Fargo vs Sioux Falls
Metro-area medians — Fargo, ND-MN Metro Area vs Sioux Falls, SD-MN Metro Area — not the cities proper.
Fargo comes out ahead, winning 5 of the 9 clearly-decided measures.
Fargo and Sioux Falls cost about the same to live in, but Sioux Falls households earn about 7% more. Adjusted for local prices, a typical paycheck stretches further in Sioux Falls.
For your salary & household
Enter your pay and household size to see what it's really worth here — the numbers update live and the link stays shareable.
On $75,000 for just you, Sioux Falls leaves you about $410/yr better off after tax and local prices.
Take-home estimates a single filer taking the standard deduction (2025 federal brackets, FICA, and state income tax) and isn't tax advice. “Real value” rebases take-home to average U.S. prices using the BEA cost-of-living index; the per-person figure uses the OECD square-root equivalence scale.
Choose Fargo for
- + Median rent
- + Median home value
- + Unemployment
- + Bachelor's degree or higher
- + Average commute
Choose Sioux Falls for
- + Livability (CityLedger)
- + Cost-adjusted income (pay's real value)
- + Median household income
- + Air quality (median AQI)
Fargo vs Sioux Falls — frequently asked
- Is Fargo cheaper than Sioux Falls?
- They are about even — the overall cost of living in the Fargo and Sioux Falls metros is within 3% of each other (BEA Regional Price Parities), so neither is meaningfully cheaper.
- Which has higher household income, Fargo or Sioux Falls?
- Sioux Falls has the higher median household income — $82,509 versus $76,945 (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS), about 7% more.
- Does a paycheck go further in Fargo or Sioux Falls?
- A paycheck stretches further in Sioux Falls. Adjusted for local prices, the median income is worth $91,038 there versus $84,675 in Fargo.
- Which has cheaper rent, Fargo or Sioux Falls?
- Fargo has cheaper rent — a median of $997/mo versus $1,094/mo (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS).