Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Knoxville's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Knoxville?
Your $100,000 in Knoxville has the same purchasing power as $113,237 in the average US city. You'd need $13,237 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 Knoxville's cost index of 88, sorted by closest match.
Knoxville has a handful of real selling points, and they're not the kind of thing you find in a brochure. Your dollar carries more weight here and tennessee doesn't tax your paycheck are the headliners, plus 1 more things worth knowing. The rest is below.
The composite cost-of-living index lands at 88, a comfortable 12% under the US norm. It shows up most clearly in housing, which is where the gap to coastal metros usually opens up. Median rent in town runs about $1,043/mo against a typical household income of $48,309, which is the kind of ratio that leaves room to save.
Living in Knoxville means no state income tax on your salary — Tennessee is one of nine states that simply doesn't have one. On a $100k income that's typically thousands of dollars a year that stay in your account instead of going to a state revenue department.
Average commute time in Knoxville runs around 21 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 Knoxville'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.
Knoxville gets a handful of meaningful snow days each year. Winters average about 32°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. Knoxville averages roughly 32°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".
Reliably warm. Knoxville'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.
Knoxville 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 919 feet (280 m). That's modest elevation — comparable to most inland-Midwest and Southern cities.
Worse than the national norm, but it depends where. Knoxville's ~4,762 per 100,000 reflects a citywide aggregate. Some neighborhoods here are notably safer than the average; others are notably worse. Worth looking at the specific area, not the city-level number.
Knoxville is a genuinely affordable city by US standards. The composite index sits at 88 versus the 100 national baseline — about 12% cheaper overall, with housing doing most of the heavy lifting.
Knoxville scores 37 out of 100 on Walk Score, which translates to "car-dependent but not aggressively so". Transit Score is 27 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 $61,817 to live in Knoxville 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 Knoxville runs about $1,043/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.