Tennessee vs Texas: Cost of Living, Taxes, Rent and Safety Compared
Weighing a move between Tennessee 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 Tennessee to Texas changes a typical two-bedroom rent by +$107 a month (+$1,284 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, Texas leads on job market and airport access. Which of those matters depends entirely on you.
Where people look in each state
Tennessee
Nashville
$1,798/mo two-bedroom
Nashville is a booming Southern city with a music industry, a huge healthcare sector and a tourism district that locals mostly avoid. Growth has been explosive, housing costs have followed, and the traffic infrastructure has not kept up.
Memphis
$1,301/mo two-bedroom
Memphis is a Mississippi River city with extraordinary musical heritage, world-class barbecue and the FedEx hub. Genuinely cheap housing, a serious violent-crime problem in parts of the city, and a grittier, less polished feel than Nashville.
Knoxville
$1,475/mo two-bedroom
Knoxville is an affordable university city at the doorstep of the Great Smoky Mountains, with a walkable downtown square and a strong outdoor scene. Quieter than Nashville, cheaper than Asheville, and increasingly popular with remote workers.
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, Tennessee is cheaper: a typical two-bedroom is $1,381 a month against $1,488 (HUD FY2027). Everyday costs, housing excluded, index at 95.6 in Tennessee 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, Tennessee or Texas?
Tennessee. A married couple on the U.S. median household income would pay about 3.8% of it in state and local taxes, against 6.2% in Texas (Locustep estimate). Neither taxes wage income.
Is Tennessee safer than Texas?
By violent crime, Texas is lower: 389.4 per 100,000 residents against 592.3 (FBI, 2024). On natural hazards, FEMA puts Tennessee at the 38th percentile and Texas at the 40th (lower is safer).
Which has better weather, Tennessee or Texas?
It depends what you want. Winter afternoons average 52°F in Nashville and 58°F in Dallas; summer afternoons 90°F and 94°F (NOAA 1991–2020). Tennessee: hot & humid, subtropical. Texas: hot & humid, subtropical.