The Relocation Explorer answers one question for every state at once: what would my plan look like if I lived there instead? It takes your current plan, runs it again with a move to each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, and shows how each compares with staying where you are. Your plan itself is never changed.

What it compares

A move changes two things in your plan, and you can look at them together or one at a time with the Compare switch:

• Income tax - you become a resident of the new state from the year you pick, so state income tax is recalculated every year after. Because state tax changes how much you withdraw, your federal tax and your balance shift too, and those knock-on effects are included.
• Cost of living - your spending is repriced at the new state's price level, while you stay a tax resident of your current state. Useful for seeing how much of a state's result is prices and how much is tax.
• Both - income tax and cost of living together, which is what an actual move does. This is the default.

Everything else in your plan is held exactly as it is - income, accounts, returns, Social Security, healthcare - so a difference between two states is the move and nothing else.

A Plus feature. The Relocation Explorer is part of Plus. Without Plus the page appears blurred behind a prompt to unlock it. The demo plans show it working in full, so you can try it on an example before deciding.

The controls

• You live in - where in your current state you live now, which every state is compared against. See Where in the state below.
• Move in - the year the move happens. It starts on next year. A move takes effect on January 1, as it does everywhere else in the planner.
• Spending that moves with local prices - how much of your adjustable spending follows the new state's prices. At 100% the full price difference applies. Lower it if much of what you buy is priced nationally, or you expect to keep your current habits wherever you live.
• Moving cost - an optional one-time cost in the year of the move, in today's dollars. It counts against every state except the one you live in.
• Housing - what happens to your home, if your plan owns one in the year of the move, or whether you buy one there if you rent. See Your home below.
• Today's $ / Future $ - whether lifetime totals are shown in today's purchasing power or in the inflated dollars of the years they fall in. Future $ is the default, so balances match the simulation chart. Today's $ is the easier way to judge a lifetime total.

Reading the page

• The map colors each state by one figure against your plan. Green is better than staying put, red is worse, and your current state is filled in blue. Choose the figure from the menu above the map.
• The chart beside it plots every state on two figures at once - state tax saved against cost-of-living savings to begin with. Your current state sits where the dashed lines cross; up and to the right is better on both counts. Either axis can be switched to another figure, including totals for the state instead of differences from your plan.
• The table ranks every state and can be sorted by any column or searched by name. Its last column, Housing range, is for reference: how far housing prices in the state's areas reach either side of the statewide figure the ranking uses. Sort by it to find the states where a statewide result says least about where you would actually live, then select one and use Compare areas.
• Clicking a state anywhere selects it everywhere, and opens a side-by-side comparison with your plan: taxes, spending, ending balance, funded ratio, chance of success, how long the money lasts, your balance year by year, and a running total of what the move has saved.

The page is laid out for working on one state at a time. The controls stay pinned at the top as you scroll. The comparison for the selected state comes first, with a State menu in it for switching between the states you are comparing. The map and the two-figure chart sit below it under Map and chart of all states, which you can fold away once you have picked a state; the page remembers whether you left it open. The ranked table of every state is at the bottom.

Every figure labeled as a saving or a change is measured against your plan as it stands, and positive always means better for you.

Which state "wins". States are ranked on the change in ending balance: what you would have left at the end of your plan compared with staying. It is the bottom line, because it includes the tax and price differences, the growth on what you save, and every knock-on effect, such as a larger balance being taxed a little more later. Lifetime savings is the simpler figure: state income tax and cost of living added together, with any rent you collect on a home you keep, before any growth. Use it to see where a state's result comes from, not to decide the winner.

When a housing option is in play, the ending balance is your savings plus home equity, and the table says so. A home is money in another form: without it, selling a house and spending the proceeds would look free, and buying a dearer one would look like a loss. The portfolio balance chart shows savings only, so a state where you would rent can look better there than in the ranking. The note under the chart gives the home's value in each case.

Break-even

The "running total saved by the move" chart adds up, year by year, what the move saves in taxes and spending, plus any rent you collect on a home you keep, with any moving cost counted against it at the start. Where the line crosses zero and stays above it is the year the move has paid for itself.

Where sales tax fits

Sales tax is counted as part of the cost of living, not as a tax. The price figures used here measure what people actually pay in each state, and that includes sales tax, so a state with a high sales tax shows up as a state where goods cost more. Adding it again as a separate tax would count it twice. This is why the Income tax view can flatter a state like Tennessee, which has no income tax and a 7% sales tax: use Both to see the two together. The table's Sales tax column shows each state's own rate for reference. It leaves out local sales taxes, which can add several points, and does not reflect what each state exempts, such as groceries.

How cost of living is adjusted

Prices come from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parities for states, which measure each state's price level against the national average. BEA publishes separate figures for housing, utilities, goods and other services, and they differ far more than the overall number suggests, so each of your expenses is adjusted by the figure for its own category, relative to your current state.

Not everything is adjusted. These are left exactly as you entered them:

• Taxes and debt payments - set by a taxing authority or a contract, not by local prices.
• Charitable giving and gifts - amounts you choose.
• Subscriptions and travel - priced nationally, or spent somewhere else.
• Health insurance premiums, Medicare, ACA and long-term care - these do vary by state, but not in a way a price index describes.
• One-time expenses.

