved
Every pair of Montana cities, each on its own page with the full working, the break-even salary and the property tax bill house by house. Ordered by the population that could plausibly be choosing between them:
Billings vs Missoula — Billings by $2,674 a year. Price level 93.526 against 96.445; property tax 0.80% against 0.89%.
Billings vs Bozeman — Billings by $5,914 a year. Price level 93.526 against 102.51; property tax 0.80% against 0.60%.
Billings vs Helena — Billings by $1,530 a year. Price level 93.526 against 95.675; property tax 0.80% against 0.76%.
Billings vs Great Falls — Billings by $3,098 a year. Price level 93.526 against 96.845; property tax 0.80% against 0.92%.
Bozeman vs Missoula — Missoula by $3,240 a year. Price level 102.51 against 96.445; property tax 0.60% against 0.89%.
Helena vs Missoula — Helena by $1,143 a year. Price level 95.675 against 96.445; property tax 0.76% against 0.89%.
Bozeman vs Helena — Helena by $4,384 a year. Price level 102.51 against 95.675; property tax 0.60% against 0.76%.
Great Falls vs Missoula — Missoula by $424 a year. Price level 96.845 against 96.445; property tax 0.92% against 0.89%.
Bozeman vs Great Falls — Great Falls by $2,816 a year. Price level 102.51 against 96.845; property tax 0.60% against 0.92%.
Great Falls vs Helena — Helena by $1,567 a year. Price level 96.845 against 95.675; property tax 0.92% against 0.76%.
Every Montana city, and what it can be compared with
The areas themselves, largest first. Each line has what defines that city on the two measures that matter here, and then every comparison it takes part in:
Billings — 187k people across 3 counties. Price level 93.526, housing 77.364, property tax 0.80%. Compared with Missoula, Bozeman, Helena, Great Falls.
Missoula — 124k people across 2 counties. Price level 96.445, housing 94.945, property tax 0.89%. Compared with Billings, Bozeman, Helena, Great Falls.
Bozeman — 122k people across 1 county. Price level 102.51, housing 139.188, property tax 0.60%. Compared with Billings, Missoula, Helena, Great Falls.
Helena — 92k people across 3 counties. Price level 95.675, housing 90.141, property tax 0.76%. Compared with Billings, Missoula, Bozeman, Great Falls.
Great Falls — 85k people across 1 county. Price level 96.845, housing 97.115, property tax 0.92%. Compared with Billings, Missoula, Bozeman, Helena.
The counties behind each rate
Nobody pays a metropolitan area's property tax rate. They pay their county's, and the figures above are those county rates averaged and weighted by how many homes each county holds. Opened up:
Billings averages 0.80% across 3 counties: Yellowstone County 0.84%, Carbon County 0.55%, Stillwater County 0.60%. Inside the area the rate runs from 0.55% in Carbon County to 0.84% in Yellowstone County, which is $1,168 a year on a $400,000 home — a real spread inside a single labour market.
Missoula averages 0.89% across 2 counties: Missoula County 0.91%, Mineral County 0.55%. Inside the area the rate runs from 0.55% in Mineral County to 0.91% in Missoula County, which is $1,420 a year on a $400,000 home — a real spread inside a single labour market.
Bozeman averages 0.60% across 1 county: Gallatin County 0.60%. One county, so the area rate is that county's rate exactly — no averaging involved.
Helena averages 0.76% across 3 counties: Lewis and Clark County 0.81%, Jefferson County 0.56%, Broadwater County 0.61%. Inside the area the rate runs from 0.56% in Jefferson County to 0.81% in Lewis and Clark County, which is $993 a year on a $400,000 home — a real spread inside a single labour market.
Great Falls averages 0.92% across 1 county: Cascade County 0.92%. One county, so the area rate is that county's rate exactly — no averaging involved.
Which is the limitation of every figure on this page, stated rather than buried: an area rate is an average, and your address decides what you actually pay. The county pages linked above carry the rate, the assessment basis and the source for each one.
Where Montana cities sit among the 380 in the country
A state ranking answers "where in Montana". It does not answer whether Montana is an expensive place to begin with, and the two questions have different answers often enough to be worth separating.
Against all 380 metropolitan areas the Bureau of Economic Analysis prices, Bozeman ranks 49 and Billings ranks 190, counting from the most expensive. The national median area sits at 93.492 — Monroe — so 5 of these 5 Montana areas are dearer than the typical American metropolitan area and 0 are cheaper.
Neither end of this state reaches the national extremes, which run from 115.613 to 83.597.
