The median monthly rent for all apartment types in the U.S. has stabilized since 2022, despite some seasonal fluctuations. In January 2026, the monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment amounted to ***** U.S. dollars. That was an increase from ***** U.S. dollars in January 2021, but a decline from the peak value of ***** U.S. dollars in August 2022. Where are the most expensive apartments in the U.S.? Apartment rents vary widely from state to state. To afford a two-bedroom apartment in California, for example, a renter needed to earn an average hourly wage of nearly ** U.S. dollars. This was approximately double the average wage in Michigan and 2.6 times as much as the average wage in Arkansas, South Dakota, and West Virginia. In fact, rental costs were considerably higher than the hourly minimum wage in all U.S. states. How did rents change in different states in the U.S.? In late 2025, some of the most expensive states to rent an apartment only saw a moderate increase in rental prices. Nevertheless, rents increased in about half of U.S. states as of January 2026. In North Dakota, the annual rental growth was the highest, at almost **** percent.

The average monthly rent of apartments in California increased substantially in 2021, followed by a period of stabilization. In January 2026, the average rent of a two-bedroom apartment cost over ***** U.S. dollars, up from ***** U.S. dollars in December 2020 before rents started to rise. Nevertheless, not all cities saw rents rise at the same pace.

Comprehensive dataset of average rental costs across major US cities, including one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartment prices

Virginia (VA) has the 19th highest rent in the country out of 56 states and territories. The Fair Market Rent in Virginia ranges from $701 for a 2-bedroom apartment in Grayson County, VA to $1,765 for a 2-bedroom unit in Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD HUD Metro FMR Area.

For FY 2024, the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD HUD Metro FMR Area (Arlington County) rent for a studio or efficiency is $1,772 per month and $3,015 per month to rent a house or an apartment with 4 bedrooms. The average Fair Market Rent for a 2-bedroom home in Virginia is $1,056 per month.

Approximately 15% of Americans qualify for some level of housing assistance. The population in Virginia is around 2,038,847 people. So, there are around 305,827 people in Virginia who could be receiving housing benefits from the HUD. For FY 2025, the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD HUD Metro FMR Area (Arlington County) rent for a studio or efficiency is $2,012 per month and $3,413 per month to rent a house or an apartment with 4 bedrooms. The average Fair Market Rent for a 2-bedroom home in Virginia is $1,059 per month.

🔗 Related Datasets

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• Virginia Median Household Income - by Census County (ACS 5-Year) — Office of INTERMODAL Planning and Investment
• Virginia Median Household Income in the Past 12 Months by Census Block Group (ACS 5-Year) — Office of INTERMODAL Planning and Investment

In California, the estimated fair market rent for a two-bedroom accommodation amounted to ******U.S. dollars in 2025. It was one of the least affordable states in terms of housing that year, as someone would need to earn at least twice the minimum wage to afford a two-bedroom rental unit there.

Graph and download economic data for Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: Rent of Primary Residence in U.S. City Average (CUUR0000SEHA) from Dec 1914 to Jan 2026 about primary, rent, urban, consumer, CPI, inflation, price index, indexes, price, and USA.

Displacement risk indicator classifying census tracts according to apartment rent prices in census tracts. We classify apartment rent along two dimensions: The average rents within the census tract for the specified year, balancing between nominal rental price and rental price per square foot.The change in average rent price (again balanced between nominal rent price and price per square foot) from the previous year. Note: Average rent calculations include market-rate and mixed-income multifamily apartment properties with 5 or more rental units in Seattle, excluding special types like student, senior, corporate or military housing. Source: Data from CoStar Group, www.costar.com, prepared by City of Seattle, Office of Planning and Community Development

Average asking rent price in select Census Metropolitan Areas by rental unit type. The breakdown by number of bedrooms is provided for apartments and houses. The results are based on an experimental approach, meaning they are derived from recent methodologies and may be subject to revisions. Quarterly data are available starting from the first quarter of 2019.

The average monthly rent of apartments in Florida increased substantially in 2021, followed by two years of slight decrease. As of ********, the average rent of a two-bedroom apartment in Florida cost ***** U.S. dollars, which was an increase of *** U.S. dollars from ******** when prices started to rise.

VITAL SIGNS INDICATOR List Rents (EC9)

FULL MEASURE NAME List Rents

LAST UPDATED October 2016

DESCRIPTION List rent refers to the advertised rents for available rental housing and serves as a measure of housing costs for new households moving into a neighborhood, city, county or region.

