Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Denton's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Denton?
Your $100,000 in Denton has the same purchasing power as $94,029 in the average US city. You'd need $5,971 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 Denton's cost index of 106, sorted by closest match.
So why do people move to Denton? The honest answer involves a few specific things the data backs up — most clearly no state income tax and lower-than-average crime numbers, plus 5 more things worth knowing. The detail on each one is below.
Texas is one of the handful of US states with no state income tax on wages, so the only income-tax bite on a paycheck in Denton is federal. For a household earning $100k, that's a tangible four-figure difference every year compared to a comparable salary in California or New York.
Reported crime in Denton comes in around 2,780 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.
With a Walk Score of 85/100, Denton is in the category where car ownership becomes a real choice rather than the default. Errands work on foot, the city's built dense enough that things are actually close together, and the parking-and-gas budget can quietly disappear.
Bike Score of 77/100 in Denton. 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 Denton comes in around 41, 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 Denton runs around 25 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.
Denton has a college-educated share of about 40% 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 Denton'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 37°F, Denton 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 Denton sit around 37°F — sweater-and-jacket weather most days, with the occasional cold front that reminds you it's still winter.
Properly hot. Denton's summer averages around 94°F with daily highs that routinely break 100°F. The trick to summer here is starting the day at sunrise and staying inside through the worst of it.
Approximately USDA Hardiness Zone 9. That's the band gardeners use to pick plants — anything rated for Zone 9 or colder should survive a typical winter in Denton. (The estimate is derived from our winter-temperature data; the official USDA map uses station-level annual minimums and may differ by half a zone.)
Roughly 666 feet (203 m). That's modest elevation — comparable to most inland-Midwest and Southern cities.
Officially, Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 through November 30, but most of the action lands between mid-August and mid-October. For Denton, that's when to keep half an eye on the National Hurricane Center forecast cone — and when an actual evacuation plan is worth having in the drawer if you're in a low-lying or coastal neighborhood.
Middle of the pack. Denton comes in around 2,780 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. Denton's index of 106 sits within a few points of the national average — your money buys roughly what it would in a typical American metro.
Denton scores 85/100 on Walk Score, putting it in the "very walkable" tier. Transit Score is 49 out of 100. It's the kind of city where you don't think of going to the grocery store as "going" to the grocery store.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $74,445 to live in Denton 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 Denton runs about $1,264/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.