Illinois vs Texas: Cost of Living, Taxes, Rent and Safety Compared
Weighing a move between Illinois and Texas? Here’s how they compare on the numbers that decide most moves, from the same public data Locustep uses to rank all 50 states.
Shaded cells are the lower-cost, higher-income or lower-risk figure. Indexes: U.S. average = 100.
What it means for your budget
Rent alone: moving from Illinois to Texas changes a typical two-bedroom rent by −$236 a month (−$2,832 a year); the move the other way flips the sign. Taxes, pay, insurance and the move itself shift too, and how much depends on your income, your household and the city you pick.
That’s exactly what Locustep’s Net-Impact Report works out: your take-home pay after state and local taxes in both places, rent or buy for your budget, insurance and moving costs, and the month the move pays for itself.
Which state fits you better?
On Locustep’s directional scores, Illinois leads on healthcare, schools and walkability; Texas leads on job market. Which of those matters depends entirely on you.
Where people look in each state
Illinois
Chicago
$2,011/mo two-bedroom
Chicago is a genuinely great American city — world-class architecture, museums, food and transit, with lakefront summers that make the brutal winters worth it. Housing is cheap for its size, though property taxes and neighbourhood-level violence vary sharply.
Naperville
$2,011/mo two-bedroom
Naperville is an affluent western suburb of Chicago with top-rated schools, a riverwalk and a commuter train downtown. Safe, family-focused, expensive by Illinois standards, and thoroughly suburban.
Springfield
$1,237/mo two-bedroom
Springfield is Illinois's state capital and Lincoln's town — government employment, a low cost of living and a quiet central-Illinois pace. Flat, affordable, and short on big-city amenities.
Austin is a fast-growing tech hub with a strong music and food culture, a young professional population and an outdoor streak. It is no longer cheap, traffic is bad and worsening, summers are punishing, and the counterculture reputation now outruns the reality.
Houston
$1,497/mo two-bedroom
Houston is vast, diverse and unzoned — energy, medicine and shipping money, extraordinary food from every immigrant community, and essentially no geographic constraints. Expect heat, humidity, flooding risk and long drives, but also the lowest big-city housing costs in the country.
Dallas
$1,807/mo two-bedroom
Realistically, Dallas is a massive, hyper-commercialised, corporate-driven metropolis where daily life focuses heavily on professional careers, excellent dining and a highly air-conditioned lifestyle. It is less about cowboys and horses and much more about sprawling highways, luxury shopping and major corporate headquarters.
On rent, Texas is cheaper: a typical two-bedroom is $1,488 a month against $1,724 (HUD FY2027). Everyday costs, housing excluded, index at 101.5 in Illinois and 97.5 in Texas (U.S. = 100). Whether you come out ahead also depends on your pay and taxes in each state.
Which has lower taxes, Illinois or Texas?
Texas. A married couple on the U.S. median household income would pay about 6.2% of it in state and local taxes, against 12.7% in Illinois (Locustep estimate). Texas has no tax on wages; Illinois’s top rate is 4.95%.
Is Illinois safer than Texas?
By violent crime, Illinois is lower: 289.2 per 100,000 residents against 389.4 (FBI, 2024). On natural hazards, FEMA puts Illinois at the 30th percentile and Texas at the 40th (lower is safer).
Which has better weather, Illinois or Texas?
It depends what you want. Winter afternoons average 35°F in Chicago and 58°F in Dallas; summer afternoons 82°F and 94°F (NOAA 1991–2020). Illinois: four distinct seasons. Texas: hot & humid, subtropical.