Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington vs Carson City

Cost of living comparison based on BEA Regional Price Parities. Carson City is 4.8% less expensive than Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington.

4.8% less expensive

Carson City, NV is 4.8% less expensive than Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX on BEA Regional Price Parities (overall RPP 98.1 vs 103.1). A $100,000 salary in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington buys about the same as $95,189 in Carson City; the largest component gap is rents.

  • Overall RPP 103.1 (Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington) vs 98.1 (Carson City)
  • $100k in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington ≈ $95,189 purchasing power in Carson City
  • Rents drives the gap (-16.7 RPP points)

RPP parity plate

Pair TX:NV 103.1→98.1

TIER-NEAR · CROSS-STATE · SPLIT-BUDGET · BENCH-CROSS · PP-SHIFT

  • TIER-NEAR Near tier
  • CROSS-STATE TX × NV
  • SPLIT-BUDGET Split budget
  • BENCH-CROSS Benchmark cross
  • PP-SHIFT PP shift

Instrument codes from this pair's BEA Regional Price Parities (overall · goods · services · rents · national benchmark 100 · purchasing-power conversion), not a ranking or recommendation.

Category Breakdown

Visual Comparison

Overall
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
103.1
Carson City
98.1
Goods
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
102.8
Carson City
96.3
Services
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
90.7
Carson City
92.7
Rents
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
117.9
Carson City
101.2

Vertical line = national average (100)

What This Comparison Actually Tells You

Rents creates the largest separation: Carson City is 16.7 points lower. But services move against the overall direction, so this is a split budget rather than a clean across-the-board winner.

Carson City, NV is 4.8% less expensive than Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX, a meaningful but not extreme shift. The move decision turns on which budget category creates the 5.0-point overall gap.

This route crosses the national benchmark: Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington is above 100 while Carson City is below it. That makes the move a change of price regime, not merely a rank swap.

Comparable population context is incomplete for this pair, so no market-scale explanation is inferred from the price indexes.

For a housing-sensitive move, validate the rent gap first: HUD Fair Market Rent and the actual unit size can overturn what the blended index implies. On the BEA ratio alone, $100,000 in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington corresponds to $95,189 in Carson City.

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
103.1
Cost Index
Carson City
98.1
Cost Index

Salary Equivalents

What a salary in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington would need to be in Carson City for the same purchasing power:

In Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington In Carson City Difference
$50,000 $47,594 $-2,406
$75,000 $71,392 $-3,608
$100,000 $95,189 $-4,811
$150,000 $142,783 $-7,217
$ in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington = in Carson City

Same BEA Regional Price Parity ratio as the table above (103.1 → 98.1), computed live from your number, nothing is sent anywhere.

How the Price Gap Changed

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington and Carson City share 17 published annual releases from 2008 through 2024. Their overall gap widened, moving from 1.5 to 5.0 RPP points. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington remained the higher-index metro in the latest release.

Services changed the most within this pair: its gap moved 24.4 points between the first and latest shared releases (22.4 to 2.0 points). This describes a relative price-index history, not a forecast or a household budget.

Release Year Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington RPP Carson City RPP Relative Gap
2008 101.4 99.8 1.5 points Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington higher
2012 100.8 95.1 5.6 points Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington higher
2016 98.0 96.1 2.0 points Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington higher
2020 104.5 94.9 9.6 points Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington higher
2024 103.1 98.1 5.0 points Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington higher

Annual BEA Regional Price Parity releases; a higher index means a higher price level relative to the national average of 100. Selected years shown from the full shared series.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Carson City more expensive than Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington?

Carson City is 4.8% less expensive than Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington. The overall cost index is 98.1 vs 103.1 (national average = 100).

What salary in Carson City equals $100K in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington?

A $100,000 salary in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington has the same purchasing power as $95,189 in Carson City. This is based on the BEA Regional Price Parity indexes.

How do rents compare between Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington and Carson City?

Rents in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington are indexed at 117.9 while Carson City is at 101.2 (national average = 100). Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington has higher rents.

Data sourced from official public datasets, Regional Price Parities (2024), index where national average = 100. Retrieved and formatted by PlainCost. See our methodology for details.

Every figure on PlainCost is rendered directly from BEA Regional Price Parity source data, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, our changelog, or report a data error. Data current as of 2026-08-11. Rankings measure the published cost-of-living index only; we don't recommend where to live or rate any metro's quality of life.