Cheapest Cities to Move To

The Data Behind This Ranking

This list ranks the top 30 U.S. cities on the “Cheapest Cities to Move To” metric using PlainMove’s modeled 2-bedroom cost estimates, route coverage, and U.S. Census population data. The top-ranked city in this view is Charlotte, NC with a score of $632 on the min 2br cost measure, while the 50th position is held by Oklahoma City, OK at $5,156. The median row, the midpoint between those two extremes, falls on Chicago, IL, which anchors the “typical” position within this slice of the ranked cohort and gives a useful sanity check against the headline number many readers fixate on.

Looking across the full set of 50 cities, the average modeled 2-bedroom move cost is roughly $1,847 and each of these cities has on average 3 priced moving routes in our index, with an average BLS-derived base mover hourly rate of $19/hour. Collectively the 50 listed cities represent roughly 37,919,233 residents, which is a substantial share of the addressable U.S. interstate moving market because large cities originate and receive a disproportionate share of household-goods shipments. Every row in the table is clickable, navigating through to a specific city page will show that city’s full route grid (both outbound and inbound), its local-mover hourly rate, and its regional cost-of-living index used in all PlainMove estimates.

Geographically, the top 10 of this ranking is led by South with 6 of those 10 cities and Northeast with 2 cities as the secondary cluster, a signal about which U.S. regions drive the extreme values on this particular metric. Each ranked cost figure derives from Bureau of Labor Statistics OES 2023 wage data for laborers and material movers (SOC code 53-7062), blended with haversine route distances between city centroids and a $0.50-per-mile fuel and vehicle component. PlainMove does not publish carrier records. Any decision to actually move between two cities should still be verified with three binding quotes from FMCSA-licensed carriers; the ranking is a planning anchor, not a quote, and does not include optional services like packing, storage-in-transit, or shuttle fees.