Ask five retirees where to retire and you get two camps. One camp moved somewhere warmer and cheaper and will tell you it was the best decision they ever made. The other stayed where their doctors, friends and grandchildren already were, and will tell you the movers are lonely and paying more than they admit.
Both camps are partly right, and the honest way to choose is to stop arguing the camps and price the candidates. Choosing where to retire means comparing a short list of real places, including staying exactly where you are, on what a year in each would cost and on the handful of things you care about most, weighted by how much each one matters to you. Staying put is the option to beat: a move should win that comparison clearly, not narrowly.
That comparison is hard to hold in your head. Some criteria you want more of (family nearby, a good hospital) and some you want less of (cost, taxes), and people trade them off by gut feel, almost always in favor of the place they already wanted. The Where-to-Retire Decision Helper is a workbook that does the comparison for up to five locations: it turns each one into a single annual cost and a weighted score. The method below works on paper too. Here are both sides first.
The case for moving
The strongest argument for moving is that retirement is the first time in decades your location is not chosen for you. The job that pinned you to one metro area is gone, and you are free to live where your money and your body both do better.
- Your fixed income stretches further. A household living on Social Security, a pension and savings withdrawals feels every recurring cost. Property tax, insurance and everyday prices vary enough between regions that the same income can feel tight in one place and comfortable in another.
- Taxes on retirement income differ by state. In 2026, eight states still tax some Social Security benefits (opens in new tab), though all eight exempt them for at least some retirees, depending on age or income. States also differ on whether they tax pension and 401(k) or IRA withdrawals.
- The house can be right-sized. A family house with stairs, a big yard and rooms nobody sleeps in is expensive to heat, insure and maintain. Selling it can fund a smaller, single-level home and leave money over.
- Climate is a health decision, not a luxury. Winters with ice on the steps are a fall risk, and a place where you can walk outside year-round makes it easier to keep walking.
Movers are right that the cheapest decision is rarely to change nothing by default. If you never price the alternatives, you never find out whether staying is costing you.
The case for staying put
The strongest argument for staying is that the place you live now is the only candidate you actually know. You know its costs, its doctors and its winters, and the people in it already know you.
- Your support network can’t be moved. Friends, neighbors, a church or club, the doctor who has seen you for fifteen years: these took decades to build. Rebuilding them at 68 is possible, but it is real work, and it is easy to underestimate.
- Moving costs money, not just effort. Selling, buying, moving and furnishing are one-time costs that a move has to earn back before it saves you anything. Staying is the only option that pays none of them.
- Family can be the reason for a later move. As health changes, some retirees move again, toward their adult children. A move that takes you further from family can turn into two moves.
- The house can be adapted. Grab bars, a first-floor bedroom and better lighting cost far less than relocating. The aging-in-place checklist walks through it room by room, cheapest fix first.
Stayers are right that staying put is harder to beat than it looks, because it is the only candidate whose costs you aren’t estimating.
Where the real dividing line is: annual cost, not house price
The question that separates a good move from a bad one is what a whole year in each place costs, not what a house there costs. House prices are the most visible number and the least useful one, because you pay for the house once. Whether your money lasts depends on the recurring costs.
A comparable annual cost for each location adds up:
- Property tax at that place’s own rate
- Homeowners insurance and any HOA fees
- Utilities and everyday spending
- Healthcare: premiums and what you pay out of pocket
- The state taxes you would owe on your actual retirement income
- Trips back to see family, if the move puts distance between you
- The one-time cost of selling, moving and buying, spread over the years you plan to stay
The last two items are the ones most often left out. They are also often the ones that close the gap between a “cheap” place and the one you already live in.
Why “no income tax” is a weak signal
A state with no income tax still has to raise money, and it often does it through property and sales tax. Retirees can’t escape those, because they are charged on the house you live in and the things you buy, whatever your income is.
New Hampshire and Texas are good examples. Neither taxes wages, yet in the Tax Foundation’s 2024 effective property tax rates (opens in new tab), New Hampshire ranks fifth-highest in the country at 1.50% of home value and Texas seventh at 1.40%, against 0.78% in Florida. On an illustrative $400,000 home, that is roughly $6,000 a year in New Hampshire against $3,120 in Florida. Those are statewide averages, and individual counties can sit well above or below them. The point is narrower: you only learn which state is cheaper for you once income, property and sales tax are added together.
Healthcare access is part of the decision
Distance to a good hospital and to the specialists you already see belongs on the scorecard. If you are thinking about retiring abroad, cost matters too: Medicare usually doesn’t cover health care outside the U.S. (opens in new tab), with a few exceptions. That changes the whole cost picture of an overseas move, and it is a separate decision from choosing between US states.
How to score where to retire
A weighted scorecard is the fairest way to compare retirement locations. You choose the criteria and how much each one matters to you, rate each place, and let the arithmetic rank them. The site’s guide to what weighted decision scoring is explains the method in general. Here is how it applies to where you retire.
