Cost of Living
per year
per month
How San Rafael's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in San Rafael?
Your $100,000 in San Rafael has the same purchasing power as $69,774 in the average US city. You'd need $30,226 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 San Rafael's cost index of 143, sorted by closest match.
So why do people move to San Rafael? The honest answer involves a few specific things the data backs up — most clearly paychecks here run high and a well-educated peer group. The detail on each one is below.
San Rafael's typical household earns $113,839, 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.
San Rafael has a college-educated share of about 50% 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 San Rafael'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, San Rafael 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 San Rafael 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 San Rafael 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 San Rafael. (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 190 feet (58 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about San Rafael's altitude shows up in daily life.
Middle of the pack. San Rafael comes in around 3,610 per 100,000, basically the national average. The interesting question is usually which neighborhood, not which city — that's where the real variation lives.
Significantly. San Rafael's index of 143 puts it in the top tier of US cities for cost of living — roughly 43% 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.
San Rafael's Walk Score is 5/100, firmly in the car-required tier. Transit Score is 24 out of 100. The layout assumes you'll drive to the grocery store, drive to work, drive everywhere.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $100,324 to live in San Rafael 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 San Rafael runs about $2,257/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.