The distinction matters for a specific reason. Everything on this page holds the income tax constant because these cities share a state; the moment a move crosses a state line that stops being true, and the comparison becomes the harder one — which is what Montana against every other state is for.
The tax that is the same in all 5
Worth spelling out, because it is what makes the ranking above readable at all. On $100,000, in every one of these areas:
Federal income tax — $13,170. Set by Congress, identical everywhere in the United States.
Social Security and Medicare — $7,650. Also federal, and also flat across the country up to the Social Security ceiling.
Montana income tax — $4,289. One set of brackets for the whole state, one standard deduction, applied identically in every city on this page.
Local income tax — $0. Montana does not permit counties, cities or school districts to levy their own. That is not a modelling shortcut, it is the law, and it is the condition on which these pages get published: in the eleven states that do permit it, the levying jurisdictions do not line up with metropolitan areas and no honest rate can be assigned.
Which leaves property tax as the only tax in the whole comparison that moves — from $2,397 to $3,676 a year on the same $400,000 home — and the price level as the only other thing. Two variables, both measured, both sourced. It is as clean as a cost-of-living comparison gets.
Billings stays on top whether you rent or buy
A ranking built on one salary and one house value is worth exactly as much as its assumptions, so here are the same 5 areas resolved again with those assumptions changed.
Renting, with no property tax at all: Billings still leads, by $7,018 over Bozeman. The order does not depend on owning a house.
On $60,000 instead of $100,000: Billings still leads. The gap narrows to $3,425 — smaller in dollars, but a larger share of a smaller salary.
On $250,000: Billings still leads, and by $14,865 — the spread widens with income, because the price level applies to everything you have left after tax.
This is the same discipline applied to a single published figure elsewhere on this site: a number without its range is half a number. Every page linked above lets you set your own salary, your own house and your own horizon, and recomputes the whole comparison rather than scaling it.
How this is worked out, and what it does not claim
Every row is the same calculation: gross salary in, federal income tax and FICA out, Montana income tax out, property tax on a $400,000 home out — then what is left divided by that area's price level, so the figure is what the money buys rather than what the payslip says.
The price index is the Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parity, 2024, published per metropolitan area with a documented method and broken into housing, goods, utilities and services. Which counties make up each area comes from the Census Bureau delineation file, joined by CBSA code and never by name — there are thirty "Washington County" in the United States and a join on names would have failed silently.
US Bureau of Economic Analysis — Regional Price Parities by State and Metro Area, 2024 (released 19 February 2026) — read 2026-09-10. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area
US Census Bureau — Core Based Statistical Areas delineation file, 2023 (which counties form each metropolitan area) — read 2026-09-10. https://www.census.gov/geographies/reference-files/time-series/demo/metro-micro/delineation-files.html
US Census Bureau, American Community Survey — county effective property tax rates and housing units — read 2026-08-31. https://data.census.gov/
What it does not claim: that the city at the top is the better place to live. This measures what a salary buys. Schools, the commute, the weather and how far you are from your family are not in it, and on a move inside one state they are usually what actually decides it.
It also assumes one salary, one house value and a buyer rather than a renter. Every page linked above lets you change all three, and the answer moves with them — on some pairs enough to change which city comes out ahead.
Where to go next
Questions
- Which city in Montana leaves you best off?
- Billings, at $76,632 of purchasing power on $100,000 with a $400,000 home — $5,914 a year more than Bozeman at the other end of the table. Because the income tax is identical everywhere in Montana, that ranking is made of two things only: the price level and property tax.
- Which is the cheapest city in Montana?
- Billings, at 93.526 on the Bureau of Economic Analysis price index where 100 is the US average, against 102.51 in Bozeman. Cheapest is not the same as best off, though: property tax is set separately and can move a household by $822 a year on the same house.
- Does income tax differ between cities in Montana?
- No. Montana sets one set of brackets for the whole state, and it does not let counties or cities levy their own income tax. On $100,000 the bill is federal $13,170, FICA $7,650 and state $4,289 in every one of these 5 areas. That is what makes comparing them clean.
- How much does cost of living vary inside Montana?
- From 93.526 to 102.51 on the price index — 9.0 points between Billings and Bozeman. In take-home terms that is $5,914 a year of purchasing power on the same salary.
- How many Montana city comparisons are there?
- 10, one page each, every pair of the 5 metropolitan areas the Bureau of Economic Analysis prices in Montana. Each resolves the same way — income tax, property tax and price level — and each shows the break-even salary in both directions.