National ranking · 2024 BEA RPP, services
Metros with the highest service prices
The 25 U.S. metros with the highest services price index, healthcare, education, professional services, and recreation. Kahului-Wailuku tops the list at a services RPP of 190.6. Service prices track local wages closely, so high-wage metros lead.
- 25
- Metros ranked
- 190.6
- #1 - Kahului-Wailuku
- 109.4
- Its overall RPP
The verdict
Wages set the price here: this top-25 services list spans 36.9 RPP points, and Kahului-Wailuku's services index runs 81.2 points above its own overall RPP.
- 36.9 pts
- services spread, #1 to #25
- 190.6
- #1 - Kahului-Wailuku
- 153.7
- services threshold to enter top-25
According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis's 2024 Regional Price Parities, Kahului-Wailuku leads the 25 metros with the highest services index at 190.6. The last metro on this list is 153.7. Services include labor-priced activities such as healthcare, education, and recreation; this is a metro-wide relative index, not a quote for any provider or household.
- Kahului-Wailuku ranks #1 of 25 metros by services RPP
- Services RPP 153.7 is the threshold to enter this top-25 list
According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, service prices track local wage levels because labor is the input cost. This ranking uses the services component of the agency's 2024 Regional Price Parities, released on February 19, 2026. See our methodology for how the index is built.
Where this top-25 cutoff sits nationwide
The services RPP threshold of 153.7 against all 387 U.S. metros
154 Top 6% higher than 94% of 387 US metros
Each bar is a band; taller bars hold more US metros. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities · 2024
This ranking sorts the 25 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas with the highest services RPP from the most recent BEA Regional Price Parities release. The services component captures non-housing services, healthcare, education, professional services, restaurants, recreation. Service prices track local wage levels closely because labor is the input cost; metros with high RPP-Services typically also show high BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics medians for service-sector occupations like registered nurses, teachers, and lawyers.
Service costs are the slowest-moving component of household spending, your dental cleaning, a child's tuition, or a haircut don't compete on national supply chains the way TVs do. That makes services RPP a reliable long-run signal for the cost of staying healthy, educated, and entertained in a given metro. Cross-reference the figures below with BLS OEWS for occupation-specific wage premiums in the same metros, and with overall RPP to see how services interact with rents and goods to produce the headline cost figure.
| # | Metro area | Services | Overall | Goods | Rents |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kahului-Wailuku, HI | 190.6 | 109.4 | 111.6 | 119.2 |
| 2 | Urban Honolulu, HI | 187.3 | 111.0 | 111.6 | 135.5 |
| 3 | San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA | 174.2 | 111.9 | 108.0 | 179.3 |
| 4 | San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | 172.6 | 115.6 | 108.5 | 194.7 |
| 5 | Fresno, CA | 161.0 | 102.2 | 105.2 | 95.7 |
| 6 | Yuba City, CA | 160.8 | 104.2 | 105.2 | 108.3 |
| 7 | Chico, CA | 158.8 | 101.2 | 105.2 | 91.9 |
| 8 | Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 158.6 | 113.6 | 106.6 | 170.4 |
| 9 | Barnstable Town, MA | 158.4 | 98.4 | 97.0 | 90.0 |
| 10 | Merced, CA | 158.3 | 98.3 | 105.2 | 78.6 |
| 11 | Bakersfield-Delano, CA | 158.3 | 100.9 | 105.2 | 90.3 |
| 12 | Stockton-Lodi, CA | 158.2 | 105.1 | 105.2 | 115.6 |
| 13 | Redding, CA | 157.7 | 100.7 | 105.2 | 89.4 |
| 14 | Hanford-Corcoran, CA | 157.4 | 101.6 | 105.2 | 93.5 |
| 15 | El Centro, CA | 157.2 | 95.2 | 105.2 | 66.3 |
| 16 | San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | 156.7 | 110.4 | 105.2 | 211.9 |
| 17 | Napa, CA | 156.5 | 112.6 | 105.2 | 197.4 |
| 18 | Visalia, CA | 156.4 | 99.8 | 105.2 | 84.1 |
| 19 | Amherst Town-Northampton, MA | 155.7 | 100.2 | 97.0 | 97.5 |
| 20 | Worcester, MA | 155.2 | 102.5 | 97.0 | 113.0 |
| 21 | Springfield, MA | 155.0 | 96.1 | 97.0 | 75.8 |
| 22 | Vallejo, CA | 155.0 | 108.5 | 105.2 | 142.0 |
| 23 | Santa Rosa-Petaluma, CA | 154.8 | 107.8 | 105.2 | 139.6 |
| 24 | Salinas, CA | 154.2 | 109.0 | 105.2 | 145.7 |
| 25 | Pittsfield, MA | 153.7 | 95.1 | 97.0 | 73.5 |
What this means for you
How to weigh a services-heavy budget before you shortlist a move.
- Kahului-Wailuku tops the list at services RPP 190.6, the steepest healthcare/education/professional-services premium PlainCost tracks. See full profile
- Services costs track local wage levels closely, so a high-services metro often pairs with strong labor demand in the same fields (healthcare, education, professional services). Overall cost rankings
Services RPP is BEA's annual benchmark for the data year shown, not a live price quote, and reflects the metro-wide average, not any one provider's actual rates.
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis · Regional Price Parities Sourced from the BEA Regional Data API; 25 metros shown. National average = 100.
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.