Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Farmington's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Farmington?
Your $100,000 in Farmington has the same purchasing power as $125,031 in the average US city. You'd need $25,031 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 Farmington's cost index of 80, sorted by closest match.
Farmington has a handful of real selling points, and they're not the kind of thing you find in a brochure. The cost-of-living math actually works and air quality you don't have to think about are the headliners, plus 1 more things worth knowing. The rest is below.
By the numbers, Farmington is one of the more affordable US cities of its size. The composite index sits at 80, about 20% below the national average, with housing as the main driver of the discount. Median rent in town runs about $980/mo against a typical household income of $61,388, which is the kind of ratio that leaves room to save.
Average AQI in Farmington 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 Farmington runs around 18 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.
Reasons are pulled from Farmington'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.
Farmington gets a handful of meaningful snow days each year. Winters average about 28°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. Farmington averages roughly 28°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".
Properly hot. Farmington's summer averages around 90°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.
Farmington 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.
Roughly 5,459 feet (1,664 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.
Middle of the pack. Farmington comes in around 3,494 per 100,000, basically the national average. The interesting question is usually which neighborhood, not which city — that's where the real variation lives.
Farmington is a genuinely affordable city by US standards. The composite index sits at 80 versus the 100 national baseline — about 20% cheaper overall, with housing doing most of the heavy lifting.
Farmington scores 26 out of 100 on Walk Score, which translates to "car-dependent but not aggressively so". Transit Score is 18 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 $55,986 to live in Farmington 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 Farmington runs about $980/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.