- Shortlist three to five places, and make staying put the first one. Score staying as strictly as you score every other option.
- Pick five to ten criteria and weight them. Weights should add up to 100 and describe your household. Someone with grandchildren nearby and someone without should not use the same weights.
- Rate the judgment criteria from 1 to 5. Healthcare access, family nearby, climate, community: you rate these by hand, and 5 is best.
- Let the money rate itself. Cost and taxes are lower-is-better, and rating them by feel quietly makes up an exchange rate between dollars and a five-point scale. Instead, give the cheapest candidate a 5, the most expensive a 1, and the rest a score in proportion to where their cost falls between them.
- Multiply, add up, and read the margin. Each rating times its weight, summed and divided by 100, gives a score out of 5. A small margin between the top two means the scorecard is telling you it’s close.
A worked example
Here is a hypothetical couple comparing three options: staying in their current town, a smaller coastal town with mild winters, and a city an hour from their daughter’s family. Every figure is invented to show the arithmetic.
| Criterion | Weight (of 100) | Stay put | Coastal town | Near the kids |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Annual living cost (excl. state tax) | 20 | 2.7 ($58,000) | 5 ($54,000) | 1 ($61,000) |
| State tax bill | 10 | 1 ($3,200) | 5 ($900) | 2.4 ($2,400) |
| Healthcare access | 20 | 5 | 3 | 4 |
| Family nearby | 30 | 2 | 1 | 5 |
| Climate | 10 | 2 | 5 | 3 |
| Friends and community | 10 | 5 | 2 | 3 |
| Weighted score (out of 5) | 100 | 2.94 | 3.10 | 3.34 |
Living cost includes each move’s one-time costs spread over a 20-year horizon, which is part of why staying put isn’t the cheapest option here. Near the kids wins, and the coastal town is the cheapest option. Together they produce the number that settles the decision, the price of fit: what choosing the best-scoring place costs over the cheapest one.
- Near the kids: $61,000 + $2,400 = $63,400 a year
- Coastal town: $54,000 + $900 = $54,900 a year
- Price of fit: $8,500 a year, or $170,000 over 20 years
That turns the question from “should we move near the kids?” into “is living an hour from our grandchildren worth $8,500 a year to us?” That second question is one a household can actually answer, and it is the question they were arguing about all along.
The verdict: stay unless a candidate clearly beats home
Both camps have a point, but the reasoning above leans one way. Staying put should be the default, and a move has to clearly beat it on the scorecard, not just edge it. Staying is the only candidate where every number is known; every other column is partly an estimate. A narrow win on estimated figures is not a reason to sell a house and leave your doctors.
When a candidate does clearly beat home, three rules make it safer:
- Visit in the worst season. A beach town in February and a desert city in August are different places from the ones in the brochure. Use your visits to re-rate climate and community honestly.
- Rent before you buy. A few months of renting is the cheapest way to test the criteria you can only guess at from a distance.
- Plan for the second move. If a candidate takes you further from family, ask where you would go if one of you needed regular care in ten years. If the answer is “back near the kids,” score that place now.
And if the score picks a place and your gut objects, take that seriously. It usually means a criterion is missing, or one is weighted lower than you really feel it. Find it, re-weight, and score again.
Common Questions About Choosing Where to Retire
Which states tax Social Security benefits?
In 2026, eight states tax some Social Security benefits: Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Utah and Vermont. All eight exempt the benefits for at least some retirees, depending on age or income, and West Virginia dropped off the list when its phase-out finished at the start of 2026 (Money’s 2026 state-by-state rundown (opens in new tab)). The thresholds change often, so check the state’s own revenue department for the current year.
Is a state with no income tax always cheaper to retire in?
No. A state with no income tax still has to raise money, and it often does it through property and sales tax, which a retiree pays whatever their income. Add income, property and sales tax together for your own situation before you compare.
Should I rent before I buy in a new retirement location?
Yes, if you can. Renting for a few months, ideally including the worst season, is the cheapest way to test the criteria you can only guess at from a distance: the climate, the drive to the doctor, and whether you can build a social life there.
Is staying put a real option in a retirement comparison?
It should be the first column on the scorecard, scored as strictly as every other candidate. It is the only option with no moving costs and no estimated figures, which makes it the option to beat.
Score your own shortlist
The Where-to-Retire Decision Helper builds this scorecard for up to five locations, including staying put, across ten criteria you weight yourself. It has a built-in state tax reference for all 50 states and DC, folds each place into one comparable annual cost, and names the price of fit in dollars. It is a file you own in Excel or Google Sheets, with no login and no relocation service steering you anywhere.
To try the method first, the free Where-to-Retire Web Scorer compares two locations in your browser with no signup. And if the move you’re weighing is really about a parent’s care rather than your own retirement, the Elder Care Decision Helper scores those options the same way.
