Washington cities compared
All 11 Washington metropolitan areas on the same $100,000 salary and the same $400,000 home. Yakima leaves you $11,262 a year better off than Seattle — and none of it is income tax, which is identical everywhere in the state.
Yakima to Seattle: $11,262 a year apart, same tax code
Washington has 11 metropolitan areas with a published price index, and on $100,000 with a $400,000 home they are not interchangeable: $79,448 of purchasing power in Yakima against $68,186 in Seattle — $11,262 a year, 11.3% 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, Washington state income tax $0 — the state does not levy one, and no county or city in Washington 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1Yakima | $79,448 | best | 95.545 | 0.82% |
| 2Longview-Kelso | $77,838 | −$1,610 | 97.545 | 0.81% |
| 3Walla Walla | $76,710 | −$2,738 | 98.519 | 0.90% |
| 4Kennewick-Richland | $75,996 | −$3,452 | 100.079 | 0.78% |
| 5Spokane-Spokane Valley | $75,543 | −$3,905 | 100.346 | 0.84% |
| 6Mount Vernon-Anacortes | $74,073 | −$5,375 | 102.443 | 0.82% |
| 7Bellingham | $73,868 | −$5,580 | 103.334 | 0.71% |
| 8Wenatchee-East Wenatchee | $73,410 | −$6,038 | 103.855 | 0.73% |
| 9Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater | $72,922 | −$6,526 | 103.67 | 0.90% |
| 10Bremerton-Silverdale-Port Orchard | $71,958 | −$7,490 | 105.607 | 0.80% |
| 11Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue | $68,186 | −$11,262 | 111.133 | 0.85% |
Purchasing power on a $100,000 salary with a $400,000 home: take-home after federal, FICA, Washington 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.
8 of the 11 price above the national average and 3 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 0.71% in Bellingham to 0.90% in Walla Walla — on a $400,000 home that is $2,850 against $3,606 a year, a difference of $756. 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 55 Washington comparisons, resolved
Every pair of Washington 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:
Seattle vs Spokane — Spokane by $7,357 a year. Price level 111.133 against 100.346; property tax 0.85% against 0.84%.
Kennewick vs Seattle — Kennewick by $7,810 a year. Price level 100.079 against 111.133; property tax 0.78% against 0.85%.
Olympia vs Seattle — Olympia by $4,736 a year. Price level 103.67 against 111.133; property tax 0.90% against 0.85%.
Bremerton vs Seattle — Bremerton by $3,772 a year. Price level 105.607 against 111.133; property tax 0.80% against 0.85%.
Seattle vs Yakima — Yakima by $11,262 a year. Price level 111.133 against 95.545; property tax 0.85% against 0.82%.
Bellingham vs Seattle — Bellingham by $5,682 a year. Price level 103.334 against 111.133; property tax 0.71% against 0.85%.
Mount Vernon vs Seattle — Mount Vernon by $5,887 a year. Price level 102.443 against 111.133; property tax 0.82% against 0.85%.
Seattle vs Wenatchee — Wenatchee by $5,224 a year. Price level 111.133 against 103.855; property tax 0.85% against 0.73%.
Longview vs Seattle — Longview by $9,652 a year. Price level 97.545 against 111.133; property tax 0.81% against 0.85%.
Seattle vs Walla Walla — Walla Walla by $8,524 a year. Price level 111.133 against 98.519; property tax 0.85% against 0.90%.
Kennewick vs Spokane — Kennewick by $453 a year. Price level 100.079 against 100.346; property tax 0.78% against 0.84%.
Olympia vs Spokane — Spokane by $2,621 a year. Price level 103.67 against 100.346; property tax 0.90% against 0.84%.
Bremerton vs Spokane — Spokane by $3,585 a year. Price level 105.607 against 100.346; property tax 0.80% against 0.84%.
Spokane vs Yakima — Yakima by $3,905 a year. Price level 100.346 against 95.545; property tax 0.84% against 0.82%.
Bellingham vs Spokane — Spokane by $1,675 a year. Price level 103.334 against 100.346; property tax 0.71% against 0.84%.
Mount Vernon vs Spokane — Spokane by $1,470 a year. Price level 102.443 against 100.346; property tax 0.82% against 0.84%.
