The cheapest US cities to rent in, ranked
Davenport, IA is the most affordable large US city to rent in at $952/month, 50% below the national median.
For renters comparing relocations, absolute price matters more than rent-growth percentage. This ranking lists the 25 most affordable US cities with at least 100,000 residents, sorted by current median rent. All figures use ZORI April 2026.
Davenport, IA tops the list at $952/month — roughly 50% below the US national median ($1,895). Every city on this list rents for less than $1,255/month.
| # | City | Median rent | YoY change | Population |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Davenport, IA | $952 | +3.3% | 100,913 |
| 2 | Evansville, IN | $1,013 | +6.6% | 116,116 |
| 3 | Edinburg, TX | $1,018 | +3.4% | 104,550 |
| 4 | Fargo, ND | $1,092 | +3.0% | 131,627 |
| 5 | Green Bay, WI | $1,114 | +10.1% | 106,253 |
| 6 | Wichita, KS | $1,118 | +3.0% | 397,945 |
| 7 | Toledo, OH | $1,122 | +9.8% | 267,463 |
| 8 | Akron, OH | $1,135 | +1.8% | 189,247 |
| 9 | Peoria, IL | $1,144 | +3.3% | 112,169 |
| 10 | Shreveport, LA | $1,147 | +0.2% | 180,982 |
| 11 | Des Moines, IA | $1,156 | +4.5% | 212,421 |
| 12 | Springfield, IL | $1,172 | +6.9% | 113,330 |
| 13 | Little Rock, AR | $1,195 | +4.3% | 203,436 |
| 14 | Rockford, IL | $1,199 | +10.1% | 147,521 |
| 15 | Dayton, OH | $1,199 | +3.5% | 136,579 |
| 16 | Springfield, MO | $1,206 | +2.3% | 169,954 |
| 17 | Macon, GA | $1,208 | +1.9% | 156,578 |
| 18 | Lansing, MI | $1,218 | -0.4% | 113,023 |
| 19 | Topeka, KS | $1,224 | +8.8% | 125,786 |
| 20 | Columbus, GA | $1,226 | +3.6% | 203,711 |
| 21 | Cedar Rapids, IA | $1,227 | +13.4% | 137,264 |
| 22 | Fort Wayne, IN | $1,232 | +8.9% | 268,589 |
| 23 | Killeen, TX | $1,233 | -4.0% | 158,159 |
| 24 | Tulsa, OK | $1,250 | +5.9% | 413,794 |
| 25 | Jackson, MS | $1,255 | +0.6% | 146,631 |
Key findings
- Davenport, IA is the cheapest large US city to rent in, at $952/mo.
- All 25 cities on this list rent below $1,255/mo — well under the $1,895 national median.
- The Midwest and South dominate the list; coastal metros are absent.
- Six of the top 25 still saw rent decline year-over-year (negative YoY%).
Why these cities are cheap
Affordability at this scale reflects a mix of slack housing supply, lower median wages, and population stability. The cities on this list typically have multifamily inventory built before 2010 that hasn't been renovated to chase higher rents, and labor markets that don't attract the kind of remote-work in-migration that lifted Sunbelt rents 2020–2022.
Click any city above to open its full RentDataNow page, which includes the 10-year ZORI history, breakdown by bedroom count (studio through 4-bedroom), nearby ZIPs, and what salary you'd need to afford the typical apartment under the 30% rule.
Median rent figures use Zillow's Observed Rent Index (ZORI) for the most recent published month. ZORI is a smoothed, repeat-rent index that tracks the typical asking rent for the middle tier of the housing market in each city, designed to be less noisy than raw asking-rent listings.
The universe is US cities with at least 100,000 residents per the latest US Census ACS 5-year estimate. ZORI markets above $20,000/month are excluded as statistical outliers (these are typically luxury submarkets, not citywide medians). Year-over-year change compares the current month to the same calendar month one year earlier.
Rent-burden calculations use median household income from the US Census ACS 5-year estimate (most recent vintage), divided into annualized rent (median rent × 12). The federal "rent-burdened" threshold is 30% of household income.
The full underlying dataset is available as a CSV for verification, republishing, or extending the analysis.
↓ cheapest-us-cities-to-rent.csvThese findings and the accompanying dataset are released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. You are free to republish, including commercially, as long as you credit RentDataNow and link back to this page so readers can verify the underlying data.
RentDataNow Data Team (2026). "The cheapest US cities to rent in, ranked." RentDataNow. Retrieved from https://rentdatanow.com/studies/cheapest-us-cities-to-rent
- ZORI (Zillow Observed Rent Index) — monthly city-level median rent, smoothed repeat-rent methodology. Public download at zillow.com/research/data.
- US Census ACS 5-year estimates — Table B25064 (median gross rent), B19013 (median household income), B01003 (total population). US Census Bureau, latest published vintage.
- HUD Fair Market Rents — used as a sanity check on bedroom-level breakdowns. US Department of Housing and Urban Development.
- RentDataNow city pages — every row in the rankings links to the full underlying time series, bedroom breakdown, and salary-vs-rent analysis for that city.
RentDataNow publishes original research grounded in ZORI rent data, BLS wage data, HUD Fair Market Rents, and US Census demographics. Every study includes the underlying numbers, methodology, and sources so readers can verify or extend the analysis.
RentDataNow is an independent service and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Zillow Group, Inc., the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or any government agency. ZORI (Zillow Observed Rent Index), the American Community Survey, Fair Market Rents, and other product names are trademarks of their respective owners, used here for identification only. Figures are provided "as is" without warranty of accuracy or completeness, and any reuse is at your own risk. See our Terms of Service for full terms.