Alaska vs Washington
A tax calculator says the difference is $279 a year. Once you count what a dollar actually buys in each, Alaska is $3,465 ahead — $34,648 over 10 years.
Property tax is set by counties, not states. Inside Texas alone the rate varies six times over, so this is the single choice that changes the answer most.
Does it work everywhere in Washington?
in what the money buys · $34,648 over 10 years
You need 5.3% more for the move to break even.
Who worked this out, and what it is built on
I build and maintain every comparison on this site — 1275 state pairs so far, on the same engine that runs the tax calculators for all 50 states and 3,143 counties. This is not a template with two names swapped into it: Alaska and Washington are run through the actual rules of each place, and if the numbers say the move is not worth it, that is what the page says.
Four sources, and one deliberate refusal. Federal figures from the IRS revenue procedure. State rates read one state at a time off each state’s own department of revenue. County property tax from the US Census Bureau. Cost of living from the Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parities, 2024 — and not from Numbeo or any other crowd-sourced index, because those are filled in by users, publish no methodology, and cannot be cited. That single choice is most of why the cost-of-living numbers here differ from everybody else’s.
When I get something wrong I publish the correction with the date and what it cost — including the two mistakes on these pages I found myself. Data last verified September 1, 2026.
Where to go from here
Almost nobody is choosing between exactly two places. These are the questions that usually come next, with the answer already attached so you can see which is worth opening.
Other moves involving Alaska or Washington
States that sit near Washington on prices compared against Alaska, and the mirror of that. The comparison you would run next.
- Alaska vs New York— Alaska by $13,747
- Alaska vs Massachusetts— Alaska by $8,403
- Alaska vs New Jersey— Alaska by $13,696
- Rhode Island vs Washington— Washington by $2,112
- Colorado vs Washington— Colorado by $661
- Florida vs Washington— Florida by $2,664
Each state on its own
The full detail behind each half of the comparison above.
The counties that decide it
Property tax is set by county, and the spread inside one state beats most state pairs.
- Copper River Census Area, Alaska— 0.08%, the cheapest
- Dillingham Census Area, Alaska— 1.76%, the dearest
- San Juan County, Washington— 0.57%, the cheapest
- Pierce County, Washington— 0.94%, the dearest
Similar in price to Alaska
States that sit next to Alaska on the price index — often the comparison people should have run.
- Florida— 103.4 on prices
- Oregon— 103.4 on prices
- Colorado— 103.1 on prices
- Rhode Island— 102.3 on prices
- Every Alaska comparison— all 50
- Every Washington comparison— all 50
- The nine states with no income tax— and what they charge instead
Alaska or Washington is a housing decision: Washington housing runs 34.3% dearer
The tax difference between Alaska and Washington is real but it is not what decides this one. On $100,000 with a $400,000 home, take-home moves by $279 a year. Housing moves by far more: the housing component of the official price index is 93.8 in Alaska against 126 in Washington, a gap of 32.2 points against just 4.6 on the index as a whole.
Which means a single blended cost-of-living number would hide the only variable that matters here. Put the housing gap into the arithmetic and Alaska comes out $3,465 a year ahead in what the money buys — $34,648 over 10 years. If you rent a small flat, most of that advantage never reaches you; if you buy a family house, it is understated.
Where the two sit nationally: Washington is the 6th most expensive place to live of the 51 — the 50 states and the District of Columbia — and Alaska is 14th. Housing, the component that moves most, is 93.8 against 126.
Grey columns are what a year of Alaska and a year of Washington are worth in the same money. The bars between them are each thing that changes, in the order it changes: green adds, amber takes away.
Neither Alaska nor Washington taxes income, so nothing here is about income tax
Both of these states levy no state income tax at all, which removes the layer that almost every comparison of two states is built on. The federal bill is $13,170 and FICA $7,650, identical in both because both are federal. State income tax is zero on both sides.
So what is left is the part usually treated as a footnote. Property tax: $2,866 in Alaska against $3,145 in Washington on a $400,000 home, at each state's median local rate — a difference of $279 a year, and on this pair it is the entire tax story.
And the price level, which is the larger half: 102.4 against 107. Between two states with no income tax, the choice is decided almost entirely by property tax and prices — which is a useful thing to know before choosing between them on the strength of a headline they share.
Where the money actually goes, line by line
Before the layers, the conclusion they lead to: on this pair the tax code is a side issue. The price level moves the answer 11.4 times more than the largest single tax difference between Alaska and Washington. The five layers still deserve walking, because they are what people arrive believing decides it:
Federal income tax — $13,170 either way. Identical, because it is federal. Any comparison that shows a difference here is wrong.
FICA — $7,650 either way. Also federal, also identical.
State income tax — $0 in Alaska, $0 in Washington. Alaska does not levy one at all, which is the fact that sells the move — and, as the next line shows, not the fact that decides it.
Property tax — $2,866 in Alaska, $3,145 in Washington on a $400,000 home, at each state's median local rate. This is bigger than the income tax difference, and it runs the other way — which is the whole reason the headline number disappoints.
Local income tax — zero on both sides. Alaska has none at any level, state or local — and that holds for all nine states without a state income tax, none of which lets a county or city levy one either. The two go together.
Total: $23,686 in Alaska against $23,965 in Washington — 23.7% and 24.0% of gross.
And Washington housing costs 34.3% more
The cost of living gap between Alaska and Washington is almost entirely a housing gap, and that is only visible because the Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parity publishes its components separately rather than as one blended number. 100 is the national average.
Cheaper in Washington than AlaskaDearer in Washington than Alaska
Each bar is how far apart Alaska and Washington are on that component, and which way. Housing almost always runs several times wider than everything else — which is why a single blended index tells you very little.
All items — 102.4 in Alaska, 107 in Washington. A gap of 4.6 points.
Housing — 93.8 against 126. A gap of 32.2 points, 7.0× the headline gap. This is what people mean when they say somewhere is expensive.
Goods — 106.3 against 104.4, 1.9 points apart — 16.9 times narrower than the housing gap — and typical: across all 1,275 pairs the median is 2.7 points for goods against 24.9 for housing. Blended into one figure, what you are reading is mostly housing wearing a general label.
Utilities — 119 against 92.9. 26.1 points, the second widest component after housing on this pair, and large enough to matter to anyone heating or cooling a big house.
Which half of this reaches you depends on whether you buy. Renting, the real difference between Alaska and Washington is $3,324 a year — property tax comes out of your side entirely, and what is left is the price level. Buying a $400,000 home it is $3,465. So buying widens the gap by $141: the more house you own, the more this comparison is worth to you.
The number to take into a salary negotiation: $105,270
This is the question people are actually asking and almost nobody answers: what would I need to earn in Washington to live exactly as well as I do on $100,000 in Alaska?
$105,270. That is 5.3% more than you earn now. Anything less than $105,270 and the move costs you money however it is presented.
The dashed line is the salary you earn now. The solid line is what matches it in Washington. If the relationship were a simple multiplier the two would be parallel — they are not, because brackets, the Social Security ceiling and a property tax that does not move with income all bend it.
The obvious shortcut fails here, and by a measurable amount. Scaling your salary by the ratio of price levels — $100,000 × 107/102.4 — gives $104,492. The answer is $105,270, so the shortcut is $778 too low: brackets, the Social Security ceiling and a property tax that ignores income all bend the line the shortcut assumes is straight.
The figure belongs to the two states and your income. On $40,000 the match in Washington is $42,106, 5.3% above what you earn; on $250,000 it is $262,764, 5.1% above. The relationship bends by 0.2% across that range.
Over 10 years: $34,648
At $3,465 a year, 10 years in Alaska comes to $34,648 — and the county choice inside Alaska is worth $66,980 over the same period. Both are real; only one of them is in the headline.
At $3,465 a year of real difference, 10 years in Alaska instead of Washington is worth $34,648 in today's purchasing power — before compounding anything you might invest it in.
The line starts below zero because moving costs about $15,000 and lands entirely in year one. It takes until year 5 for the move to pay for itself. That is the figure a per-year comparison hides.
And it is slower to arrive than the annual figure suggests. Reckoning $15,000 for removal, fees and the cost of selling — an assumption this page makes, not a figure from a source — at $3,465 a year it takes 4.3 years to recover — so the annual figure only becomes yours from year 6.
At three horizons: $10,394 over three years, $34,648 over 10, $103,945 over thirty — and the three-year figure does not clear the cost of getting there.
None of those figures contains the one variable that could overturn them: the same job rarely pays the same in Alaska and Washington. That is what the $105,270 break-even above is for — it prices an offer instead of assuming the offer is identical.
Choosing the county matters more than choosing the state here
This comparison is worth $3,465 a year. Choosing where inside Alaska to live is worth $6,698 a year on the same $400,000 home — 1.9 times as much.
Alaska has 26 boroughs and census areas and the effective property tax rate runs from 0.08% in Copper River Census Area to 1.76% in Dillingham Census Area. Move to the wrong borough or census area in the better state and you have given back more than the move gained you, twice over.
Which reframes the question. Rather than "Alaska or Washington", the decision that carries the money is which borough or census area inside Alaska — and the answer is not visible on any comparison that stops at the state line. Set both in the calculator above and every figure on this page recomputes on your actual rates rather than two medians.
The same logic applies to the losing side: Washington has counties cheaper than the median used here too, and for a reader who is staying put, moving county at home may be the better version of this decision.
Where every number here comes from
Four sources, each read off the body that publishes it:
US Bureau of Economic Analysis — Regional Price Parities by State and Metro Area, 2024 (released 19 February 2026) — read 2026-09-08. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area
IRS — Revenue Procedure for the tax year (federal brackets, standard deduction and FICA) — read 2026-09-02. https://www.irs.gov/
Each state's own department of revenue (state income tax rates and deductions), verified one state at a time — read 2026-09-02. https://estimatetax.net/sources/
US Census Bureau, American Community Survey (county effective property tax rates) — read 2026-08-31. https://data.census.gov/
The cost of living index is the part worth checking, because it is where comparison sites usually reach for something crowd-sourced. The Regional Price Parities are produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, cover every state and metro area, and are published with a methodology document. The figures here are the 2024 release and are not extrapolated forward.
And what this page does not model:
— The cost of living index is the BEA's Regional Price Parity for 2024, the most recent published. It is not extrapolated to the current year, and it is a state-wide average — inside a state, a metro area and a rural county differ by more than most state pairs do.
— Moving costs, state transfer taxes on buying a home, and the cost of selling the one you have are not included. On a short stay they can outweigh every annual difference on this page.
— Sales tax is not modelled. It is inside the BEA index — that is what a price parity measures — but it is not broken out separately here.
— The comparison assumes the same salary in both places unless you change it. In practice a job in a high-cost state usually pays more, which is exactly what the break-even figure is for.
— Health insurance, childcare and car insurance vary enormously by state and are only inside the index as averages. If any of the three is a large part of your budget, it deserves its own arithmetic.
Where to go next
Questions
- Is it cheaper to live in Alaska or Washington?
- Alaska, by $3,465 a year in real purchasing power on $100,000 with a $400,000 home. The take-home difference is only $279; the rest comes from the cost of living, where Alaska indexes at 102.4 and Washington at 107 against a national average of 100.
- How much do I need to earn in Washington to match $100,000 in Alaska?
- $105,270 — 5.3% more. That accounts for federal tax, FICA, state tax, property tax and the price level in each state.
- What are the taxes in Alaska vs Washington?
- On $100,000: state income tax of $0 in Alaska against $0 in Washington, and property tax of $2,866 against $3,145 on a $400,000 home at median county rates. Federal tax and FICA are identical in both — $13,170 and $7,650 — so any comparison showing a difference there is wrong.
- Does Washington really have lower property tax?
- That depends entirely on the county, which is why a state-level answer is not much use. Washington runs from 0.57% in San Juan County to 0.94% in Pierce County — 1.7 times, or $1,487 a year on a $400,000 home. The median is 0.79%.
- How much is the difference over 10 years?
- $34,648 in today's purchasing power, at $3,465 a year. That excludes moving and housing transaction costs, which land in year one and can outweigh everything else on a short stay.
- Where does your cost of living data come from?
- The Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parities for 2024, an official index covering every state and metro area with a published methodology. Not a crowd-sourced database — and it comes broken into housing, goods, utilities and services, which matters because housing moves several times more than anything else.