Urban Honolulu vs Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington

Cost of living comparison based on BEA Regional Price Parities. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington is 7.1% less expensive than Urban Honolulu.

7.1% less expensive

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX is 7.1% less expensive than Urban Honolulu, HI on BEA Regional Price Parities (overall RPP 103.1 vs 111.0). A $100,000 salary in Urban Honolulu buys about the same as $92,907 in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington; the largest component gap is services.

  • Overall RPP 111.0 (Urban Honolulu) vs 103.1 (Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington)
  • $100k in Urban Honolulu ≈ $92,907 purchasing power in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
  • Services drives the gap (-96.6 RPP points)

RPP parity plate

Pair HI:TX 111.0→103.1

TIER-NEAR · CROSS-STATE · SERVICES-LED · BOTH-ABOVE · PP-SHIFT

  • TIER-NEAR Near tier
  • CROSS-STATE HI × TX
  • SERVICES-LED Services-led gap
  • BOTH-ABOVE Both above 100
  • 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.

What This Comparison Actually Tells You

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.

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX is 7.1% less expensive than Urban Honolulu, HI, a meaningful but not extreme shift. The move decision turns on which budget category creates the 7.9-point overall gap.

Services leads the difference, with Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington 96.6 points lower than Urban Honolulu. Goods, services, and rents all point in the same broad direction, making the headline comparison more transferable across household types.

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

For a service-heavy household, test childcare, health, and other locally supplied costs before relying on rent alone. The BEA ratio converts $100,000 in Urban Honolulu to $92,907 in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, but it is not a personal spending weight.

How the Price Gap Changed

Urban Honolulu and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington share 17 published annual releases from 2008 through 2024. Their overall gap narrowed, moving from 10.5 to 7.9 RPP points. Urban Honolulu remained the higher-index metro in the latest release.

Services changed the most within this pair: its gap moved 60.8 points between the first and latest shared releases (157.3 to 96.6 points). This describes a relative price-index history, not a forecast or a household budget.

Release Year Urban Honolulu RPP Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington RPP Relative Gap
2008 111.9 101.4 10.5 points Urban Honolulu higher
2012 112.4 100.8 11.6 points Urban Honolulu higher
2016 113.4 98.0 15.3 points Urban Honolulu higher
2020 115.7 104.5 11.1 points Urban Honolulu higher
2024 111.0 103.1 7.9 points Urban Honolulu 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.

Category Breakdown

Visual Comparison

Overall
Urban Honolulu
111.0
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
103.1
Goods
Urban Honolulu
111.6
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
102.8
Services
Urban Honolulu
187.3
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
90.7
Rents
Urban Honolulu
135.5
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
117.9

Vertical line = national average (100)

Salary Equivalents

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

In Urban Honolulu In Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington Difference
$50,000 $46,453 $-3,547
$75,000 $69,680 $-5,320
$100,000 $92,907 $-7,093
$150,000 $139,360 $-10,640
$ in Urban Honolulu = in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington

Same BEA Regional Price Parity ratio as the table above (111.0 → 103.1), computed live from your number, nothing is sent anywhere.

Urban Honolulu
111.0
Cost Index
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
103.1
Cost Index

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington more expensive than Urban Honolulu?

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington is 7.1% less expensive than Urban Honolulu. The overall cost index is 103.1 vs 111.0 (national average = 100).

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

A $100,000 salary in Urban Honolulu has the same purchasing power as $92,907 in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington. This is based on the BEA Regional Price Parity indexes.

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

Rents in Urban Honolulu are indexed at 135.5 while Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington is at 117.9 (national average = 100). Urban Honolulu 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.