Spokane vs Wenatchee — Spokane by $2,133 a year. Price level 100.346 against 103.855; property tax 0.84% against 0.73%.
Longview vs Spokane — Longview by $2,295 a year. Price level 97.545 against 100.346; property tax 0.81% against 0.84%.
Spokane vs Walla Walla — Walla Walla by $1,167 a year. Price level 100.346 against 98.519; property tax 0.84% against 0.90%.
Kennewick vs Olympia — Kennewick by $3,074 a year. Price level 100.079 against 103.67; property tax 0.78% against 0.90%.
Bremerton vs Kennewick — Kennewick by $4,038 a year. Price level 105.607 against 100.079; property tax 0.80% against 0.78%.
Bremerton vs Olympia — Olympia by $964 a year. Price level 105.607 against 103.67; property tax 0.80% against 0.90%.
Kennewick vs Yakima — Yakima by $3,452 a year. Price level 100.079 against 95.545; property tax 0.78% against 0.82%.
Olympia vs Yakima — Yakima by $6,526 a year. Price level 103.67 against 95.545; property tax 0.90% against 0.82%.
And 31 more pairs of Washington cities, each with its own page.
Every Washington 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:
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue — 4.0m people across 3 counties. Price level 111.133, housing 151.314, property tax 0.85%. Compared with Spokane, Kennewick, Olympia, Bremerton, Yakima, Bellingham, Mount Vernon, Wenatchee, Longview, Walla Walla.
Spokane-Spokane Valley — 592k people across 2 counties. Price level 100.346, housing 97.059, property tax 0.84%. Compared with Seattle, Kennewick, Olympia, Bremerton, Yakima, Bellingham, Mount Vernon, Wenatchee, Longview, Walla Walla.
Kennewick-Richland — 308k people across 2 counties. Price level 100.079, housing 94.824, property tax 0.78%. Compared with Seattle, Spokane, Olympia, Bremerton, Yakima, Bellingham, Mount Vernon, Wenatchee, Longview, Walla Walla.
Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater — 297k people across 1 county. Price level 103.67, housing 116.675, property tax 0.90%. Compared with Seattle, Spokane, Kennewick, Bremerton, Yakima, Bellingham, Mount Vernon, Wenatchee, Longview, Walla Walla.
Bremerton-Silverdale-Port Orchard — 277k people across 1 county. Price level 105.607, housing 129.641, property tax 0.80%. Compared with Seattle, Spokane, Kennewick, Olympia, Yakima, Bellingham, Mount Vernon, Wenatchee, Longview, Walla Walla.
Yakima — 257k people across 1 county. Price level 95.545, housing 72.628, property tax 0.82%. Compared with Seattle, Spokane, Kennewick, Olympia, Bremerton, Bellingham, Mount Vernon, Wenatchee, Longview, Walla Walla.
Bellingham — 228k people across 1 county. Price level 103.334, housing 112.946, property tax 0.71%. Compared with Seattle, Spokane, Kennewick, Olympia, Bremerton, Yakima, Mount Vernon, Wenatchee, Longview, Walla Walla.
Mount Vernon-Anacortes — 130k people across 1 county. Price level 102.443, housing 108.165, property tax 0.82%. Compared with Seattle, Spokane, Kennewick, Olympia, Bremerton, Yakima, Bellingham, Wenatchee, Longview, Walla Walla.
Wenatchee-East Wenatchee — 123k people across 2 counties. Price level 103.855, housing 114.958, property tax 0.73%. Compared with Seattle, Spokane, Kennewick, Olympia, Bremerton, Yakima, Bellingham, Mount Vernon, Longview, Walla Walla.
Longview-Kelso — 112k people across 1 county. Price level 97.545, housing 82.536, property tax 0.81%. Compared with Seattle, Spokane, Kennewick, Olympia, Bremerton, Yakima, Bellingham, Mount Vernon, Wenatchee, Walla Walla.
Walla Walla — 62k people across 1 county. Price level 98.519, housing 86.579, property tax 0.90%. Compared with Seattle, Spokane, Kennewick, Olympia, Bremerton, Yakima, Bellingham, Mount Vernon, Wenatchee, Longview.
