Uprootmap annual report
Best leftover metros 2026
Seattle leads large US metros at $3,409 left over a month. The household is a registered nurse paid local wages — about $98,500 in Chicago, scaled by each metro's wage index — one adult, renting a 1-bedroom.
Published . Zillow asking rents through , refreshed 2026-09-22.
Annual report · 2026
Best leftover metros
$3,409/mo
Seattle leads large metros
Local registered nurse pay · one adult, renting a 1-bedroom
- 1. Seattle$3,409
- 2. Austin$3,181
- 3. Houston$3,170
What this ranking measures
Leftover is take-home after federal, state and city wage tax, minus rent at one bedroom and the rest of the modelled month. The universe is every metro on Uprootmap with at least 500k people. The table is the top 12 by leftover for the household the calculator opens on.
Local pay is the point. A registered nurse earning about $98,500 in Chicago is paid the local wage index in each city, so a cheaper rent can lose to a lower paycheck. The monthly leftover leaderboard holds $80k, $120k and $160k flat instead. Both use the same equation. They answer different moves.
The full interactive list, with your salary and bedroom count, is the metro ranking. This page is the 2026 snapshot you can link.
Top 12 large metros
| Rank | Metro | Leftover / mo | 1-bed rent |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seattle, WAHand-reviewed · no state wage tax | $3,409 | $1,758 |
| 2 | Austin, TXHand-reviewed · no state wage tax | $3,181 | $1,221 |
| 3 | Houston, TXHand-reviewed · no state wage tax | $3,170 | $1,188 |
| 4 | Dallas, TXHand-reviewed · no state wage tax | $3,049 | $1,258 |
| 5 | Washington, DCHand-reviewed | $2,913 | $1,916 |
| 6 | Des Moines, IAHand-reviewed | $2,910 | $991 |
| 7 | San Antonio, TXHand-reviewed · no state wage tax | $2,835 | $1,049 |
| 8 | Huntsville, ALHand-reviewed | $2,829 | $1,050 |
| 9 | Memphis, TNHand-reviewed · no state wage tax | $2,790 | $1,045 |
| 10 | Little Rock, ARModelled | $2,781 | $906 |
| 11 | Minneapolis, MNHand-reviewed | $2,767 | $1,366 |
| 12 | Raleigh, NCHand-reviewed | $2,751 | $1,252 |
Hand-reviewed and modelled
11 of these 12 metros were reviewed by hand. 1 are modelled from Zillow, Census, BEA and Open-Meteo, and their city pages say so.
Modelled metros are fine for a shortlist. Rent, wages, prices and climate come from the public series. The two editorial scores were fitted to the hand-reviewed set, and only city size still steers the fit ranking. Leftover itself does not use those scores. The methodology lists every source and the refresh stamps.
Wage tax is one line, not the ranking
No-wage-tax states on this table: Seattle, Austin, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Memphis. Jacksonville is a million-person no-wage-tax metro that still misses the cut, at $2,717 a month.
If the paycheck stays at $120,000
Hold the paycheck at $120,000 and stop scaling it to local wages, and McAllen leads the same size cutoff at $5,021 a month. That ranking is the monthly leftover leaderboard.
- 1. McAllen$5,021/mo
- 2. El Paso$4,906/mo
- 3. Memphis$4,818/mo
- 4. San Antonio$4,753/mo
- 5. Chattanooga$4,706/mo
One compare worth posting
New York leaves $1,249 on this same household, $2,160 a month under Seattle.
Change the salary, the bedrooms, or the home metro on the calculator and the order moves. This report is the 2026 default, published so a relocate thread has one URL with the dollars and the assumptions on it.