Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Dublin's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Dublin?
Your $100,000 in Dublin has the same purchasing power as $66,063 in the average US city. You'd need $33,937 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 Dublin's cost index of 151, sorted by closest match.
So why do people move to Dublin? The honest answer involves a few specific things the data backs up — most clearly paychecks here run high and jobs are easy to find right now, plus 3 more things worth knowing. The detail on each one is below.
Dublin's typical household earns $191,039, 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.
Unemployment in Dublin is running about 3.4% — below the typical US baseline of around 4%. That usually translates to a job market where employers compete for workers more than the other way around, which is the better side of that equation to be on if you're the one moving.
The reported crime rate in Dublin runs about 1,600 per 100,000 residents — meaningfully below the national norm. People who care about safety as a baseline rather than a feature tend to land in cities with numbers like these.
Average AQI in Dublin comes in around 42, 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.
Dublin has a college-educated share of about 69% 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 Dublin'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 43°F, Dublin 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 Dublin sit around 43°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 Dublin sits about 72°F on average. Afternoons can push into the high 80s, but mornings and evenings are usually genuinely pleasant.
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 Dublin. (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.)
Around 364 feet (111 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about Dublin's altitude shows up in daily life.
The headline number is reassuring. Dublin's reported incident rate of about 1,600 per 100,000 is comfortably below the US norm of around 3,500 per 100k. Specific neighborhoods always vary, but the broader picture is on the safer side.
Significantly. Dublin's index of 151 puts it in the top tier of US cities for cost of living — roughly 51% above the national baseline. The pattern is familiar: housing eats a large share of incomes, and people earning median-equivalent jobs from cheaper metros feel the difference fast.
Dublin's Walk Score is 12/100, firmly in the car-required tier. The layout assumes you'll drive to the grocery store, drive to work, drive everywhere.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $105,959 to live in Dublin 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 Dublin runs about $3,094/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.