Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Grand Forks's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Grand Forks?
Your $100,000 in Grand Forks has the same purchasing power as $127,845 in the average US city. You'd need $27,845 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 Grand Forks's cost index of 78, sorted by closest match.
Grand Forks 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 the labor market runs tight are the headliners, plus 4 more things worth knowing. The rest is below.
By the numbers, Grand Forks is one of the more affordable US cities of its size. The composite index sits at 78, about 22% below the national average, with housing as the main driver of the discount. Median rent in town runs about $927/mo against a typical household income of $59,079, which is the kind of ratio that leaves room to save.
The unemployment rate in Grand Forks sits at roughly 3.7%, which is a tight labor market by US standards. Salaries get nudged up faster, openings are easier to find, and switching jobs is less of a leap than it is in a softer market.
Bike Score of 60/100 in Grand Forks. 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 Grand Forks comes in around 39, 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 Grand Forks runs around 14 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.
Grand Forks has a college-educated share of about 39% 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 Grand Forks'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.
Yes — and a lot of it. With winter averages near 12°F, Grand Forks sees real accumulation most years. Salt for the steps, tires that handle ice, and a sense of humor about February are the usual costs of admission.
Properly cold. Grand Forks's winter sits around 12°F on average — and that's the average, meaning plenty of nights drop well below zero. People here own gear.
Reliably warm. Grand Forks's summer averages around 81°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.
Grand Forks falls in roughly USDA Zone 6. 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 830 feet (253 m). That's modest elevation — comparable to most inland-Midwest and Southern cities.
Middle of the pack. Grand Forks comes in around 3,306 per 100,000, basically the national average. The interesting question is usually which neighborhood, not which city — that's where the real variation lives.
Grand Forks is a genuinely affordable city by US standards. The composite index sits at 78 versus the 100 national baseline — about 22% cheaper overall, with housing doing most of the heavy lifting.
Grand Forks scores 48 out of 100 on Walk Score, which translates to "car-dependent but not aggressively so". Transit Score is 32 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 $54,754 to live in Grand Forks 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 Grand Forks runs about $927/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.