Austin to Denver on the C2ER ACCRA composite: +9.4% on the headline, +20.3% on housing alone. A $75,000 Austin salary lines up with roughly $82,051 in Denver after the consumer-price adjustment. State tax stacks on top — sidebar below.
Multiply your Austin salary by 1.094 (the index ratio 128/117) to get the Denver number that preserves your real-terms spending. The three anchor rows below — $50k, $75k, $150k — are the most common comparison points for relocation offers.
| Austin salary | Equivalent in Denver | Difference |
|---|---|---|
| $50,000 | $54,701 | +$4,701 |
| $75,000 | $82,051 | +$7,051 |
| $150,000 | $164,103 | +$14,103 |
Five sub-indexes feed the composite cost-of-living number. Housing dominates, but the other four — groceries, transport, healthcare, utilities — each carry weight in any real household budget. Here is how Austin and Denver stack up category by category against the national-average baseline of 100.
| Category | Austin | Denver | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housing Rent + median home price | 138 | 166 | +20.3% |
| Groceries Supermarket basket | 95 | 102 | +7.4% |
| Transportation Fuel, transit, parking | 102 | 105 | +2.9% |
| Healthcare Doctor visits, prescriptions | 98 | 104 | +6.1% |
| Utilities Electric, gas, internet | 104 | 96 | -7.7% |
| Composite | 117 | 128 | +9.4% |
A relocation from Austin, TX to Denver, CO is, on cost-of-living grounds alone, close to a wash: the composite index difference is about +9%, which falls inside the band where individual budget choices matter more than the metro average. The C2ER ACCRA index is built around an "average household basket" that does not match any specific household exactly, and at this delta size, the personal-spending mix decides whether the move feels cheaper or more expensive in practice.
Tax sits on top of this as a separate axis. If Texas and Colorado have meaningfully different state income tax rates, the after-tax comparison can diverge from the consumer-price comparison by several thousand dollars per year at a typical salary. The sidebar quantifies that gap; treat it as additive to the consumer-price story rather than embedded in it.
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%; Colorado's is 4.40%. On a $75,000 salary the two states pull $0 and $3,300 respectively — a gap of $3,300 that compounds with the consumer-price difference.
The take-home pay calculator gives you the after-tax delta at your real salary and filing status. Federal tax is invariant under the move; the state rate is the only piece that flips. See the take-home pay calculator or the state-by-state take-home pay article for the precise after-tax number.
On the headline composite, yes: Denver sits at 128 versus Austin at 117 on C2ER ACCRA, a gap of about 9%. Housing carries most of that gap; non-housing categories add smaller, same-direction contributions.
Plan on roughly $82,051 of gross salary in Denver to match $75,000 of Austin purchasing power. The calculation uses the C2ER ACCRA composite ratio (128/117 = 1.09). That is pre-tax; the state-tax sidebar handles the after-tax piece.
Look at housing first. Austin sits at 138 on the housing sub-index; Denver sits at 166. The other four categories (groceries 95 vs 102, transport 102 vs 105, utilities 104 vs 96) all move smaller absolute distances and rarely dominate the composite.
State tax is separate from the cost-of-living index. The C2ER ACCRA composite covers consumer prices only; the sidebar on this page shows the Texas vs Colorado state-tax delta at three salary anchors. Add the two effects for the full after-tax comparison — they don't double-count.