Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Sioux Falls's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Sioux Falls?
Your $100,000 in Sioux Falls has the same purchasing power as $116,754 in the average US city. You'd need $16,754 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 Sioux Falls's cost index of 86, sorted by closest match.
Sioux Falls 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 south dakota doesn't tax your paycheck are the headliners, plus 5 more things worth knowing. The rest is below.
The composite cost-of-living index lands at 86, a comfortable 14% 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 $965/mo against a typical household income of $71,785, which is the kind of ratio that leaves room to save.
Living in Sioux Falls means no state income tax on your salary — South Dakota 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.
The unemployment rate in Sioux Falls sits at roughly 2.3%, 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.
With a Walk Score of 85/100, Sioux Falls is in the category where car ownership becomes a real choice rather than the default. Errands work on foot, the city's built dense enough that things are actually close together, and the parking-and-gas budget can quietly disappear.
Bike Score of 70/100 in Sioux Falls. 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 Sioux Falls comes in around 32, 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 Sioux Falls runs around 17 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 Sioux Falls'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 18°F, Sioux Falls 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. Sioux Falls's winter sits around 18°F on average — and that's the average, meaning plenty of nights drop well below zero. People here own gear.
Reliably warm. Sioux Falls's summer averages around 83°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.
Sioux Falls falls in roughly USDA Zone 7. 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 1,486 feet (453 m). That's modest elevation — comparable to most inland-Midwest and Southern cities.
Middle of the pack. Sioux Falls comes in around 3,647 per 100,000, basically the national average. The interesting question is usually which neighborhood, not which city — that's where the real variation lives.
Sioux Falls is a genuinely affordable city by US standards. The composite index sits at 86 versus the 100 national baseline — about 14% cheaper overall, with housing doing most of the heavy lifting.
Sioux Falls scores 85/100 on Walk Score, putting it in the "very walkable" tier. Transit Score is 33 out of 100. It's the kind of city where you don't think of going to the grocery store as "going" to the grocery store.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $59,955 to live in Sioux Falls 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 Sioux Falls runs about $965/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.