BEA Regional Price Parity 2024 · Census ACS 2023
Cost of Living in Puerto Rico 2026
Cost-of-living data for Puerto Rico is unavailable in the current BEA Regional Price Parities release.
Housing costs
Median Rent
$562
/ month, gross
Median Home Value
$124,600
Owner-occupied
Homeownership
68.1%
Of occupied units
Housing accounts for the single largest share of cost-of-living variation between states. The RPP figure above already incorporates rent differences alongside other goods and services.
Puerto Rico cost of living vs. similar states
| State | RPP | vs US avg |
|---|---|---|
| Nevada | 100.0 | -0.0% |
| Illinois | 100.0 | -0.0% |
| Delaware | 99.8 | -0.2% |
| Arizona | 100.7 | +0.7% |
| Virginia | 101.1 | +1.1% |
| Utah | 98.9 | -1.1% |
Sorted by RPP closeness to Puerto Rico. For a side-by-side comparison of any two states across 18 demographic and economic metrics, visit the comparison page.
About this data
BEA Regional Price Parities are the federal government's official cost-of-living index, used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and IRS for benefits adjustments. Index value 100 is the US national average, so a state RPP of 110 means goods and services cost 10% more than the US average, and an RPP of 90 means 10% less. Some demographic aggregators use composite indices like MERIC instead of the federal BEA RPP — the two disagree on roughly half the states because they weight rent, groceries, healthcare, and transportation differently. We use the federal index because it is methodologically transparent and standard across federal benefits programs.
For more on how we compare to common alternative aggregators, see Is WorldPopulationReview Accurate? You can verify any RPP figure directly at BEA.gov, or download our full dataset at /data.
Frequently Asked Questions
Cost-of-living data for Puerto Rico is unavailable in the current BEA Regional Price Parities release.
Cost-of-living data for Puerto Rico is unavailable in the current BEA release.
Cost-of-living data for Puerto Rico is unavailable in the current BEA release.
Puerto Rico's median rent is $562 per Census ACS 2023. Median home value is $124,600. Homeownership rate is 68.1%. Housing typically accounts for the largest single component of cost-of-living differences across states.
Metro-level RPP data for Puerto Rico is not currently published by BEA.
Cost-of-living figures on this page come from the Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parities (RPP) series, the federal government's official cost-of-living index. Income, rent, and home-value figures come from the US Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) 2023 5-Year estimates. Both are public-domain federal data; the RPP vintage is 2024. Last refreshed April 12, 2026.
BEA Regional Price Parities (RPP) measure the price level of an area relative to the US national average (=100). RPP is computed from the same Consumer Price Index inputs the BLS uses, recombined geographically. Income, rent, and home-value figures from US Census ACS 2023 5-Year estimates. Adjusted income = (median income × 100) ÷ state RPP. Last refreshed April 12, 2026.
For Puerto Rico, the underlying data on this page comes from the U.S. Census Bureau ACS and decennial files. The breakdown above is the federal record; the paragraphs below add the per-entity context that makes the headline numbers usable for a real decision rather than just a data lookup.
Every number on this page links back to the U.S. Census Bureau ACS and decennial files; the methodology page describes the inputs, refresh cadence, and known limitations of the underlying data product.
Practical use of this page is in combination with the comparison and ranking pages elsewhere on the site, which surface the same data for Puerto Rico’s peers within U.S. states, metros, cities, and ZIPs. A single-entity reading without peer context can be misleading when an entity is an outlier on one axis but typical on another.