Cost of Living in Charlotte: A Guide for Homebuyers
If you’re considering moving to Charlotte, understanding the cost of living in Queen City can help you make plans more confidently.
In this guide, we break down the cost of living in Charlotte, from housing expenses to food and healthcare costs. We’ll provide data from the local cost of living index and comparison tools and look at how Charlotte ranks for livability compared to other U.S. cities.
We’ll also share a handy set of additional online resources to measure and compare the cost of living and expenses in other North Carolina cities.
What makes up the ‘cost of living’ in Charlotte?
When you’re planning to live in a new city, the cost of living there will be a combination of expenses required to maintain your desired lifestyle. Cambridge Dictionary defines cost of living as “the amount of money people need to spend to buy basic goods or services such as food, clothes, and a place to live.”
This overall cost can vary significantly based on location, even within North Carolina. But the living expenses you’ll pay for typically include the following categories:
Housing (mortgage/rent)
Energy (utility costs)
Food (groceries)
Transportation (vehicle or transit systems)
Healthcare (doctors, hospitals, dentists, etc.)
However, the costs often extend beyond these basics to cover other expenses, such as:
Clothing
Education
Childcare
Entertainment
These elements, when combined, establish the core costs associated with a particular way of living. However, the standard of living you achieve is largely influenced by your income and debts and how the dollar amounts compare to the costs of basic needs in your location or, in this case, the Charlotte community where you might want to live.
Let’s take a quick look at some ways you can compare your current living cost with what you might experience if you move to Charlotte.
What’s a Charlotte cost of living index (CLI)?
A cost of living index (CLI) monitors how much these basic expenses increase over time in different states, cities, or regions. They provide a way to compare the price of maintaining a particular standard of living.
The CLI for a city like Charlotte is calculated by assessing the price of essential goods and services in different areas, such as housing, food, transportation, and healthcare.
A local index is typically standardized, with a base city assigned a baseline index value (usually set at 100). Other cities are then compared against this benchmark. For example, a North Carolina community with a CLI of 125 would signify that living there is 25% more expensive than the base location, while an index of 75 indicates it’s 25% less expensive.
A cost of living index will typically break down and score each basic expense by category. Here are separate scores for Charlotte from the BestPlaces Charlotte Cost of Living Index:
Overall CLI score: 99.7
Housing: 99
Healthcare: 95.0
Transportation: 97.7
Misc. goods and services: 99.4
Grocery items: 99.2
Utilities: 98.3
Data source used: C2ER Council for Economic and Social Research
According to BestPlaces, Charlotte, North Carolina’s total cost of housing, food, child care, transportation, health care, taxes, and other necessities is 2.5 percent higher than the U.S. average and 12.6 percent higher than the average for North Carolina.
Cost perspective
While Charlotte’s overall cost of living is 2.5 points higher than the baseline established for the cities included in the BestPlaces index, it’s well below the costs to live in Chapel Hill, which — with a CLI score of 116.0) is 16.0 points higher than the base of other scored communities.
