Renting in Wyoming: 23 Rent Areas and One Resort That Breaks the Scale

Wyoming has 23 rent areas and 23 counties. Almost every county is measured on its own, which makes Wyoming's rent map one of the most granular per resident in the country.

And one of those areas breaks the scale.

Wyoming's most expensive rent area is $1,653 for a two-bedroom. Cheyenne — the state capital and largest city — is $1,174. Casper is $1,082. The statewide figure is $980.

So the state's dearest rent is 41% above its capital and 69% above its own median, and it is in neither of Wyoming's two largest cities.

A note before you start. This is general education, not housing, legal or financial advice. Rent figures come from HUD's Fair Market Rents for FY2026, published under 24 CFR 888.113. An FMR is the 40th percentile of GROSS rent — rent plus tenant-paid utilities — for standard-quality units in a defined rent area, so roughly 60% of units cost more. Take-home figures are computed by this site's own tax engine for tax year 2026 on a single filer. Wyoming landlord-tenant law is outside this dataset.

1. What HUD says renting costs in Wyoming

The studio and one-bedroom are $25 apart — 3.3%, one of the narrower gaps in the country. The extra room costs $300 a year.

The two-to-three-bedroom step is $359, or 37% — $4,308 a year, and fourteen times the studio-to-one-bedroom step.

Wyoming's four-bedroom at $1,615 is not a cheap number — it is higher than the statewide four-bedroom of twenty-seven other states, in a state whose two-bedroom is thirtieth-highest.

2. Twenty-three areas, and one outlier

Twenty-three rent areas across 23 counties means almost every Wyoming county gets its own measurement, so a county figure here is a real number rather than a blurred average. That is unusually useful.

And the range is dominated by one end of it. Wyoming's cheapest area is $963 and its median is $980 — $17 apart. Its dearest is $1,653.

So the state's rents cluster hard at the bottom with a small number of areas far above. HUD's data shows the level and not the cause; Wyoming's resort geography is the obvious candidate, and this site has not measured that and offers it as context rather than explanation.

Wyoming's floor of $963 is $10 below the $973 that recurs as an administered minimum across HUD's table. That figure is the cheapest rent area in seventeen states, which makes it look like a national floor — it is not one, and twenty states including Wyoming have areas below it, though Wyoming's margin is the smallest of the twenty. This site published the opposite claim earlier in this series and corrected it; the mechanism has not been confirmed against HUD's methodology and this site does not guess at it.

3. Cheyenne and Casper

Cheyenne is $92 a month above Casper on a two-bedroom — $1,104 a year — and the gap is fairly even across the ladder:

A steady 8% or 9% premium at every size above a studio. That consistency is unusual — most metro pairs in this series diverge sharply at one end of the ladder or the other.

Income required at 3x: $42,264 for Cheyenne's two-bedroom and $38,952 for Casper's. A $3,312 gap in what a landlord will demand — one of the smaller metro-pair gaps in this series.

Neither city is Wyoming's most expensive rent area. The $1,653 area is $479 above Cheyenne — $5,748 a year — and a household choosing between them is making a much larger decision than the Cheyenne-versus-Casper one.

4. Three things a fair market rent is not

It is the 40th percentile, not the median. Roughly 60% of standard-quality units rent for more than the FMR.

It is GROSS rent, including tenant-paid utilities. Wyoming is cold, high and windy, and its heating season is long. The difference between heat included and heat not included is worth real money, and at Wyoming's elevations the season runs longer than the latitude suggests.

It is per rent area, not per county — though in Wyoming, with 23 areas across 23 counties, the two are unusually close to the same thing.

5. No income tax, and what it is worth

Wyoming levies no individual income tax, and no Wyoming city levies one either. The take-home figures on this page are complete.

That $409 gap at $85,000 is the smallest available anywhere, tied with the other eight no-income-tax states, and it is entirely federal tax and FICA.

At a 3x landlord screen, Wyoming rent is 38.5% of take-home — the fourth-lowest of any state, behind North Dakota's 38.2%, and South Dakota's and Tennessee's 38.4%.

And it is still not 30%. No state gets there, because a 3x screen is applied to gross income and rent is paid from net.

What Wyoming charges instead is severance tax on mineral extraction, which funds a substantial share of state government and is paid largely by industry rather than by households. That is genuinely unusual — most no-income-tax states lean on sales tax instead.

Wyoming does levy a sales tax, at a state rate plus county rates, at combined levels among the lower ones in the country. It is in no figure here, but it is a smaller offset than the sales taxes in Tennessee, Texas or Washington.

6. What the two-bedroom actually requires

What passing that screen leaves

What the two-bedroom costs at real salaries

Rent as a share of take-home pay.

Both metros clear HUD's 30% line at $60,000 — Cheyenne at 28.0% and Casper at 25.8%. Very few metropolitan figures in this series do.

At $85,000 every column clears comfortably, and Cheyenne at 20.5% is one of the lowest metropolitan figures in the country.

