Every county in America, scored.

County Rankings 2026

Every year, millions of Americans move to a new county — for a job, a lower cost of living, better schools, or a safer neighborhood. CountyScore makes that decision easier by giving every one of the 3,144 counties in the United States a composite score from 0 to 100, built entirely from public government data. Our 2026 rankings reflect the latest available data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the FBI, the CDC, FEMA, the Department of Education, and the EPA.

Unlike real estate sites that rank counties by price or proximity to a metro, CountyScore ranks on quality of life. A county scores high because it combines low property taxes, affordable housing, safe streets, healthy residents, strong schools, low natural disaster risk, and clean water — not because it happens to be in a high-demand market. The result is a data-driven view of America that surfaces hidden gems alongside the well-known destinations.

Find the Best Counties to Live In

The best county to live in depends entirely on your priorities. A retiree on a fixed income cares deeply about property taxes and healthcare access. A family with young children weights school quality and safety above all else. A remote worker might optimize for low cost of living and outdoor access. CountyScore lets you search all 3,144 counties and filter by the dimensions that matter most to you.

Our state ranking pages list every county in each state, sorted by composite score, with individual dimension scores visible at a glance. The national rankings pages let you drill into specific categories — the safest counties, the most affordable counties, the best counties for families — and read editorial analysis explaining the geographic and policy patterns behind the data.

How CountyScore Works

Each county is scored on up to nine dimensions. Within each dimension, a county's raw value is converted to a percentile rank: a score of 80 means the county performs better than 80% of all other counties on that metric. The composite score is a weighted average of all available dimension scores. Counties with data for more dimensions get more complete scores; counties with missing data for some dimensions are noted accordingly.

Higher scores are always better. A high tax score means lower property taxes relative to other counties. A high safety score means lower crime. A high risk score means lower natural disaster exposure. This consistent direction makes cross-county comparison straightforward: you can always compare apples to apples regardless of which dimension you're examining.

Compare Counties Side by Side

Once you've identified candidate counties, use the CountyScore compare tool to put them side by side. Compare two or more counties across all nine dimensions simultaneously — see a radar chart of their score profiles, identify where one county dominates and where it falls short, and make a more informed decision. Every county page includes links to compare it with similar counties and with counties in the same state.

The ByCounty Network — which powers CountyScore — also includes specialized sites for each dimension: TaxByCounty for property taxes, CrimeByCounty for safety data, HealthByCounty for healthcare metrics, and more. Every county report card on CountyScore links out to these vertical sites so you can go as deep as the data allows.

What Data Sources We Use

All CountyScore data comes from free, public U.S. government datasets — no proprietary data, no paid sources, and no editorial bias in the underlying numbers. Our eight primary sources are:

• U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) — property taxes, housing costs, median household income, educational attainment
• FBI Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) — violent crime and property crime rates per capita
• CDC / County Health Rankings — life expectancy, uninsured rates, primary care access, preventable mortality
• FEMA National Risk Index — composite natural disaster risk across 18 hazard types
• NCES (National Center for Education Statistics) — graduation rates, per-pupil spending, student-teacher ratios
• EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) — health-based drinking water violations
• NOAA Climate Normals — 30-year temperature averages, precipitation, extreme weather frequency
• USDA / SSURGO — soil quality and composition data for agricultural and residential land use

Scores are updated as new data vintages become available from each source. The current dataset reflects 2019–2023 ACS estimates, 2022 FBI UCR data, 2024 County Health Rankings, and the most recent FEMA, NCES, EPA, and NOAA releases.