Austin to Dallas on the C2ER ACCRA composite: -9.4% on the headline, -15.9% on housing alone. A $75,000 Austin salary lines up with roughly $67,949 in Dallas after the consumer-price adjustment. State tax stacks on top — sidebar below.
If your goal is to land in Dallas with the same consumer-spending power you have in Austin, multiply your current salary by 0.906. That ratio is the C2ER ACCRA composite index of Dallas divided by the composite of Austin (106/117).
| Austin salary | Equivalent in Dallas | Difference |
|---|---|---|
| $50,000 | $45,299 | -$4,701 |
| $75,000 | $67,949 | -$7,051 |
| $150,000 | $135,897 | -$14,103 |
The breakdown below decomposes the Austin-vs-Dallas cost-of-living gap into its five constituent sub-indexes. National average for each is 100; the delta column shows how each line item changes between the two metros. Housing routinely shows the largest swing.
| Category | Austin | Dallas | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housing Rent + median home price | 138 | 116 | -15.9% |
| Groceries Supermarket basket | 95 | 96 | +1.1% |
| Transportation Fuel, transit, parking | 102 | 99 | -2.9% |
| Healthcare Doctor visits, prescriptions | 98 | 99 | +1.0% |
| Utilities Electric, gas, internet | 104 | 102 | -1.9% |
| Composite | 117 | 106 | -9.4% |
A move between Austin, TX and Dallas, TX is small enough on cost-of-living grounds (-9% on the composite index) that the financial decision is usually dominated by non-cost-of-living factors: state tax, salary norms, healthcare networks, school quality, family proximity. The translation to salary terms is straightforward: $75,000 in Austin maps to roughly $67,949 in Dallas, a difference inside the noise band of most job-offer negotiations.
Look at the housing sub-index gap (-16%) as the more interesting figure if you are renting or planning to buy, since housing is the line item that diverges most across U.S. metros. The other categories — groceries, transportation, healthcare, utilities — track regional patterns more than metro-specific ones and contribute less to the gap than housing does in absolute terms.
State income tax is not part of the cost-of-living composite, but it is part of your real take-home math. Texas's effective top rate is 0.00%; Texas's is 0.00%. On a $75,000 salary the two states pull $0 and $0 respectively — a gap of $0 that compounds with the consumer-price difference.
Run your actual salary and filing status through the take-home pay calculator for a precise after-tax number. The federal layer is the same in either metro; only the state piece shifts. See the take-home pay calculator or the state-by-state take-home pay article for the precise after-tax number.
No — Dallas comes in about 9% cheaper on the composite (106 vs 117 for Austin). Housing carries most of the gap, with smaller contributions from grocery, transport, and utility sub-indexes.
Approximately $67,949. The math: $75,000 times the index ratio 0.91 (which is 106/117) equals the salary in Dallas that preserves your real-terms spending power. State tax sits on top — handled separately in the sidebar above.
Housing carries the gap. Austin indexes at 138 on housing; Dallas indexes at 116. The other categories — groceries (95 vs 96), transportation (102 vs 99), utilities (104 vs 102) — move smaller distances. Housing variance is what makes metros feel meaningfully different on cost.
Not directly. Consumer-price indexes like C2ER ACCRA exclude state and federal income tax. To get the full picture for Texas versus Texas, combine the equivalent-salary number above with the state-tax delta in the sidebar; both effects compound when you cross state lines.