The statewide column at $45,000 is 30.6%, just past the line, and both metros are inside what a 3x screen would approve at that salary: $42,264 and $38,952 against $45,000. Wyoming is one of the few states where the landlord's test and the budget test do not badly contradict each other.

But the $1,653 area is a different state. At $45,000 that rent would be 51.8% of take-home, and the 3x screen on it demands $59,508 — $14,508 more than the applicant earns.

7. Rent versus buy in Wyoming

Three things decide it, and the rent is not one of them:

Appreciation. Backward-looking, county-specific, and not a forecast — and Wyoming's counties diverge enormously. A resort county and an energy-dependent county behave nothing alike, and energy counties in particular have moved with commodity cycles. A statewide figure would mislead badly.

Selling costs. Around 7% of the sale price, and it never comes back.

Ongoing carrying cost. Wyoming's effective property tax rates are among the lowest in the country, helped by the state's mineral revenue, which shortens the break-even year materially for an owner.

Two Wyoming-specific factors:

Population turnover is high in energy-dependent counties, and the break-even year assumes you stay. If your work is cyclical, that assumption is the weakest input in the calculation and it is the one people skip.

And a hard-winter climate at elevation is expensive to own into. Frozen pipes, roof snow loads, furnace failures — owner costs with no renter equivalent.

Run the Wyoming rent-versus-buy calculator with your own county.

8. What you can actually control

Look up your county. Wyoming's 23 rent areas cover 23 counties, so the county figure is a genuine measurement — and the difference between the cheapest at $963 and the dearest at $1,653 is $690 a month.

Cheyenne and Casper are $92 apart on a two-bedroom, a steady 9% — a much smaller decision than choosing between either and the state's expensive corner.

Consider the one-bedroom. Wyoming's is only $25 above its studio, so the extra room is nearly free.

Ask whether heat is included. Wyoming's winter at elevation is long, and the FMR is a gross-rent figure that already assumes you are paying for it.

Get the landlord test and the budget test straight. 3x gross gets you approved. 30% of take-home is what you can carry. On Cheyenne's $1,174 those are $42,264 of income and, at that income, $903 of rent — $271 less than the rent itself, one of the narrowest gaps in this series.

Existing debt does not appear in the landlord's test.

And there is no state income tax lever to pull. A pre-tax 401(k) deferral cuts only your federal bill here — still worth doing, and the state side is already at zero.

9. How HUD's cost-burden thresholds actually work

The 30% and 50% figures quoted throughout this article are not rules of thumb. They are regulatory definitions, and knowing where they come from tells you what they are and are not good for.

HUD defines a household as "cost-burdened" when it spends more than 30% of gross income on housing, and "severely cost-burdened" above 50%. The threshold traces back to the National Housing Act, and HUD uses it to measure housing need and to set programme eligibility.

Three things follow from that origin, and all three matter to a renter:

It is measured against gross income because a housing programme can verify gross income. A caseworker can read a W-2. They cannot easily verify what your actual tax withholding, retirement deferrals and health premiums leave you. Gross is administratively tractable, not economically correct.

It counts housing costs, not just rent. HUD's measure includes utilities, which is precisely why the fair market rent is defined as gross rent. If you are comparing your own situation against the 30% threshold, include your utility bills — otherwise you are measuring a smaller number against the same line.

It is a population statistic before it is personal advice. The threshold exists to answer "how many households in this county are struggling," and it does that job well. It was never designed to tell one household what it can afford, and it does not account for household size, debt, childcare, medical costs, or the tax rate where you live.

Which is why this article reports both figures. In Wyoming a two-bedroom at $980 against a $35,280 income is exactly at HUD's 30% line by HUD's own measure. Against what actually reaches that household's account it is closer to 40%. Both numbers are correct; they answer different questions.

If you want one number to plan around, use 30% of take-home. It is the more conservative of the two, it is the one that reflects what you can actually spend, and it is what this site's calculator reports alongside the conventional figure.

10. What a landlord checks besides your income

The 3x income screen is the most visible test, and it is not the only one. None of the following is a legal requirement — they are common industry practice, and individual landlords differ.

Credit score. Most professionally managed buildings run a credit check, and many publish a minimum. A low score does not automatically disqualify you, but it commonly triggers a larger deposit or a guarantor requirement.

Rental history and references. Previous landlords, length of tenancy, and any eviction filings. An eviction filing can appear on a tenant screening report even where the case was dismissed, which is worth knowing if you have one.

The security deposit. How much a landlord may ask for, when it must be returned, and what may be deducted are all governed by state law, and those rules vary enormously. Check Wyoming's own statute — this site's rent dataset covers HUD fair market rents and does not cover landlord-tenant law, so nothing on this page should be read as describing it.

Application fees. Charged per applicant in most markets, and often non-refundable. Applying to several places at once is a real cost.

Guarantors and co-signers. Where an applicant fails the income screen, many landlords will accept a guarantor — commonly at a higher multiple, such as 80x the monthly rent in annual income rather than 36x. That is a much larger number than the tenant's own test, and it is the usual route for students and recent graduates.

Proof of income. Pay stubs, an offer letter, or tax returns for the self-employed. Self-employed applicants are frequently asked for two years of returns, which is a materially higher bar than a salaried applicant faces on the same income.

The practical point: the 3x screen decides whether you clear the first filter. Everything above decides whether you get the apartment, and several of those items cost money to fail.

11. When these figures change

HUD publishes fair market rents annually, effective at the start of the federal fiscal year on 1 October. The figures in this article are FY2026.

Three ways your area's number can move:

Re-measurement. HUD builds FMRs from American Community Survey data with more recent trend adjustments. A rent area whose measured market has moved will see its figure move with it.

Redefinition. HUD occasionally redraws rent areas — splitting a metro, adding a county to one, or creating a small-area FMR where ZIP-level figures replace a single metro figure. When that happens, a county's published rent can change substantially without any change in its actual market. Wyoming has 23 rent areas today; that count is not fixed.

The floor. HUD applies a national minimum. In FY2026 the two-bedroom floor is $973, and seventeen states have at least one rent area sitting on it. When the floor rises, every area at the floor rises with it — regardless of what happened locally.

What that means for planning. A fair market rent is a well-sourced annual snapshot, not a forecast. If you are signing a twelve-month lease, the figure that matters is the rent in the lease, and the FMR is context for judging whether that rent is reasonable for the area and the unit size.

Voucher holders should note one thing more. FMRs set the basis for Housing Choice Voucher payment standards, and a public housing agency may set its standard within a range around the FMR rather than exactly at it. Your agency's payment standard is the operative number, not the published FMR.

Frequently asked questions

What is the average rent in Wyoming? HUD's statewide fair market rent for a two-bedroom is $980 a month for FY2026, thirtieth-highest of the fifty states. Laramie County (Cheyenne) is $1,174 and Natrona County (Casper) is $1,082.

Why is Wyoming's most expensive rent area not Cheyenne? Wyoming's dearest rent area is $1,653 — 41% above Cheyenne and 69% above the statewide figure — and it is in neither of the state's two largest cities. HUD's data shows the level, not the cause.

What income do I need to rent a two-bedroom in Cheyenne? A 3x landlord screen on Laramie County's $1,174 needs $42,264 a year. In Casper, on $1,082, it needs $38,952. On the state's dearest area, at $1,653, it needs $59,508.

Does Wyoming's lack of an income tax help renters? It makes the budget arithmetic easier — the gap between 30%-of-gross and 30%-of-take-home is the smallest available, $409 a month at $85,000. And unlike most no-income-tax states, Wyoming's offset is severance tax on mineral extraction rather than a high sales tax.

Is 30% of income a realistic rent budget in Wyoming? Close to it. Both metros clear the line at $60,000 — 28.0% and 25.8% — and the statewide figure at $45,000 is 30.6%, just past it.

Why does Wyoming have only 23 rent areas? Because it has 23 counties and few metropolitan areas, so HUD measures almost every county on its own. That makes the county figure unusually reliable here.

Is $973 a national rent floor? No. It recurs as the cheapest rent area in seventeen states, but twenty states have areas below it — Wyoming's cheapest is $963, though that is the smallest margin of the twenty. This site corrected an earlier claim to the contrary.

Should I buy in Wyoming instead? Wyoming's property tax rates are among the lowest in the country, which shortens the break-even. The weakest input is how long you will stay — turnover is high in energy-dependent counties, and the break-even assumes you do not move again.

What to do next

Wyoming measures almost every county on its own, which makes the county figure the one to use and the statewide figure the one to ignore.

• Wyoming rent affordability calculator — the landlord's test and the budget test, side by side.
• Wyoming take-home pay — among the highest of any state, with no income tax to subtract.
• Wyoming rent vs buy — the break-even year, computed rather than assumed.
• The 30% rule is measured against the wrong number — the full argument.
• Renting in the USA in 2026 — all fifty states, county by county.

Every figure on this site is sourced and dated. How we source every number.

Rent figures are HUD Fair Market Rents for FY2026, from HUD User, published under 24 CFR 888.113. An FMR is the 40th percentile of gross rent including tenant-paid utilities for standard-quality units in a defined rent area — not a market median. Statewide figures are the median across Wyoming's 23 distinct rent areas, unweighted by population. Take-home figures are computed by this site's own tax engine for tax year 2026 on a single filer with no dependents or pre-tax deferrals, using federal figures from IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32; Wyoming levies no individual income tax and no locality levies one. The 3x landlord screen is a common industry practice, not a legal standard. Wyoming landlord-tenant law, property tax rates, severance tax and sales tax rates are outside this dataset and are discussed qualitatively. This is general education and not housing, legal or financial advice.