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:
Seattle averages 0.85% across 3 counties: King County 0.84%, Pierce County 0.94%, Snohomish County 0.79%. Inside the area the rate runs from 0.79% in Snohomish County to 0.94% in Pierce County, which is $584 a year on a $400,000 home — a real spread inside a single labour market.
Spokane averages 0.84% across 2 counties: Spokane County 0.86%, Stevens County 0.65%. Inside the area the rate runs from 0.65% in Stevens County to 0.86% in Spokane County, which is $832 a year on a $400,000 home — a real spread inside a single labour market.
Kennewick averages 0.78% across 2 counties: Benton County 0.79%, Franklin County 0.76%. Inside the area the rate runs from 0.76% in Franklin County to 0.79% in Benton County, which is $99 a year on a $400,000 home — a real spread inside a single labour market.
Olympia averages 0.90% across 1 county: Thurston County 0.90%. One county, so the area rate is that county's rate exactly — no averaging involved.
Bremerton averages 0.80% across 1 county: Kitsap County 0.80%. One county, so the area rate is that county's rate exactly — no averaging involved.
Yakima averages 0.82% across 1 county: Yakima County 0.82%. One county, so the area rate is that county's rate exactly — no averaging involved.
Bellingham averages 0.71% across 1 county: Whatcom County 0.71%. One county, so the area rate is that county's rate exactly — no averaging involved.
Mount Vernon averages 0.82% across 1 county: Skagit County 0.82%. One county, so the area rate is that county's rate exactly — no averaging involved.
Wenatchee averages 0.73% across 2 counties: Chelan County 0.71%, Douglas County 0.79%. Inside the area the rate runs from 0.71% in Chelan County to 0.79% in Douglas County, which is $301 a year on a $400,000 home — a real spread inside a single labour market.
Longview averages 0.81% across 1 county: Cowlitz County 0.81%. One county, so the area rate is that county's rate exactly — no averaging involved.
Walla Walla averages 0.90% across 1 county: Walla Walla County 0.90%. 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 Washington cities sit among the 380 in the country
A state ranking answers "where in Washington". It does not answer whether Washington 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, Seattle ranks 7 and Yakima ranks 152, counting from the most expensive. The national median area sits at 93.492 — Monroe — so 11 of these 11 Washington areas are dearer than the typical American metropolitan area and 0 are cheaper.
Seattle is in the most expensive tenth of the country, which is worth knowing before reading its position in the state table as merely "the dear one".
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 Washington against every other state is for.
The tax that is the same in all 11
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.
Washington income tax — $0. The state does not tax wage income at all, so the line is genuinely zero rather than unmodelled. One set of brackets for the whole state.
Local income tax — $0. Washington 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 $2,850 to $3,606 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.
Yakima 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 11 areas resolved again with those assumptions changed.
Renting, with no property tax at all: Yakima still leads, by $11,624 over Seattle. The order does not depend on owning a house.
On $60,000 instead of $100,000: Yakima still leads. The gap narrows to $7,036 — smaller in dollars, but a larger share of a smaller salary.
On $250,000: Yakima still leads, and by $26,530 — 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, Washington 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 Washington leaves you best off?
- Yakima, at $79,448 of purchasing power on $100,000 with a $400,000 home — $11,262 a year more than Seattle at the other end of the table. Because the income tax is identical everywhere in Washington, that ranking is made of two things only: the price level and property tax.
- Which is the cheapest city in Washington?
- Yakima, at 95.545 on the Bureau of Economic Analysis price index where 100 is the US average, against 111.133 in Seattle. Cheapest is not the same as best off, though: property tax is set separately and can move a household by $132 a year on the same house.
- Does income tax differ between cities in Washington?
- No. Washington sets one set of brackets for the whole state — in fact it does not tax wage income at all, 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 $0 in every one of these 11 areas. That is what makes comparing them clean.
- How much does cost of living vary inside Washington?
- From 95.545 to 111.133 on the price index — 15.6 points between Yakima and Seattle. In take-home terms that is $11,262 a year of purchasing power on the same salary.
- How many Washington city comparisons are there?
- 55, one page each, every pair of the 11 metropolitan areas the Bureau of Economic Analysis prices in Washington. Each resolves the same way — income tax, property tax and price level — and each shows the break-even salary in both directions.