DATA SOURCE real Answers (1994 – 2015) no link

Zillow Metro Median Listing Price All Homes (2010-2016) http://www.zillow.com/research/data/

CONTACT INFORMATION vitalsigns.info@mtc.ca.gov

METHODOLOGY NOTES (across all datasets for this indicator) List rents data reflects median rent prices advertised for available apartments rather than median rent payments; more information is available in the indicator definition above. Regional and local geographies rely on data collected by real Answers, a research organization and database publisher specializing in the multifamily housing market. real Answers focuses on collecting longitudinal data for individual rental properties through quarterly surveys. For the Bay Area, their database is comprised of properties with 40 to 3,000+ housing units. Median list prices most likely have an upward bias due to the exclusion of smaller properties. The bias may be most extreme in geographies where large rental properties represent a small portion of the overall rental market. A map of the individual properties surveyed is included in the Local Focus section.

Individual properties surveyed provided lower- and upper-bound ranges for the various types of housing available (studio, 1 bedroom, 2 bedroom, etc.). Median lower- and upper-bound prices are determined across all housing types for the regional and county geographies. The median list price represented in Vital Signs is the average of the median lower- and upper-bound prices for the region and counties. Median upper-bound prices are determined across all housing types for the city geographies. The median list price represented in Vital Signs is the median upper-bound price for cities. For simplicity, only the mean list rent is displayed for the individual properties. The metro areas geography rely upon Zillow data, which is the median price for rentals listed through www.zillow.com during the month. Like the real Answers data, Zillow's median list prices most likely have an upward bias since small properties are underrepresented in Zillow's listings. The metro area data for the Bay Area cannot be compared to the regional Bay Area data. Due to afore mentioned data limitations, this data is suitable for analyzing the change in list rents over time but not necessarily comparisons of absolute list rents. Metro area boundaries reflects today’s metro area definitions by county for consistency, rather than historical metro area boundaries.

Due to the limited number of rental properties surveyed, city-level data is unavailable for Atherton, Belvedere, Brisbane, Calistoga, Clayton, Cloverdale, Cotati, Fairfax, Half Moon Bay, Healdsburg, Hillsborough, Los Altos Hills, Monte Sereno, Moranga, Oakley, Orinda, Portola Valley, Rio Vista, Ross, San Anselmo, San Carlos, Saratoga, Sebastopol, Windsor, Woodside, and Yountville.

Inflation-adjusted data are presented to illustrate how rents have grown relative to overall price increases; that said, the use of the Consumer Price Index does create some challenges given the fact that housing represents a major chunk of consumer goods bundle used to calculate CPI. This reflects a methodological tradeoff between precision and accuracy and is a common concern when working with any commodity that is a major component of CPI itself. Percent change in inflation-adjusted median is calculated with respect to the median price from the fourth quarter or December of the base year.

This table contains data described by the following dimensions (Not all combinations are available): Geography (247 items: Carbonear; Newfoundland and Labrador; Corner Brook; Newfoundland and Labrador; Grand Falls-Windsor; Newfoundland and Labrador; Gander; Newfoundland and Labrador ...), Type of structure (4 items: Apartment structures of three units and over; Apartment structures of six units and over; Row and apartment structures of three units and over; Row structures of three units and over ...), Type of unit (4 items: Two bedroom units; Three bedroom units; One bedroom units; Bachelor units ...).

Monthly dataset of 1-bedroom multifamily apartment rent prices across major U.S. metropolitan areas, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, DC, Miami, Chicago, Dallas, Phoenix, Atlanta, and Houston. The dataset reflects median asking rents observed in October 2025 and is used to analyze pricing trends, affordability shifts, seasonal patterns, and year-over-year changes in the U.S. rental housing market. This dataset includes both national-level pricing benchmarks and metro-level indicators for high-cost, mid-tier, and affordable markets.

Correction coefficients are used to ensure equality of purchasing power of salaries of EU officials in the different duty stations. They are calculated as the ratio between the “economic parity” and the exchange rate to the Euro (where applicable). They operate as a percentage adjustment to remuneration expressed in local currency.

The method used to establish economic parities is to compare the price of a basket of goods and services purchased by the average retired international official in Belgium with the price of an equivalent basket of goods and services purchased by the average retired international official in each of the other countries.

The rent paid for an apartment or house, due to its high weight in the total household expenditure structure, plays a significant role in determining the overall correction coefficient.

Consequently, specific rent surveys are carried out annually in cooperation with relevant real estate agencies. The information obtained, and that derived from similar surveys in previous years, is used to determine the difference in rental prices between Brussels and each of the other locations where the survey is carried out, in rental prices for the same type of dwelling.

