Most affordable towns in District of Columbia, 2026

The formula

1. Rent share = (median monthly rent × 12) / median household income. Both figures are the Census 2020–2024 medians for that place.
2. RPP-adjusted cost is the BEA 2024 all-items regional price parity. A basket priced at 100 for the U.S. average costs this many dollars in the town's area. We use the metro index when the county is in a metro BEA publishes. Otherwise we use the state index and say so. This index includes housing, so housing also shows up in the rent share.
3. Tax burden is the average of three percentiles. Income-tax share is state income tax plus the stored 2023 local AGI add-on, divided by the town's median household income, on a joint return. Property share is the state's median effective property-tax rate times the town's median home value, divided by income. Sales rate is the combined state and average local sales-tax rate. We do not turn the sales rate into dollars, because that would require a shopping basket we do not have.
4. Electricity is the state residential price in cents per kilowatt-hour. Every town in a state shares it. We do not guess how many kilowatt-hours a home uses.
5. Gasoline is the EIA retail price for all grades and all formulations, in dollars per gallon. Where EIA publishes a state series, we use that state. Every other state uses the PADD region EIA assigns to it. Census does not publish commuting miles for these towns, so annual gas spend is 12,000 miles a year divided by 25 miles per gallon, times the price. That is 480 gallons, the same for every town. Those miles are our standard, not an ACS figure and not a government mileage rule. Because the gallons do not change, the gas percentile is the percentile of the price.

   Weekly prices are for the week of October 12, 2026, from the EIA workbook released October 14, 2026. File: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/xls/pswrgvwall.xls. Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, and Oregon use West Coast (PADD 5) Except California. That series is not in the weekly workbook, so those five use the monthly price dated September 15, 2026. File: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_gnd_a_epm0_pte_dpgal_m.htm.

   • State series, week of October 12, 2026: California, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Texas, Washington.
   • Central Atlantic (PADD 1B), week of October 12, 2026: Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania.
   • Gulf Coast (PADD 3), week of October 12, 2026: Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico.
   • Lower Atlantic (PADD 1C), week of October 12, 2026: Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia.
   • Midwest (PADD 2), week of October 12, 2026: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Wisconsin.
   • New England (PADD 1A), week of October 12, 2026: Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont.
   • Rocky Mountain (PADD 4), week of October 12, 2026: Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming.
   • West Coast (PADD 5) Except California, September 15, 2026: Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon.

Score = 0.225 × rent percentile + 0.225 × price-level percentile + 0.225 × tax score + 0.225 × electricity percentile + 0.10 × gasoline percentile. Rank 1 is the lowest score. If scores tie, the lower rent share wins, then the lower price level, then the place slug in A-to-Z order.