Best 100 US Cities for Retirees in 2026—Did Your Town Make Our List?

How We Determined the Best 100 Cities for Retirees in 2026

To determine the winners listed above, Investopedia’s team of researchers conducted competitor analysis and comprehensive internet research to identify 565 cities in the United States worth adding to the rubric. This list of cities was separated into six regions: Florida, Midwest, Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, and West. Florida is considered its own region due to the high volume of cities that are generally seen as good places for retirees. Every state that made the cut was represented by at least two cities.

Every city was selected based on its cost of living, health care, community, and climate—factors important to retirees. Every city was evaluated using a combination of state, county, and city-level data. We gathered data on these factors and criteria from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

After scoring each city against these criteria, we combined the results into an overall score out of 100.

The Investopedia editorial staff reviewed the top cities in the list of 565 to determine which were the best of the best and finalized the list of 100 places, ensuring all six regions were represented.

Overall, the research process lasted from Oct. 20 to Dec. 3, 2025. We analyzed 31 total criteria and 22 weighted criteria. Our rubric has over 17,500 unique data points.

Data Collection and Scoring

We scored every place on a 0 to 100 scale so that all the data could be compared easily and fairly. Any criterion with only two possible outcomes was scored as either 0 or 100. Criteria that fell along a range were scored by setting the lowest value to 0 and the highest to 100. If a criterion offered several defined responses, we assigned each one a specific value between 0 and 100. Any data point that was not disclosed received a score of 0.

Best Places to Retire Evaluation Categories

Affordability & Cost of Living

Affordability carries by far the most weight in our 2026 Best U.S. Cities for Retirees rankings, at 53%, because it has a significant impact on the day-to-day lives of retirees. To quantify it, we collected and scored several cost-of-living data points. We looked at publicly available state tax data to determine whether each state taxes Social Security benefits and retirement withdrawals, such as income from IRAs and 401(k)s. Additionally, we researched median monthly housing costs, rent, home values, and household income from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) five-year 2023 estimates, which were the most recent dataset available at the city level.

We also collected food and transportation cost data from the Economic Policy Institute’s (EPI) Family Budget Calculator at the county level as well as state (USAFacts) and county (Tax Foundation) tax burden data. Together, this data offers a clear picture of what retirees can expect to pay to live in each place.

Health Care

Health care is the next highest weighted category at 25% of the overall score, since access to and quality of care are important to retirees. We weighted four metrics from three sources. We collected county-level data to score how many ambulatory facilities (from BLS) and hospitals (from CMS) were located near each city. It’s important to have a lot of options in each city, but having good quality of care is just as important. We aggregated CMS hospital star ratings from each county to find how strongly rated each hospital was in each county. We also collected Medicare performance data for each state. We gathered this data from The Commonwealth Fund, which determines how well each state performs in key Medicare metrics with an aggregated ranking.

Lifestyle & Community

At 12% of the overall score, another important factor for retirees is the community that they’re retiring to. We collected data using Walk Score to learn how accessible each place is, including how easy it is for retirees to get around without a car.

We looked at the number of arts and entertainment establishments in each county from the BLS. We also looked at how close each city is to a commercial airport using Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) data to determine distance from each place to airports and whether airports are large or medium hubs. We then gathered the time it takes to drive to each airport from each place’s city center. We used Google Maps to calculate the driving time during a morning rush hour commute, one of the busiest times of day to get to an airport.

Finally, we collected the median age of residents in each city from the U.S. Census Bureau ACS five-year 2023 estimates.

Climate & Environment

Many retirees consider climate and environmental conditions when deciding where to live. We used two federal data sources to help capture these factors and weighted them together at a total of 10% of the overall score. We incorporated county-level National Risk Index data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which reflects how likely each county is to experience an environmental disaster. We also included the 2024 median county-level Air Quality Index from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which shows how often residents are exposed to clean or polluted air.

Meet the Research and Editorial Team