When deciding on a retirement location, there are several things to think about, such as your desired lifestyle and financial circumstances.
Along with searching for solutions that satisfy the majority of your criteria, you should also think about any significant drawbacks or compromises you would have to make, including a high cost of living or a lack of easily accessible healthcare.
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Website for financial services Bankrate has determined the best and worst places to retire in the United States by ranking all 50 states according to 15 criteria, such as affordability, health care, and weather.The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Council for Community and Economic Research were among the many sources of data used in the study.
The indicators were weighed in accordance with the results of a May 2025 Bankrate study on the top priorities Americans cite when selecting a retirement location. Therefore, neighborhood safety, weather, and affordability had the biggest effects on overall scores.
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According to Bankrate, the following ten states are the worst places to retire, where you could have to make trade-offs between affordability, security, and health care access:
Several of these states were near the bottom of the overall rankings due in large part to weather. Texas was ranked No. 47 in weather, while Louisiana was ranked No. 39.
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“Nearly every state in the Gulf saw a decline in their scores due to natural calamities. Stephen Kates, a certified financial planner and Bankrate financial analyst, tells CNBC Make It that Texas, Florida, and even other places that “you really think about as primary retirement destinations.” “They didn’t do as well in the weather category because of their propensity to have hurricanes and other natural disasters.”
The greatest place for you to retire will ultimately rely on your particular choices, but it can be useful to take these rankings and the factors that were used to determine them into consideration.
Based on these measures, for instance, retiring in Louisiana or Oklahoma would seem difficult, but if your family resides there and you want to be near them, it might be worthwhile to prepare ahead of time and figure out how to live comfortably there, despite any potential disadvantages.
According to Kates, Wyoming might be your best option if you value living in a state with low taxes. The state ranked first for tax friendliness and third overall. However, you would have to forgo other possible conveniences.
“You pay very little state taxes, but you have little access to some of the other things that you may want,” he claims. “Wyoming is not great for arts and entertainment it’s a big, more rural place.”
When it comes to indicators like neighborhood safety, conditions might also differ significantly within a state. According to Kates, state-level data might be a good starting point, but if you’re thinking about a large state like California or Texas, you might need to do more research or go in person to see if an area is suited for you.
“Where you live in California or Texas or Florida, or any state, is going to matter because we’re aggregating a lot of data,” he continues. “If you live in Los Angeles, it’s going to be very different than if you live in Sacramento or La Jolla; if you live in Dallas, very different [than] Houston.”
In retirement, you could decide against moving or postpone moving until later. According to Kates, it’s a good idea to plan your retirement in stages because people are living longer than they did in the past and may be retired for longer.
“It’s a lot more than just putting a pin on the map and saying, ‘This is the place,'” according to him. “There will be periods of retirement if you plan to live there for 25 or 30 years. And it’s very important how you determine it.”
It might not make sense to try to relocate your home base during your early retirement years if you plan to spend that time traveling. However, you might be more interested in moving to a new place to settle down ten or so years later.
Kates refers to these as the “go, low-go, and no-go” phases of retirement, implying that you will probably need or desire to slow down as you age.
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