Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Chapel Hill's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Chapel Hill?
Your $100,000 in Chapel Hill has the same purchasing power as $102,010 in the average US city. You'd need $2,010 less 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 Chapel Hill's cost index of 98, sorted by closest match.
Chapel Hill has a handful of real selling points, and they're not the kind of thing you find in a brochure. Solidly above-average earnings and safer than the typical us city are the headliners, plus 4 more things worth knowing. The rest is below.
The typical household in Chapel Hill pulls in $85,940 — comfortably above the US median. Combined with the cost of living here, the income-to-expense ratio works out better than a quick look at either number in isolation would suggest.
Reported crime in Chapel Hill comes in around 2,191 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.
Bike Score of 66/100 in Chapel Hill. That puts it in the small group of US cities where you can do groceries, commute, and run errands on a bike without it being a feat of urban survival.
Average AQI in Chapel Hill comes in around 38, 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.
Average commute time in Chapel Hill runs around 20 minutes one-way — short enough that it doesn't restructure your day. Compared to the 45-plus-minute commutes that are normal in major metros, the difference adds up to a real lifestyle gap.
Chapel Hill has a college-educated share of about 77% 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 Chapel Hill'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.
Chapel Hill gets a handful of meaningful snow days each year. Winters average about 33°F — cold enough for several inches at a time, warm enough for everything to melt between storms.
A real winter, but not a punishing one. Chapel Hill averages roughly 33°F in winter, with the coldest mornings dipping into the single digits a few times a year and most days landing somewhere between "chilly" and "actually cold".
Reliably warm. Chapel Hill's summer averages around 89°F, the kind of heat where you remember to leave the house before noon for outdoor things and accept that the back of your shirt will be wet by lunchtime.
Chapel Hill falls in roughly USDA Zone 8. The zone classification is based on average annual minimum temperatures, so it's the right lookup for whether perennials and trees will overwinter here. Note that this is approximate from our winter-temperature data — check the USDA map for the exact zone before betting an expensive plant on it.
Around 397 feet (121 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about Chapel Hill's altitude shows up in daily life.
Hurricane season covers June through November, with peak activity in late summer and early fall. For Chapel Hill, the practical advice is: have a few days of water and supplies on hand from August onward, know your evacuation route, and don't wait for the news to tell you a storm is "probably nothing" — track the cone yourself.
Middle of the pack. Chapel Hill comes in around 2,191 per 100,000, basically the national average. The interesting question is usually which neighborhood, not which city — that's where the real variation lives.
It's a middle-of-the-road US city on cost. Chapel Hill's index of 98 sits within a few points of the national average — your money buys roughly what it would in a typical American metro.
Chapel Hill scores 29 out of 100 on Walk Score, which translates to "car-dependent but not aggressively so". Transit Score is 39 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 $68,621 to live in Chapel Hill 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 Chapel Hill runs about $1,419/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.