Terms & Conditions

CostExplore presents cost-of-living measures published by federal and state agencies, and a composite index calculated from them. It is an informational planning tool.

Nothing here is financial, tax, legal, insurance, relocation, or real estate advice, and no professional relationship is created by using the site. Decisions about where to live, what to spend, or what to owe should be made with a qualified professional who knows your situation.

Figures are estimates. They combine datasets from different reporting periods and different geographic resolutions, and some measures are shown at the state level where county data is not published. Actual household costs vary by utility territory, property, household size, and consumption.

The method, the weights, and the known structural limits are described on the methodology page, and the underlying datasets are listed on the data sources page. We provide the service as is, without warranties of any kind.

• Do not attempt to access administrative areas or accounts you are not authorized to use.
• Do not scrape, overload, probe, or interfere with the service or its infrastructure.
• Do not present our figures as official government output or as verified for your property.
• Do not remove attribution when you reuse material from this site.

The underlying statistics come from public sources such as the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the U.S. Census Bureau, and state revenue agencies, and remain subject to their own terms. The composite index, the site design, the written explanations, and the MustWants name and logo belong to MustWants, Inc.. If you reference our figures, cite CostExplore and the reporting period shown with the value.

MustWants is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense, any branch of the armed forces, or any government agency. Dataset and agency names identify the origin of the data only.

To the extent the law allows, MustWants, Inc. is not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential losses arising from use of the site or reliance on its figures, including moving costs, purchase decisions, or tax outcomes.

We may update these terms and will change the date at the top of this page when we do. Links to other sites are provided for convenience and we are not responsible for their content. Questions can be sent through the MustWants contact page.