Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington vs Reno

Cost of living comparison based on BEA Regional Price Parities. Reno is 2% less expensive than Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington.

2% less expensive

Reno, NV is 2% less expensive than Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX on BEA Regional Price Parities (overall RPP 101.0 vs 103.1). A $100,000 salary in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington buys about the same as $97,986 in Reno; the largest component gap is goods.

  • Overall RPP 103.1 (Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington) vs 101.0 (Reno)
  • $100k in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington ≈ $97,986 purchasing power in Reno
  • Goods drives the gap (-6.6 RPP points)

RPP parity plate

Pair TX:NV 103.1→101.0

TIER-NEAR · CROSS-STATE · SPLIT-BUDGET · BOTH-ABOVE · PP-PAR

  • TIER-NEAR Near tier
  • CROSS-STATE TX × NV
  • SPLIT-BUDGET Split budget
  • BOTH-ABOVE Both above 100
  • PP-PAR PP near-par

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
Reno
101.0
Goods
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
102.8
Reno
96.3
Services
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
90.7
Reno
89.3
Rents
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
117.9
Reno
123.5

Vertical line = national average (100)

What This Comparison Actually Tells You

Goods creates the largest separation: Reno is 6.6 points lower. But rents move against the overall direction, so this is a split budget rather than a clean across-the-board winner.

Reno, NV is 2% less expensive than Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX, a meaningful but not extreme shift. The move decision turns on which budget category creates the 2.1-point overall gap.

Both metros exceed the U.S. benchmark of 100. The choice is between two national premiums, so local wages need to clear the higher baseline in either market.

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

For a goods-led difference, remember that many tradable prices vary less by address than housing or labor-priced services. Use $97,986 in Reno as the BEA equivalent of $100,000 in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, then replace the national basket with your own.

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
103.1
Cost Index
Reno
101.0
Cost Index

Salary Equivalents

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

In Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington In Reno Difference
$50,000 $48,993 $-1,007
$75,000 $73,490 $-1,510
$100,000 $97,986 $-2,014
$150,000 $146,979 $-3,021
$ in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington = in Reno

Same BEA Regional Price Parity ratio as the table above (103.1 → 101.0), computed live from your number, nothing is sent anywhere.

How the Price Gap Changed

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington and Reno share 17 published annual releases from 2008 through 2024. Their overall gap widened, moving from 0.0 to 2.1 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 13.2 points between the first and latest shared releases (14.7 to 1.4 points). This describes a relative price-index history, not a forecast or a household budget.

Release Year Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington RPP Reno RPP Relative Gap
2008 101.4 101.3 0.0 points Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington higher
2012 100.8 102.5 1.7 points Reno higher
2016 98.0 98.2 0.1 points Reno higher
2020 104.5 98.3 6.3 points Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington higher
2024 103.1 101.0 2.1 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 Reno more expensive than Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington?

Reno is 2% less expensive than Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington. The overall cost index is 101.0 vs 103.1 (national average = 100).

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

A $100,000 salary in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington has the same purchasing power as $97,986 in Reno. This is based on the BEA Regional Price Parity indexes.

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

Rents in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington are indexed at 117.9 while Reno is at 123.5 (national average = 100). Reno 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.