The FIRE Number in Every U.S. State (2026 Data)
Run the FIRE number for a $78,535/year household through the standard 25x rule and you get $1,963,375 — the same figure regardless of whether that household lives in Manhattan or rural Mississippi. That's obviously wrong. The 25x rule is correct; the mistake is applying one national spending average to every state when spending itself varies by nearly 30% across the country.
This page fixes that by adjusting the national spending baseline with each state's actual price level, using two U.S. government datasets: the Bureau of Labor Statistics' 2024 Consumer Expenditure Survey and the Bureau of Economic Analysis's 2024 Regional Price Parities. The result is a FIRE number for every state, built from real data rather than a single average pretending to apply everywhere.
The FIRE Number in Every State, 2026
Sorted lowest to highest. FIRE # uses the standard 25x rule; Lean FIRE # uses a 70%-of-average spending assumption (17.5x), the common benchmark for a stripped-down but comfortable budget.
| Rank | State | Price Level (RPP) | Est. Annual Spending | FIRE Number (25x) | Lean FIRE (17.5x) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arkansas | 86.9 | $68,276 | $1,706,899 | $1,194,830 |
| 2 | Mississippi | 87.0 | $68,289 | $1,707,213 | $1,195,049 |
| 3 | Iowa | 87.8 | $68,924 | $1,723,097 | $1,206,168 |
| 4 | Oklahoma | 87.8 | $68,988 | $1,724,688 | $1,207,281 |
| 5 | Louisiana | 88.2 | $69,273 | $1,731,834 | $1,212,284 |
| 6 | South Dakota | 88.6 | $69,571 | $1,739,275 | $1,217,493 |
| 7 | Alabama | 88.8 | $69,757 | $1,743,929 | $1,220,750 |
| 8 | North Dakota | 89.0 | $69,864 | $1,746,599 | $1,222,619 |
| 9 | West Virginia | 89.5 | $70,286 | $1,757,162 | $1,230,013 |
| 10 | Kansas | 90.1 | $70,735 | $1,768,373 | $1,237,861 |
| 11 | Nebraska | 90.1 | $70,762 | $1,769,060 | $1,238,342 |
| 12 | Kentucky | 90.2 | $70,806 | $1,770,159 | $1,239,111 |
| 13 | Missouri | 90.8 | $71,323 | $1,783,078 | $1,248,155 |
| 14 | Tennessee | 91.9 | $72,150 | $1,803,753 | $1,262,627 |
| 15 | New Mexico | 92.2 | $72,419 | $1,810,467 | $1,267,327 |
| 16 | Wyoming | 92.7 | $72,795 | $1,819,872 | $1,273,910 |
| 17 | Ohio | 92.8 | $72,860 | $1,821,502 | $1,275,051 |
| 18 | Indiana | 93.3 | $73,296 | $1,832,398 | $1,282,679 |
| 19 | South Carolina | 93.7 | $73,626 | $1,840,644 | $1,288,451 |
| 20 | Wisconsin | 94.1 | $73,898 | $1,847,438 | $1,293,206 |
| 21 | North Carolina | 94.3 | $74,079 | $1,851,973 | $1,296,381 |
| 22 | Montana | 94.6 | $74,329 | $1,858,236 | $1,300,765 |
| 23 | Idaho | 95.5 | $74,996 | $1,874,905 | $1,312,434 |
| 24 | Michigan | 96.2 | $75,564 | $1,889,101 | $1,322,370 |
| 25 | Georgia | 96.3 | $75,624 | $1,890,593 | $1,323,415 |
| 26 | Maine | 97.0 | $76,218 | $1,905,455 | $1,333,819 |
| 27 | Texas | 97.1 | $76,224 | $1,905,593 | $1,333,915 |
| 28 | Pennsylvania | 97.6 | $76,628 | $1,915,704 | $1,340,993 |
| 29 | Vermont | 98.0 | $76,931 | $1,923,283 | $1,346,298 |
| 30 | Minnesota | 98.6 | $77,452 | $1,936,300 | $1,355,410 |
| 31 | Utah | 98.9 | $77,643 | $1,941,071 | $1,358,750 |
| 32 | Delaware | 99.8 | $78,384 | $1,959,605 | $1,371,724 |
| 33 | Illinois | 100.0 | $78,502 | $1,962,550 | $1,373,785 |
| 34 | Nevada | 100.0 | $78,519 | $1,962,963 | $1,374,074 |
| 35 | Arizona | 100.7 | $79,067 | $1,976,667 | $1,383,667 |
| 36 | Virginia | 101.1 | $79,402 | $1,985,051 | $1,389,535 |
| 37 | Rhode Island | 102.3 | $80,326 | $2,008,140 | $1,405,698 |
| 38 | Alaska | 102.4 | $80,388 | $2,009,691 | $1,406,784 |
| 39 | Colorado | 103.1 | $80,932 | $2,023,297 | $1,416,308 |
| 40 | Oregon | 103.4 | $81,175 | $2,029,364 | $1,420,555 |
| 41 | Florida | 103.4 | $81,216 | $2,030,405 | $1,421,283 |
| 42 | Connecticut | 103.6 | $81,370 | $2,034,253 | $1,423,977 |
| 43 | New Hampshire | 104.2 | $81,806 | $2,045,150 | $1,431,605 |
| 44 | Maryland | 105.0 | $82,430 | $2,060,739 | $1,442,517 |