The scope of these surveys is to compare the average market rent for some specific kinds of dwellings in some pre-specified representative areas of Brussels with similar dwellings in similar (representative and comparable) areas in other EU capitals and duty stations.

The estate agency rent surveys (EARS) are organised jointly by Eurostat, the International Service for Remunerations and Pensions (ISRP) of the Co-ordinated Organisations and national statistical institutes (NSI) in each duty station, including Brussels, with the collaboration of estate agents in the duty stations concerned.

The work is done in accordance with a methodology approved by the Expert Working Group on Articles 64 & 65 of the Staff Regulations.
Whilst this rent information is collected for a specific purpose, according to a specific methodology, it may also be relevant for other purposes.

VITAL SIGNS INDICATOR
Rent Payments (EC8)

FULL MEASURE NAME
Median rent payment

LAST UPDATED
January 2023

DESCRIPTION
Rent payments refer to the cost of leasing an apartment or home and serves as a measure of housing costs for individuals who do not own a home. The data reflect the median monthly rent paid by Bay Area households across apartments and homes of various sizes and various levels of quality. This differs from advertised rents for available apartments, which usually are higher. Note that rent can be presented using nominal or real (inflation-adjusted) dollar values; data are presented inflation-adjusted to reflect changes in household purchasing power over time.

DATA SOURCE
U.S. Census Bureau: Decennial Census - https://nhgis.org
Count 2 (1970)
Form STF1 (1980-1990)
Form SF3a (2000)

U.S. Census Bureau: American Community Survey - https://data.census.gov/
Form B25058 (2005-2021; median contract rent)

Bureau of Labor Statistics: Consumer Price Index - https://www.bls.gov/data/
1970-2021

CONTACT INFORMATION
vitalsigns.info@mtc.ca.gov

METHODOLOGY NOTES (across all datasets for this indicator)
Rent data reflects median rent payments rather than list rents (refer to measure definition above). American Community Survey 1-year data is used for larger geographies – Bay counties and most metropolitan area counties – while smaller geographies rely upon 5-year rolling average data due to their smaller sample sizes. Note that 2020 data uses the 5-year estimates because the ACS did not collect 1-year data for 2020.

1970 Census data for median rent payments has been imputed from quintiles using methodology from California Department of Finance as the source data only provided the mean, rather than the median, monthly rent. Metro area boundaries reflects today’s metro area definitions by county for consistency, rather than historical metro area boundaries.

Inflation-adjusted data are presented to illustrate how rent payments have grown relative to overall price increases; that said, the use of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) does create some challenges given the fact that housing represents a major chunk of consumer goods bundle used to calculate CPI. This reflects a methodological tradeoff between precision and accuracy and is a common concern when working with any commodity that is a major component of CPI itself.

The monthly rent for *********** apartments in San Francisco and Bay Area has fluctuated since 2015. In 2023, the median monthly rent for a *********** apartment in San Francisco was ***** U.S. dollars, down from ***** U.S. dollars in 2021.

In 2025, the average Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom rental home in the United States was 1,749 U.S. dollars per month, while that of a one-bedroom rental home was 1,465 U.S. dollars per month. This rent level was unaffordable for the average household with one full-time worker earning the federal minimum wage in that year.

Rent Inflation in the United States remained unchanged at 3 percent in February. This dataset includes a chart with historical data for the United States Rent Inflation.

This Alberta Official Statistic shows the average monthly rental rates for two-bedroom units in Alberta and major urban centres (Calgary CMA, Edmonton CMA, Red Deer CA, Lethbridge CA, Medicine Hat CA, Wood Buffalo CA and Grande Prairie CA). Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) conducts the Rental Market Survey (RMS) every year in April and October to estimate the relative strength and change in the rental market. The survey is conducted on a sample basis in all urban areas with populations of 10,000 and more. The survey targets only privately initiated structures with at least three rental units, which have been on the market for at least three months. The data collected for a structure depends on whether it is an apartment or a row structure. The survey collects market rent, available and vacant unit data for all sampled structures. The survey is conducted by a combination of telephone interviews and site visits, and information obtained from the owner, manager, or building superintendent. The survey is conducted during the first two weeks of April/October, and the results reflect market conditions at that time.

Rents in California's most populous cities briefly decreased in 2020, but swiftly headed for recovery in the following year. In January 2026, all cities either exceeded or ranged at the price level of January 2020. San Francisco saw the highest average apartment rents at ***** U.S. dollars. The average monthly rent of a two-bedroom apartment in California was over ***** dollars.