Loading
Assembling your view…
Crunching costs, sorting signals, rendering insights.
Crunching costs, sorting signals, rendering insights.
When your office is wherever you open your laptop, the city you live in becomes a financial strategy. We ranked 1 cities in Montana for remote workers — weighting cost, utilities, and economic strength. Billings tops the list for 2026: index 81 — worth pausing on — , rent $1,383/mo.
When your office is wherever you open your laptop, the city you live in becomes a financial strategy. We ranked 1 cities in Montana for remote workers — weighting cost, utilities, and economic strength. Billings tops the list for 2026: index 81 — worth pausing on — , rent $1,383/mo.
Billings is one of the cheaper options here. Rent is $1,383/month, which is lower than most cities in this ranking. The cost index is 81. Income sits at $71,855. That tracks (and that gap widens if you factor in state taxes).
What to do with this data: use the ranking as a shortlist, then dig into the city profiles for trend lines and category breakdowns. The difference between #1 and #5 is often smaller than the difference between "good on paper" and "actually fits my life." Compare your top picks with our calculator to see real take-home numbers (we double-checked this one).
#1 Ranked: Billings — cost index 81, rent $1,383/mo, income $71,855
Remote-worker scoring: cost index 81, utilities index 94, income $71,855 — maximizing geographic arbitrage
Data sourced from Census Bureau, Zillow, BLS, and Tax Foundation — current as of 2026
120,864 residents · Montana
A closer look at Billings: the cost index of 81 breaks down to a Housing index of 81 (strongest category) and a Healthcare index of 96 (weakest). Median rent is $1,383/month — 27% below the national median — while household income sits at $71,855, meaning locals spend about 23% of income on rent. That's a healthy margin by any standard.
Our persona scoring model weights cost, income, rent, healthcare, taxes, and city size based on what matters most to remote workers. Each factor scores 10-25 points out of a 100-point composite. The guide ranks every tracked city in Montana by this personalized metric. All data is sourced from federal agencies and verified research institutions. Cost of living indices are normalized to 100 (national median) using Zillow rent as the primary signal, with sub-category adjustments derived from regional BLS price data. Rankings are updated monthly as new data is released.
Billings ranks #1 in Montana for this analysis with a cost index of 81 and median income of $71,855.
Billings scores highest for remote workers due to its below-average cost of living, median rent of $1,383/mo, and competitive median income of $71,855.
Our cost of living index uses real Zillow rent data as the foundation, indexed to 100 (national median). Sub-categories (housing, food, transport, utilities, healthcare) are derived from the overall index with regional adjustments. Data is updated monthly.
City data is refreshed monthly from Census Bureau population estimates, Zillow rent and home price indices, BLS salary data, and Tax Foundation tax rates. Last updated: 2026.
The median 1-bedroom rent in Billings is $1,383/month as of 2026, based on Zillow's Observed Rent Index. This is $512 below the national median of $1,895/month.
The median home price in Billings is $390,654, which is 5.4× the local median income. Most median-income households would stretch to buy at this ratio. The national median home price is $467,370.
Montana has a 5.9% state income tax rate. Combined state and local sales tax averages 0%, and the effective property tax rate is 0.74%.
This ranking was generated using data current as of early 2026. Population and income data comes from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (5-year estimates). Rent and home price data is from Zillow's monthly releases. Tax rates are from the Tax Foundation's 2025 edition. Rankings are refreshed monthly.