San Juan vs Tampa
Metro-area medians — San Juan-Bayamón-Caguas, PR Metro Area vs Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL Metro Area — not the cities proper.
Tampa comes out ahead, winning 4 of the 7 clearly-decided measures.
San Juan and Tampa cost about the same to live in, but Tampa households earn about 155% more.
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, San Juan leaves you about $541/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 San Juan for
- + Median rent
- + Median home value
- + Air quality (median AQI)
Choose Tampa for
- + Livability (CityLedger)
- + Median household income
- + Unemployment
- + Bachelor's degree or higher
San Juan vs Tampa — frequently asked
- Which has higher household income, San Juan or Tampa?
- Tampa has the higher median household income — $78,275 versus $30,640 (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS), about 155% more.
- Which has cheaper rent, San Juan or Tampa?
- San Juan has cheaper rent — a median of $620/mo versus $1,776/mo (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS).