Illinois vs Oregon
A tax calculator says the difference is $1,231 a year. Once you count what a dollar actually buys in each, Illinois is $1,012 ahead — $10,124 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 Oregon?
in what the money buys · $10,124 over 10 years
You need 1.7% 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: Illinois and Oregon 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 Illinois or Oregon
States that sit near Oregon on prices compared against Illinois, and the mirror of that. The comparison you would run next.
- Florida vs Illinois— Florida by $6,736
- Connecticut vs Illinois— Illinois by $1,297
- Colorado vs Illinois— Colorado by $4,733
- Nevada vs Oregon— Nevada by $11,172
- Delaware vs Oregon— Delaware by $6,257
- Arizona vs Oregon— Arizona by $8,526
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.
- Pulaski County, Illinois— 0.82%, the cheapest
- Lake County, Illinois— 2.68%, the dearest
- Josephine County, Oregon— 0.53%, the cheapest
- Gilliam County, Oregon— 1.01%, the dearest
Similar in price to Illinois
States that sit next to Illinois on the price index — often the comparison people should have run.
- Rhode Island— 102.3 on prices
- Virginia— 101.1 on prices
- Arizona— 100.7 on prices
- Nevada— 100 on prices
- Every Illinois comparison— all 50
- Every Oregon comparison— all 50
- The nine states with no income tax— and what they charge instead
A tax calculator says Oregon. The right answer is Illinois, by $1,012 a year
This is one of the 324 state pairs out of 1,275 where the two answers point at different states, and it is worth understanding why before trusting any comparison of these two. On $100,000 with a $400,000 home, Oregon leaves you $1,231 more in take-home. That figure is correct. It is also the wrong basis for the decision.
Because Oregon is the more expensive place to spend it. On the Bureau of Economic Analysis price index Illinois is 100 and Oregon is 103.4, national average 100. Deflate each take-home by where it gets spent and the ranking inverts: $66,989 in Illinois against $65,976 in Oregon. Illinois wins by $1,012 a year — the opposite state to the one the tax figure names, and $10,124 over 10 years.
Where the two sit nationally: Oregon is the 12th most expensive place to live of the 51 — the 50 states and the District of Columbia — and Illinois is 18th. Housing, the component that moves most, is 93.9 against 108.6.
Grey columns are what a year of Illinois and a year of Oregon 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.
Why the two answers disagree, and which one to use
It is worth being precise about what is happening here, because "the cost of living is higher" is the kind of phrase that gets used to wave away an inconvenient number, and this is not that.
Both figures are correct measurements of different things. Take-home answers: how many dollars land in your account? Oregon wins that, by $1,231. Purchasing power answers: how much can those dollars buy where you will be spending them? Illinois wins that, by $1,012. The second question is the one you are actually asking when you ask where to live.
The mechanism is arithmetic rather than opinion. Divide the Oregon take-home by its price level and you get $65,976; do the same in Illinois and you get $66,989. The whole reversal comes from a price index of 100 against 103.4, published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis for exactly this purpose.
Where the nominal figure is the right one to use: if you are working in one state and spending in another — a border commute, a remote job you will leave, a posting you will not settle in — then your costs do not follow the state you are paid in, and take-home is what matters. That is a real case and it is why both numbers appear on this page rather than only the one that supports the conclusion.
Where the money actually goes, line by line
Five separate taxes, and on this pair property tax is the biggest single difference — $4,342 against $3,111 for the income tax everybody quotes:
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 — $4,805 in Illinois, $7,916 in Oregon. A difference of $3,111.
Property tax — $7,386 in Illinois, $3,044 in Oregon 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. Both Illinois and Oregon keep income tax at the state level only, so the figures above are complete rather than approximations.
Total: $33,011 in Illinois against $31,780 in Oregon — 33.0% and 31.8% of gross.
And Oregon housing costs 15.7% more
The cost of living gap between Illinois and Oregon 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 Oregon than IllinoisDearer in Oregon than Illinois
Each bar is how far apart Illinois and Oregon 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 — 100 in Illinois, 103.4 in Oregon. A gap of 3.4 points.
Housing — 93.9 against 108.6. A gap of 14.7 points, 4.3× the headline gap. This is what people mean when they say somewhere is expensive.
Goods — 103.8 against 105.3, 1.5 points apart — 9.8 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 — 85 against 107. 22.0 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 Illinois and Oregon is $5,454 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 $1,012. So renting is where the gap is widest here, by $4,442 — unusual, and it means buying erodes the advantage rather than compounding it.
The number to take into a salary negotiation: $101,699
This is the question people are actually asking and almost nobody answers: what would I need to earn in Oregon to live exactly as well as I do on $100,000 in Illinois?
$101,699. That is 1.7% more than you earn now. Anything less than $101,699 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 Oregon. 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 × 103.4/100 — gives $103,400. The answer is $101,699, so the shortcut is $1,701 too high: 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 Oregon is $36,288, 9.3% below what you earn; on $250,000 it is $270,510, 8.2% above. The relationship bends by 17.5% across that range.
Over 10 years: $10,124
At $1,012 a year, 10 years in Illinois comes to $10,124 — and the county choice inside Illinois is worth $74,092 over the same period. Both are real; only one of them is in the headline.
At $1,012 a year of real difference, 10 years in Illinois instead of Oregon is worth $10,124 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 pays for itself inside the first year. 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 $1,012 a year it takes 14.8 years to recover — so the annual figure only becomes yours from year 16.
At three horizons: $3,037 over three years, $10,124 over 10, $30,371 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 Illinois and Oregon. That is what the $101,699 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 $1,012 a year. Choosing where inside Illinois to live is worth $7,409 a year on the same $400,000 home — 7.3 times as much.
Illinois has 102 counties and the effective property tax rate runs from 0.82% in Pulaski County to 2.68% in Lake County. Move to the wrong county in the better state and you have given back more than the move gained you, twice over.
Which reframes the question. Rather than "Illinois or Oregon", the decision that carries the money is which county inside Illinois — 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: Oregon 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 Illinois or Oregon?
- Illinois, by $1,012 a year in real purchasing power on $100,000 with a $400,000 home. The take-home difference is only $1,231; the rest comes from the cost of living, where Illinois indexes at 100 and Oregon at 103.4 against a national average of 100.
- How much do I need to earn in Oregon to match $100,000 in Illinois?
- $101,699 — 1.7% more. That accounts for federal tax, FICA, state tax, property tax and the price level in each state.
- What are the taxes in Illinois vs Oregon?
- On $100,000: state income tax of $4,805 in Illinois against $7,916 in Oregon, and property tax of $7,386 against $3,044 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 Oregon really have lower property tax?
- That depends entirely on the county, which is why a state-level answer is not much use. Oregon runs from 0.53% in Josephine County to 1.01% in Gilliam County — 1.9 times, or $1,920 a year on a $400,000 home. The median is 0.76%.
- How much is the difference over 10 years?
- $10,124 in today's purchasing power, at $1,012 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.