Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Denver's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Denver?
Your $100,000 in Denver has the same purchasing power as $84,289 in the average US city. You'd need $15,711 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 Denver's cost index of 119, sorted by closest match.
So why do people move to Denver? The honest answer involves a few specific things the data backs up — most clearly paychecks come in above the us average and it's an easy city to live in on a bike, plus 2 more things worth knowing. The detail on each one is below.
The typical household in Denver pulls in $85,853 — 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.
Bike Score of 62/100 in Denver. 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 Denver comes in around 35, 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.
Denver has a college-educated share of about 54% 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 Denver'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.
Snow is just part of the winter in Denver. Average temperatures around 19°F mean the ground stays covered from December well into March, and a snowblower is less optional than aspirational.
Properly cold. Denver's winter sits around 19°F on average — and that's the average, meaning plenty of nights drop well below zero. People here own gear.
Reliably warm. Denver's summer averages around 87°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.
Approximately USDA Hardiness Zone 7. That's the band gardeners use to pick plants — anything rated for Zone 7 or colder should survive a typical winter in Denver. (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 5,292 feet (1,613 m) above sea level. At that altitude, the first few days for a coastal visitor can feel mildly off — shorter breath on stairs, faster fatigue — but it normalizes quickly.
Denver's reported crime rate runs high: about 7,539 per 100,000 residents, materially above the national average. Specific neighborhoods vary widely, but the city-wide aggregate is on the rougher end of the US distribution.
More expensive than average — by enough to plan around. Denver's composite index is 119 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.
Denver scores 39 out of 100 on Walk Score, which translates to "car-dependent but not aggressively so". Transit Score is 42 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 $83,048 to live in Denver 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 Denver runs about $1,665/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.