Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Bothell's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Bothell?
Your $100,000 in Bothell has the same purchasing power as $80,077 in the average US city. You'd need $19,923 more here to maintain that standard of living.
Demographics and workforce data from the US Census ACS 5-Year.
bachelor's or higher
Climate, safety, and walkability indicators.
See a side-by-side breakdown of cost of living, housing, and salaries.
Popular comparisons
Sorted by affordability — most affordable first.
Within 10 points of Bothell's cost index of 125, sorted by closest match.
These are the reasons people actually move to Bothell, ordered roughly by what shows up loudest in the data. Wage income stays untaxed at the state level and above-average earnings, not just for a few people lead, plus 4 more things worth knowing — the rest unpacked below.
Wage income in Bothell isn't taxed at the state level. Washington is one of the few US states with no income tax, which is one of the reasons people relocating from high-tax states tend to land here in the first place. (Washington taxes some long-term capital gains over a high threshold, but ordinary wages and salaries are not taxed.)
Bothell's typical household earns $127,944, which puts it in the top tier of US cities for household income. The bottom of the wage distribution isn't necessarily different from anywhere else, but the median and above sit meaningfully higher.
At about 3.9% unemployment, Bothell's labor market is running on the tight side. Easier to land a role, easier to negotiate, easier to leave one job for a better one — the practical things that matter when you're actually looking.
Reported crime in Bothell comes in around 2,185 per 100,000 — under the national baseline of about 3,500. Worth digging into specific neighborhoods before settling on one, but the city-level picture is on the safer side.
Average AQI in Bothell comes in around 44, well into the "good" band. Clean air isn't a thing you appreciate until you've lived somewhere it wasn't — and this is the side of that line you want to be on.
Bothell has a college-educated share of about 57% among adults 25+, which is higher than the national norm. It shows up in the local job mix, in the school district's reputation, and in the kind of conversations you have at the coffee shop.
Reasons are pulled from Bothell's actual data — Census ACS, BLS, BEA, NOAA, EPA AQS, FBI, and Walk Score. We don't list positives that aren't supported by the numbers, which is why different cities show different sections.
Not really a snow town. With winters averaging 38°F, Bothell sits in the mild-cold band where snowflakes appear occasionally and everything melts within a day. Most years see one storm worth talking about.
Cool, not cold. Winters in Bothell sit around 38°F — sweater-and-jacket weather most days, with the occasional cold front that reminds you it's still winter.
Warm without being brutal. Summer in Bothell sits about 75°F on average. Afternoons can push into the high 80s, but mornings and evenings are usually genuinely pleasant.
Zone 9, give or take a half-zone. Bothell's typical winter low puts it in that band on the USDA Hardiness map, which is what nurseries label plants against. Use Zone 9 as your starting filter; the USDA's interactive map is more precise for borderline cases.
Around 302 feet (92 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about Bothell's altitude shows up in daily life.
Middle of the pack. Bothell comes in around 2,185 per 100,000, basically the national average. The interesting question is usually which neighborhood, not which city — that's where the real variation lives.
More expensive than average — by enough to plan around. Bothell's composite index is 125 versus 100 for the US, with rent and home prices driving most of the gap. Salaries in higher-paying industries usually move together, but the math still tightens for everyone else.
Bothell scores 31 out of 100 on Walk Score, which translates to "car-dependent but not aggressively so". Transit Score is 38 out of 100. Some neighborhoods buck the citywide average; the dense inner cores are usually noticeably more walkable than the city number suggests.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $87,416 to live in Bothell the way a $70,000 earner lives in a typical US city. The math gets less forgiving the lower you go below that. Median rent in Bothell runs about $2,174/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.