An expense you tagged to your current state carries on in the new one, repriced, instead of stopping when you move. An expense you already tagged to the destination is left exactly as you wrote it.

Your home

A comparable house can cost far more or less in another state, and that is often the largest part of a move. If your plan owns its primary residence in the year of the move, the Housing control decides what happens to it:

• Sell it and buy in the new area - the default.
• Sell it and rent in the new area.
• Keep it as a rental and buy in the new area.
• Keep it as a rental and rent in the new area.
• No housing change - your properties, mortgages and housing costs stay exactly as they are in your plan.

One rule is applied to every state, so the states stay comparable:

• The home in the new area is comparable to yours by default: your home's value, scaled by how home values there compare with home values where you live now. You can use the median home in each place instead, or set a fixed budget. A place is a state, or the area inside it when you have chosen one under Where in or You live in: its median home value, rent and property tax are then used in place of the state's. When renting, the fixed figure is a monthly rent.
• Selling takes off selling costs (6% unless you change it) and pays off a mortgage linked to the home. The proceeds pay for the next home, or the rent, before anything is drawn from your other accounts.
• Buying is in cash, with closing costs (2%). The new home then costs property tax at that place's rate, insurance (0.5% of its value a year) and upkeep (1%). Those three are scaled to what your current home costs you: if you pay more or less than the model would assume for your home where it stands, the new home is costed the same way, so a like-for-like home in the same place costs exactly what you pay now. If you change the insurance or upkeep figure, both are used as entered instead. A home the plan cannot fully pay for counts only for the share that was paid.
• Renting there uses that state's median rent, scaled to a home of the same standing as the one you would have bought.
• Renting out your home starts from an estimate: your state's median rent, scaled by your home's value. Replace it with your own figure if you know what the home would let for. An allowance for vacancy and management comes off (15%), and the rent is taxed after a further allowance for the home's costs and depreciation. The home's own costs and any mortgage carry on.

If you rent now, the Housing control offers one choice instead: keep renting, or buy a home in the new area.

• Keep renting is the default. Your rent is repriced with the rest of your cost of living, by how rents there compare with rents where you live now.
• Buy a home in the new area ends your rent at the move and buys a home in cash from your savings, since there is nothing to sell. By default it is a home of the standing you rent now: your rent against the typical rent where you live, applied to the typical home there. You can use the median home in each place or a fixed budget instead. The home then costs property tax, insurance and upkeep, as above.
• Your rent now is taken from the Housing expenses in your plan. If your rent is part of a general budget instead, enter it, so that it is taken out of that budget and not paid alongside the new home.

A home the plan cannot afford does not rank well. If buying in a state would take more than your plan has, what could not be paid is counted against that state's result, and the side-by-side figures show it as Costs the plan cannot pay.

Housing plays no part in the Income tax view, or in a plan that already has a later move scheduled.

Where in the state

The map and the ranked table compare states on statewide figures. That is the right way to compare 51 places at once, but a statewide figure mostly describes a state's big cities, and prices inside a state vary about as much as prices between states. Nearly all of that is housing: New York State as a whole looks expensive, yet Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse all cost less than the national average to rent in, and a typical home in San Jose is worth twice California's median.

So once you select a state, Where in lets you say which part of it you mean: one of its metropolitan areas, or the part of the state outside them. The side-by-side figures, the charts and the chance of success then use that area's prices, rents, home values and property tax, and Create a plan with this move saves it that way. Income tax does not change, since it is the state's wherever in it you live, which is why the choice is not offered in the Income tax view.

A metro area that crosses a state line, such as New York or Kansas City, is listed under each of its states with the same prices. Pick it under the state you would pay income tax in.

Compare areas, beside either picker, opens that state's areas next to its statewide figures, as a Map or a Table. The table lists prices overall and for housing, the median home value and rent, and property tax. The percentages compare each area with the state as a whole, since the state is already chosen and the question is which part of it; Compare with switches them to the U.S. average. Sort by any column, and click a row to use it. The map draws the same areas and colors them by one measure you choose (housing prices, prices overall, the median home or the median rent): green costs less than the yardstick and red costs more. Hover over an area for its figures and click it to use it. Each metro area is drawn as the whole counties that make it up, so a large county makes a large area, and everything else in the state is the part outside the metro areas. It is the quickest way to see whether the choice matters for a state: in some the areas sit close together, and in others the most expensive costs several times the cheapest.

A move within your own state works too. Select your current state, in the table or on the map, and choose the area you would move to. You stay a resident of the state, so its income tax rules do not change; prices, rents and the home are compared between the two areas, and a housing option and moving cost apply as for any other move. Set You live in first, so the comparison starts from your own area and not from the state as a whole. If you clear every state under States, the page opens on your own state by itself, ready for you to pick an area.

Renting or owning where you already live. The list for your own state includes the area you live in, marked where you live now. Choosing it is not a move: prices and income tax stay as they are, and only your housing changes, by whatever you set under Housing. That is how to compare selling your home and renting in the same place, keeping it as a rental, or, if you rent, buying. With no housing change chosen it is simply your plan as it stands. The moving cost still applies, so set it to what such a change would cost you, or to zero. It is not offered in the Income tax view.