| 45 | Massachusetts | 105.8 | $83,056 | $2,076,406 | $1,453,485 |
| 46 | Washington | 107.0 | $84,043 | $2,101,066 | $1,470,747 |
| 47 | New York | 107.9 | $84,756 | $2,118,894 | $1,483,226 |
| 48 | New Jersey | 108.8 | $85,450 | $2,136,250 | $1,495,375 |
| 49 | District of Columbia | 109.9 | $86,311 | $2,157,769 | $1,510,438 |
| 50 | Hawaii | 110.0 | $86,350 | $2,158,750 | $1,511,125 |
| 51 | California | 110.7 | $86,954 | $2,173,849 | $1,521,694 |
National average, for reference: $78,535/year spending → $1,963,375 FIRE number.
What actually moves between the cheapest and most expensive state
The five cheapest states to hit FIRE in are Arkansas, Mississippi, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Louisiana — all with FIRE numbers under $1.74M. The five most expensive are New York, New Jersey, DC, Hawaii, and California, all above $2.1M. That's roughly a $467,000 gap between the least and most expensive state on this list, on identical average spending patterns.
A few things worth noticing in the full table:
- The spread is smaller than people expect. Rent in California can run 3x rent in Mississippi, but total household spending — which includes groceries, healthcare, transportation, and services that don't vary nearly as much by state — only differs by about 27% top to bottom. Housing dominates the feeling of cost of living; it doesn't dominate the number nearly as much.
- A lot of mid-cost states cluster near the national average. Illinois, Nevada, Arizona, and Virginia all sit within about 1% of RPP 100 — meaning the national average FIRE number ($1.96M) is a genuinely reasonable estimate for roughly a third of the country, even though it's technically wrong for all fifty states individually.
- Geoarbitrage math is real but smaller than the headline number suggests. Moving from California to Mississippi doesn't cut your FIRE number by half; it cuts it by about 21%. That's still a meaningful number of working years, but it's a different pitch than "move somewhere cheap and retire twice as fast" — our geoarbitrage guide walks through what a relocation actually saves once you account for this.
Using this table with your own numbers
This table answers "how does geography move the number" — it does not replace calculating your own number, because it's built from average spending for each state, not your spending. Two households in the same state can have FIRE numbers hundreds of thousands of dollars apart depending on housing choice, family size, and whether they're targeting Lean, standard, or Fat FIRE.
To get your actual number:
- FIRE Calculator — enter your real annual expenses for a personalized FIRE number and timeline, in any state
- Coast FIRE Calculator — if you're weighing a move to a lower-cost state against your current timeline, this shows whether you could stop contributing today and still coast to your number
- Retirement Calculator — full withdrawal-phase projection once you're deciding between states for the drawdown years, not just the accumulation years
Methodology and sources
- National baseline spending: $78,535, Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey, average annual expenditures for all consumer units, 2024 (released December 19, 2025, USDL-25-1586)
- State price adjustment: Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities by State and Metro Area, all-items index, 2024
- Calculation: state-adjusted spending = national baseline × (state RPP ÷ 100); FIRE number = state-adjusted spending × 25; Lean FIRE number = state-adjusted spending × 17.5 (70% of average spending, 25x)
Both datasets are public and updated annually — this table will be refreshed each year as BEA and BLS publish new figures. It does not include state or local tax rates, which affect how much pre-tax income is needed to fund these numbers but not the FIRE numbers themselves.