Las Vegas vs Virginia Beach
Metro-area medians — Las Vegas-Henderson-North Las Vegas, NV Metro Area vs Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, VA-NC Metro Area — not the cities proper.
Virginia Beach comes out ahead, winning 7 of the 7 clearly-decided measures.
Las Vegas and Virginia Beach are closely matched on both cost of living and household income. Adjusted for local prices, a typical paycheck stretches further in Virginia Beach.
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, Las Vegas leaves you about $2,221/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 Virginia Beach for
- + Livability (CityLedger)
- + Cost-adjusted income (pay's real value)
- + Median rent
- + Median home value
- + Unemployment
- + Bachelor's degree or higher
- + Air quality (median AQI)
Las Vegas vs Virginia Beach — frequently asked
- Is Las Vegas cheaper than Virginia Beach?
- They are about even — the overall cost of living in the Las Vegas and Virginia Beach metros is within 3% of each other (BEA Regional Price Parities), so neither is meaningfully cheaper.
- Which has higher household income, Las Vegas or Virginia Beach?
- Virginia Beach has the higher median household income — $82,402 versus $80,028 (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS), about 3% more.
- Does a paycheck go further in Las Vegas or Virginia Beach?
- A paycheck stretches further in Virginia Beach. Adjusted for local prices, the median income is worth $84,134 there versus $79,856 in Las Vegas.
- Which has cheaper rent, Las Vegas or Virginia Beach?
- Virginia Beach has cheaper rent — a median of $1,556/mo versus $1,739/mo (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS).