12,275 tax returns (21,783 people including dependents) moved from Colorado to Texas in the 2022-2023 IRS migration year, carrying $1,088,464,000 in adjusted gross income.
Colorado to Austin is a tech story and a tired story at the same time. Twenty-one thousand people making a lateral move across two similarly expensive mid-sized creative-class metros. The ones who make this move are almost always running toward a specific offer or away from a specific altitude and winter.
Why this move happens
Three clean reasons and one messy one. The clean reasons: a specific Austin offer, a Boulder tech layoff softening, and ski-town burnout. The messy one: a surprising number of Colorado movers have already moved two or three times in the last decade. California to Denver around 2015, Denver to Austin now. They are in a life pattern of chasing the next cheaper creative-class city, and this cohort tends to leave Austin too, eventually.
The math below is built for a typical two-person, one-house, one-car household clearing $150,000 gross. Your line items will move around. The Austin guide has a calculator you can run with your actual numbers; this page is the context the calculator cannot give you.
The money: Colorado vs. Austin, TX
Annual line items, $150K household, $450K home, one car. State averages, not quotes.
| Line item | Colorado | Austin, TX | Delta | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| State + local income tax | $6,600 | $0 | $-6,600 | $150K household. Texas has no income tax. |
| Property tax | $2,295 | $8,100 | +$5,805 | $450K home. Effective rate 0.51% vs 1.80%. |
| Homeowners + auto insurance | $5,251 | $6,684 | +$1,433 | State-average full-coverage auto plus HO3 homeowners. |
| Utilities (electric + gas + water) | $3,300 | $3,540 | +$240 | Monthly average multiplied by 12. |
| Sales tax (on $28K taxable spend) | $2,187 | $2,296 | +$109 | Combined state plus average local. |
| Annual total (these lines only) | $19,633 | $20,620 | +$987 |
On these five lines, the Austin move runs $987 more expensive per year than staying in Colorado. That ignores housing cost and a dozen smaller lines like HOA, childcare, and groceries.
If the five-line math does not land in your favor, the case for this move has to be made on housing cost, career opportunity, or lifestyle fit. Not taxes.
Housing: what Colorado money actually buys
The Colorado housing market is expensive in ways Austin has not quite caught. Denver property tax is shockingly low, one of the lowest effective rates in the country. Austin property tax is one of the highest. On a $775K comparable house, Austin costs about $11,000 more a year before you pay off any of the mortgage. This is the biggest sticker shock of any origin in the top ten.
Where Colorado movers land professionally
The Denver-Austin tech cohort overlap is tight. Most engineers moving this route are doing so because of an internal transfer or because a Bay friend moved to Austin two years ago and is now hiring.
Common landing employers for Colorado movers
- Microsoft Austin office
- Oracle
- Tesla
- Meta
- state-government roles
- cleantech and battery startups along Parmer
Climate shock: what changes when you leave Colorado
Summer high average in Colorado: 88°F. In Austin: 96°F. Winter low: 20° vs. 42°. Annual snowfall: 55" vs. 0.6".
Colorado is high altitude, dry, real winter. Austin is 100+ days above 90F. Winter mild but ice storms 1-2x/decade.. Visit in August before you sign anything, not in March when the weather is flattering the city.
Denver at 5,280 feet has real winter and dry summers topping out around 88°F. Austin has mild winters and brutal summers. You will gain ninety comfortable winter days and lose ninety comfortable summer days. The summer loss is bigger if you are an outdoor person.
Things Colorado movers do not expect
- No mountains. The topography of Austin is flat, green, and cut by three shallow rivers. Nobody from Colorado stops noticing the absence, even after five years.
- The outdoor culture is different. Austin is a paddle and trail town. Colorado is a climb, ski, and alpine-hike town. The activities are not interchangeable.
- The altitude rebound is real. You will feel lazy for ninety days. Your resting heart rate drops. Your sleep improves. Not a joke.
- The weed culture is different. Texas remains illegal for recreational use. A lot of Colorado movers underestimate how much that changes their social evenings.
- The food scene is about even. Austin is deeper on barbecue and tacos. Denver is deeper on New American and a specific brunch pattern. You will trade, not upgrade.
The social rebuild
Colorado movers blend in quickly because the Austin outdoor-leaning creative-class crowd reads Colorado-adjacent already. The faster you stop comparing Austin trails to Boulder trails, the faster you actually use the Austin ones.
The regret pattern, if it comes
The Colorado regret is geographic. The mountains do not replace themselves. The movers who stay are the ones who substitute paddling, bouldering gyms, and Hill Country weekend trips. The ones who leave tend to go to Bend, Bozeman, or back to Boulder.
Return flow context
In the same year, 25,282 people moved from Texas back to Colorado. Roughly one person goes the other way for every 1 who make your move. That is the flow you are joining.
Return flow to Colorado is measurable and mostly ski-town bound. The Austin-to-Denver reversal tends to happen in months eighteen to thirty-six, usually after the second brutal summer.
Five things a Colorado transplant wishes someone had told them
- Budget an extra grand a month on property tax versus what you were paying in Denver for a comparable house. This is real and it compounds.
- AC is not optional. Your Denver summer-tolerance instincts do not port. Your first July will be a test.
- Join Austin Rowing Club or Barton Springs membership in the first thirty days. The water substitute for the mountains is the only substitute that works.
- The Hill Country weekend trip to Fredericksburg, Kerrville, and Enchanted Rock is your new mountain weekend. Get used to ninety-minute drives.
- If you are used to Colorado's open-container laws, note that Texas does not share them. Enforcement varies.
The Colorado to Austin move, in four lines
- Volume. 21,783 people in a single tax year. This is a measurable wave.
- Net annual delta on five lines. $987 more per year for a $150K household. Housing is separate and usually larger.
- Climate. Summer is +8°F hotter than Colorado on average.
- Timeline. Eighteen to twenty-four months to feeling at home. Year one is mostly logistics.