Guide
Is Texas cheaper than California after tax?
“Texas has no income tax” is true and incomplete. Leftover after California tax and California rent versus Texas tax and Texas rent is the number that decides whether the move is a raise.
By Mason Hahn · Last updated · hello@uprootmap.com
San Francisco → Austin, in leftover
Take-home leftover: $3,172/mo in Austin vs $2,354 in San Francisco after tax and rent ($818 more). Same default household as the rest of the site: one adult, one bedroom, local pay for the job. California taxes wage income; Texas does not. Austin asking rent is not San Francisco asking rent. Both facts have to be in the same equation.
- Leftover in San Francisco: $2,354 a month.
- Leftover in Austin: $3,172 a month.
- One-bedroom asking rent in the model: $2,635 in San Francisco versus $1,221 in Austin.
That pair is the one people mean when they say “leaving California for Texas.” Open the move page or the leftover comparison. The same household on Los Angeles → Dallas keeps $1,346 more leftover a month in Dallas after tax and rent.
No income tax is not the same as cheaper
Texas, Florida, Washington, Tennessee and Nevada do not tax wage income. Recruiters lead with that. Leftover asks what you pay the landlord, and what you would pay the county if you buy. Austin's property tax is steep. A one-bedroom that is hundreds more a month than the state-tax savings is not a raise. The state tax and rent tradeoffs guide walks through that arithmetic without picking a winner.
California's brackets are real. So is San Francisco rent. An index that compresses both into “California is 40% more expensive” cannot tell you whether a nurse, a teacher or a remote software developer keeps more in Austin. Those three households do not share a leftover ranking. Run the job on RN take-home in Austin or remote software rankings before you trust a state-level story.
How to use the pages without inventing a second calculation
Do not average Austin and Dallas and call it Texas. Do not average San Francisco and Fresno and call it California. Pick the metros you would actually live in:
Each page uses the same leftover math. Change bedrooms and remote vs local on one of them, then read how to read a city page before you treat the headline as a lease.
More guides
Leftover leaderboard, September 2026
Three salary bands, one leftover equation. Where a remote paycheck goes furthest after tax and a one-bedroom.
Leftover pay is not a cost-of-living index
An index compresses a city into a percentage. Leftover is what is left after your tax and your rent.
How to read a city page
The headline is leftover after tax and rent. Here is how to read everything under it.
State tax and rent tradeoffs when you compare metros
Skipping state income tax only helps if rent and property tax do not eat the raise.
A checklist for picking a metro with the leftover calculator
A working order: set the household, rank leftover, open four city pages, then go look at listings.