Where you live now works the same way for your starting point. Every state is compared with what you pay today, and You live in, at the start of the controls, says where in your own state that is. Left at the state as a whole, a household in a cheap part of an expensive state looks as if it pays more than it does, and every move looks better than it is; the reverse for a costly city in a cheap state. It matters most when you own your home, because the comparable home in each state is your home's value scaled by one place's prices over the other's. This choice changes every state's result, and unlike the rest of the page's settings it is saved with your plan. It is offered while the state you would be leaving is the one on your profile, and not in the Income tax view.

Where the numbers come from

• Prices inside a state - the same two sources as below, for 2024: the Bureau of Economic Analysis publishes price levels for each metropolitan area and for the part of each state outside them, and the Census survey publishes home values, rents and property tax for the same areas.
• Cost of living - the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parities by state, 2024 data.
• Home values, rents and property tax - the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, 2024 data: each state's median value of owner-occupied homes, median rent, and the property tax its homeowners actually pay as a share of home value.
• State sales tax rates - each state's own general rate as set in its law, as of July 1, 2026, before local taxes. Shown for reference only; they are not used in any calculation.
• State income tax - the same state tax calculations the rest of your plan uses.

These tables are refreshed when the agencies publish new figures, typically once a year. The page's own notes name the year in use.

What it does not model

• If you own your home, rent is left out of your general spending. Much of the gap in prices between states is rent, which a homeowner does not pay. When your plan owns its primary residence in the year of the move, your general spending is compared on prices without rent. The home itself is handled by the Housing control.
• City and county income taxes. Some places, such as New York City and Maryland's counties, charge their own income tax on top of the state's. The planner does not model local income tax anywhere, so choosing an area changes prices and housing but never income tax. A move into such a place costs more than shown, and a move out of one saves more.
• Your exact town. The finest detail is a metropolitan area, or everything outside them taken together. A metro median still hides the spread between its neighborhoods, and goods and services are measured locally only in the largest metros, so what differs between most areas of a state is housing and utilities. Your own housing, insurance and property tax could differ a great deal.
• Where you live after an earlier move. If your plan already schedules a move before the one you are trying, the state you would be leaving is that move's destination, and it is priced at its statewide figures.
• Property tax for a new buyer. The rate used is what a state's current homeowners pay. In states that cap assessments, such as California and Florida, a new buyer pays more.
• A mortgage on the new home. The purchase is made in cash.
• Tax on a home sale, beyond any estimate already entered on your property. Most primary homes fall under the $250,000 or $500,000 exclusion. The tax on later selling a home that has been rented out is not modeled either.
• Estate or inheritance tax.
• A move part-way through a year.

Simulation method and chance of success

Every state is run with the simulation method chosen on your simulation chart, the same one the rest of your plan uses, so a balance or a tax figure here is on the same basis as your dashboard. Your plan as it stands and all 51 places are run on one shared set of simulated markets, so the difference between two states is the move and not luck. With a simulated method that takes several seconds for all 51, and the page fills in state by state as it goes. Only the states you are comparing are run: narrow the list under States and the page is ready sooner, and a state you add back is run then. Balances, including the ending balance states are ranked on, are the median of the simulated paths: the same line the simulation chart draws, and the same figure as its Median Outcome. Taxes and spending come from the single simulated path closest to the median of your plan as it stands, as in your year-by-year details, because only one coherent path has taxes that tie out to its withdrawals. Every state is read from that same path, so a difference in its taxes is the move and not a different run of the markets. A plan you create from a state then shows its own closest path in its year-by-year views, so those can differ a little from the figures here. See why the two differ. Each run also gives that state's chance of success. It has its own column in the table, can be chosen for the map and for either axis of the chart, and appears in the Chance of success row of the side-by-side figures. For a plan that already succeeds nearly every time, it will barely differ between states; the ending balance and funded ratio tell them apart.

If your plan is set to Linear, every state is one steady-return path, as on your chart. A steady path has no chance of success, so the table column and the map choice are not offered, and the state you select is given a standard simulation alongside your plan a moment after you select it.

If your plan already has a move in it

The comparison works from wherever your plan has you living in the year you pick. If your plan has a later move scheduled, that move still happens: the hypothetical one lasts until then, and the page says which years it covers. A move already scheduled for the very year you pick is replaced by the one being tested.

Taking a state further

• Create a plan with this move saves the whole scenario - the move, the repriced expenses, the moving cost and any housing change - as a new, ordinary plan based on your current one. From there you can edit anything, such as putting a mortgage on the new home, and compare it with your original in Plan Compare.
• Open in What-If is offered as soon as the plan is created. It switches to the new plan and opens the What-If Explorer, where you can combine the move with other changes, such as a market crash or a later retirement. The move goes there as a saved plan because the What-If Explorer's own relocation lever changes income tax only, and would leave prices, housing and the moving cost behind.

For a move abroad, see Passport, which models destination healthcare and residency costs as well.