Minnesota vs Washington
A tax calculator says the difference is $6,107 a year. Once you count what a dollar actually buys in each, Washington is $140 ahead — $1,399 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 · $1,399 over 10 years
A pay cut of up to $213 (0.2%) still leaves you level.
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: Minnesota 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 Minnesota or Washington
States that sit near Washington on prices compared against Minnesota, and the mirror of that. The comparison you would run next.
- Minnesota vs New York— Minnesota by $10,143
- Massachusetts vs Minnesota— Minnesota by $4,799
- Minnesota vs New Jersey— Minnesota by $10,091
- Utah vs Washington— Utah by $3,441
- Vermont vs Washington— Washington by $1,460
- Pennsylvania vs Washington— Pennsylvania by $1,614
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.
- Aitkin County, Minnesota— 0.57%, the cheapest
- Ramsey County, Minnesota— 1.24%, the dearest
- San Juan County, Washington— 0.57%, the cheapest
- Pierce County, Washington— 0.94%, the dearest
Similar in price to Minnesota
States that sit next to Minnesota on the price index — often the comparison people should have run.
- Nevada— 100 on prices
- Delaware— 99.8 on prices
- Utah— 98.9 on prices
- Vermont— 98 on prices
- Every Minnesota comparison— all 50
- Every Washington comparison— all 50
- The nine states with no income tax— and what they charge instead
Minnesota or Washington is a housing decision: Washington housing runs 38.0% dearer
The tax difference between Minnesota and Washington is real but it is not what decides this one. On $100,000 with a $400,000 home, take-home moves by $6,107 a year. Housing moves by far more: the housing component of the official price index is 91.3 in Minnesota against 126 in Washington, a gap of 34.7 points against just 8.4 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 Washington comes out $140 a year ahead in what the money buys — $1,399 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 Minnesota is 22nd. Housing, the component that moves most, is 91.3 against 126.
Grey columns are what a year of Minnesota 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.
Where the money actually goes, line by line
Five separate taxes, and here they matter but they do not win: the price level shifts the answer by $6,054 against $5,277 for the biggest tax gap. Both are in play, which makes this one of the pairs where the layers are worth reading closely:
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 — $5,277 in Minnesota, $0 in Washington. Washington 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 — $3,976 in Minnesota, $3,145 in Washington on a $400,000 home, at each state's median local rate. Smaller than the income tax gap here, which is not usually the case.
Local income tax — zero on both sides. Washington 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: $30,072 in Minnesota against $23,965 in Washington — 30.1% and 24.0% of gross.
And Washington housing costs 38.0% more
The cost of living gap between Minnesota 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 MinnesotaDearer in Washington than Minnesota
Each bar is how far apart Minnesota 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 — 98.6 in Minnesota, 107 in Washington. A gap of 8.4 points.
Housing — 91.3 against 126. A gap of 34.7 points, 4.1× the headline gap. This is what people mean when they say somewhere is expensive.
Goods — 100.5 against 104.4, 3.9 points apart — 8.9 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 — 90.8 against 92.9. 2.1 points apart, close enough not to change a decision.
Which half of this reaches you depends on whether you buy. Renting, the real difference between Minnesota and Washington is $953 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 $140. So renting is where the gap is widest here, by $813 — unusual, and it means buying erodes the advantage rather than compounding it.
The number to take into a salary negotiation: $99,787
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 Minnesota?
$99,787. That is 0.2% less than you earn now. You could take a pay cut of $213 moving to Washington and be no worse off — which is a very different conversation to have with a recruiter than "Washington has lower taxes".
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 × 107/98.6 — gives $108,519. The answer is $99,787, so the shortcut is $8,732 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 Washington is $40,399, 1.0% above what you earn; on $250,000 it is $243,190, 2.7% below. The relationship bends by 3.7% across that range.
Over 10 years: $1,399
At $140 a year, 10 years in Washington comes to $1,399 — and the county choice inside Washington is worth $14,868 over the same period. Both are real; only one of them is in the headline.
At $140 a year of real difference, 10 years in Washington instead of Minnesota is worth $1,399 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 $140 a year it takes 107.2 years to recover — so the annual figure only becomes yours from year 109.
At three horizons: $420 over three years, $1,399 over 10, $4,196 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 Minnesota and Washington. That is what the $99,787 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 $140 a year. Choosing where inside Washington to live is worth $1,487 a year on the same $400,000 home — 10.6 times as much.
Washington has 39 counties and the effective property tax rate runs from 0.57% in San Juan County to 0.94% in Pierce 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 "Minnesota or Washington", the decision that carries the money is which county inside Washington — 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: Minnesota 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.
You could take a $213 pay cut to move to Washington and be no worse off
That is the version of this comparison worth taking into a negotiation, and it is not a figure any tax calculator produces.
Matching your $100,000 standard of living in Minnesota takes $99,787 in Washington — 0.2% less than you earn now. So an offer of $99,787 is not a downgrade, and an offer above it is a raise however it looks on paper.
The reverse framing is the one recruiters use, and it is worth being able to answer: a company in Minnesota offering to match your current salary is offering you less than the Washington job at $99,787. On 10 years the difference is $1,399.
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 Minnesota or Washington?
- Washington, by $140 a year in real purchasing power on $100,000 with a $400,000 home. The take-home difference is only $6,107; the rest comes from the cost of living, where Minnesota indexes at 98.6 and Washington at 107 against a national average of 100.
- How much do I need to earn in Washington to match $100,000 in Minnesota?
- $99,787 — 0.2% less than you earn now, so a pay cut of up to $213 still leaves you level. That accounts for federal tax, FICA, state tax, property tax and the price level in each state.
- What are the taxes in Minnesota vs Washington?
- On $100,000: state income tax of $5,277 in Minnesota against $0 in Washington, and property tax of $3,976 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?
- $1,399 in today's purchasing power, at $140 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.