Best States to Move To in 2026: Ranked

South Dakota comes first, and not because it is cheap

South Dakota tops our 2026 ranking of the 50 states, with Nebraska and Idaho behind it. If that surprises you, the reason is the thing worth taking from this whole page.

The winners are not the cheapest states. They are the states where what you earn goes furthest.

Those are different questions. A state can be cheap and still leave you struggling if the wages are low. South Dakota is moderately cheap — prices run about 11% below the national average — but local earnings, measured against local prices, are among the strongest in the country. That combination is what the ranking rewards.

We compared all 50 states on nine things: general prices, what local income actually buys, population growth, how many Americans are moving in versus out, broadband coverage, violent crime, hospital quality, electricity prices, and how many rentals are standing empty. A state does not have to win any single category. It has to be good across the board.

The top ten

Before the table, three quick translations, because these columns are useless if you cannot read them.

Price level is an index where 100 is the national average. So 88.6 means things cost about 11% less than the US as a whole.

Income that keeps up with prices is what local earnings are worth once you adjust for what things cost locally. A big number here means your money genuinely stretches.

Net arrivals is how many more Americans moved into the state than left, per 1,000 residents. A plus figure means people are choosing it. A minus means the opposite.

Best states to move to, 2026

Higher scores are better. Price level is an index where 100 equals the national average.
Rank	State	Score	Price level	Income vs prices	Net arrivals per 1,000
1	South Dakota	73.0	88.6	$89,514	+2.3
2	Nebraska	69.9	90.1	$84,190	-0.2
3	Idaho	68.3	95.5	$67,906	+9.8
4	North Dakota	67.4	89.0	$84,485	+0.6
5	Wyoming	66.3	92.7	$96,888	+2.5
6	North Carolina	63.5	94.3	$72,632	+7.5
7	Oklahoma	63.4	87.8	$75,885	+3.5
8	Texas	61.1	97.1	$74,558	+2.1
9	Tennessee	59.7	91.9	$75,249	+5.8
10	Utah	59.6	98.9	$70,795	+0.9

A gap of a point or two is not a real difference. Treat anything that close as a tie, because changing the weights slightly would reorder them.

What the table is telling you

Read down the columns rather than the ranks and three genuinely useful patterns appear.

Nebraska is second — and more Americans are leaving it than arriving. Its net figure is -0.2 per 1,000. It scores highly on cheap electricity and strong real earnings, but people are not flocking there. That is not necessarily a mark against it; it may mean housing stays available and prices stay calm. But if you want somewhere with momentum, look elsewhere in this list.

Idaho is the opposite case. It has by far the strongest inflow here, at +9.8 per 1,000 — roughly five times South Dakota’s — but the weakest earnings-versus-prices figure in the top five, at $67,906. That is the classic pattern of a place people are moving to faster than local wages and housing can adjust. Lovely if you bring a remote salary with you. Harder if you need to find a local job.

Wyoming has the best real earnings of any state here, at $96,888, and the lowest violent crime rate in the top ten. It ranks fifth mainly because its broadband coverage lags, at 89.4%. Whether that matters depends entirely on whether you work from home.

Two more worth flagging. Texas has the most available rental housing in the group at 11.5% vacancy, which is genuinely useful if you are arriving without somewhere to live, but the highest violent crime rate of the top eight. Utah has the best hospital scores and best broadband in the list, but the tightest rental market at 5.4% — expect competition for apartments.

The broader point: none of these states won everything. They ranked highly by being decent at all nine, and the one that suits you depends on which two or three you actually care about.

What this ranking cannot tell you

State averages hide enormous local variation. Housing, wages, insurance, weather risk, taxes, schools, and healthcare access can differ more between two counties in the same state than between two states. Austin and rural West Texas share a row in that table and very little else.

So use this as a first filter — a way to get from fifty options down to three or four — and then do the same comparison properly at the level of an actual address and an actual job offer.

Be careful with the migration figures too. People moving somewhere is a signal about that place, not a verdict on it, and it is not the same as population growth (which includes births and arrivals from abroad). Fast growth can also work against you: it tightens housing and stretches schools and hospitals. A state near the top of the inflow column still needs a current check on what is available to rent or buy, at what price.

For the affordability angle on its own, see states with the lowest cost of living, and for momentum, the fastest-growing states.

How we scored it

For each of the nine measures, we ranked all 50 states from weakest to strongest and converted each state’s position into a score out of 100. Direction is set in advance — lower prices, less crime, and cheaper electricity score higher, while stronger income, better broadband, and more growth score higher.

Then we weighted them: price level 20%, income versus prices 15%, population growth 15%, net arrivals 15%, broadband 10%, violent crime 10%, hospital rating 5%, electricity 5%, rental vacancy 5%.

Where a figure was missing we left it out rather than guessing, and a state had to have at least 90% of the data to be ranked. All 50 qualified.

The 2026 label is the edition, not the age of every number. The underlying data is the most recent comparable available: mostly 2024 Census and BEA figures, 2025 population estimates, 2025 FBI crime data, and 2026 housing, utility, and provider releases.

What we do not model: your tax situation, insurance premiums, climate risk, whether a school district suits your child, or what your move will cost. And nothing here predicts the future — a state near the top today may not be in five years.

Once you have a shortlist, our moving checklist covers the logistics. Choosing where to go and working out what the move costs are two separate exercises, and mixing them up leads to bad decisions on both.