Best PlacesTarrant County, TX Best Neighborhoods

2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026

Every neighborhood in Tarrant County, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. The averages hide a wide spread here, so the area matters as much as the address. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.

See the map of best neighborhoods

Tarrant County ranks 529th of 3,144 U.S. counties on the BestNeighborhood index. Paychecks stretch further here than almost anywhere else: the median household brings in $96,730, everyday costs sit below the national average, and a strong job market ranks near the top of the country. The main drawbacks are civic engagement, property taxes, and noise.

#529
of 3,144 counties
BestNeighborhood rank
Defaults weight crime safety, affordability, schools, and weather highest: the things hardest to change after a move
N/A
of 3,144 counties
Your rank
Set your priorities to see your rank

The best neighborhoods in Tarrant County

Map of the best neighborhoods in the Tarrant County area, with better matches in green and worse matches in red
Click the map to explore
National median
Worse match Better match
Colorblind friendly off
Popular priorities:

BestNeighborhood is the only ranking that scores 40 measures of daily life neighborhood by neighborhood and lets you re-weight every one of them yourself.

The best areas in Tarrant County

The parts of Tarrant County, ranked by the BestNeighborhood standard score across every neighborhood, highest scoring first. Each note says how that part differs from the rest of the county.

#1

Euless, Bedford & Grapevine

More adults hold degrees, schools score higher, and incomes run higher.

WorseBetter
76th nationally
#2

Keller, North Richland Hills & Haltom City

Local pay stretches further and fewer homes sit empty.

WorseBetter
75th nationally
#3

Saginaw, Haslet & Azle

More households have young kids and crime runs lower.

WorseBetter
72nd nationally
#4

Arlington, Mansfield & Grand Prairie

Biking is worse.

WorseBetter
65th nationally
#5

Fort Worth

Transit reaches more jobs.

WorseBetter
57th nationally
#6

White Settlement, River Oaks & Sansom Park

Streets are more walkable, though fewer residents vote.

WorseBetter
43rd nationally
#7

Pantego

Heat risk is lower, though prices have run up more.

WorseBetter
43rd nationally
#8

Burleson, Forest Hill & Kennedale

Homes cost less, though health outcomes score lower.

WorseBetter
34th nationally

Tarrant County shows why a single number is not enough. Some neighborhoods score in the bottom 3% of the country and others in the top 1%. Pick the area first, then the home.


Tarrant County's strengths and weaknesses

Top 5%Big-city access
Top 10%Cell coverage
Top 10%Biking

Tarrant County ranks where it does because the parts of life that are hardest to change mostly work here. Big-city access, cell coverage, and biking carry most of that.

The one real hole is civic engagement, near the bottom of the country. Property taxes and noise also cost it ground. The measures below break that down, and the map shows how much of it holds street by street.

Each measure against the national median. Bars to the right beat the median; bars to the left fall short. Percentiles compare Tarrant County with other counties.

Where Tarrant County ranks high

  • Big-city accessBetter than 95% of counties
  • Cell coverageBetter than 94% of counties
  • BikingBetter than 92% of counties
  • Cost of living vs incomeBetter than 92% of counties
  • Internet speedBetter than 91% of counties

Where Tarrant County ranks low

  • Voter turnoutBetter than only 5% of counties
  • Low property taxBetter than only 7% of counties
  • QuietBetter than only 7% of counties
  • Healthcare accessBetter than only 13% of counties
  • Air qualityBetter than only 14% of counties

What it costs to buy a home in Tarrant County

A household needs to earn about $98,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Tarrant County home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is only a little above the area's median income of $96,730; the gap is small, which keeps homes within reach of local pay.

Income to buy the median home
$98,000
a year, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate
Estimated monthly payment
$2,293
principal, interest, tax, and insurance on a $342,943 home
Median rent
$1,721
a month, across all home sizes

Where the monthly payment goes

Principal & interest$1,749
Property tax$430
Homeowners insurance$114

Assumes a 20% down payment, a 6.6% 30-year fixed rate, and a 28% share of income going to the payment. The rate is the 2026-07-23 30-year fixed average, series MORTGAGE30US from the St. Louis Fed, which publishes Freddie Mac's weekly survey. Against the median home value, property tax uses Tarrant County's effective rate of 1.50%, and insurance is estimated at 0.4% of home value a year.

Renting versus buying

At today's prices, buying tends to cost more than renting for about the first 8 years, then pulls ahead as rent keeps rising and the mortgage builds equity. The chart tracks the running cost of each.

Cumulative cost of renting versus owning the median home, first 10 years. Illustrative estimate.

Who lives in Tarrant County

Tarrant County runs younger than the country, and households here run larger than average.

Median age
37
younger than the U.S. median of 41
Residents 65 and older
13%
versus 18% nationally
Average household
2.8
above the U.S. average of 2.6

Residents by age

Under 1824%
18 to 3424%
35 to 4920%
50 to 6419%
65 and older13%

Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Tarrant County.


Who works in Tarrant County, and how

Work in Tarrant County centers on health care & social and retail trade. Unemployment is close to the national rate, and jobs are growing.

Work from home
15%
about the national average
Unemployment
4.1%
below the national average
Job growth
+3.6%
/y 2019-2023, faster than the national pace

Largest industries

Health care & social12%
Retail trade11%
Manufacturing10%
Transportation & warehousing9%
Construction8%

How people get to work

  • Drive or carpool 82%
  • Work from home 15%
  • Transit, walk, or bike 3%

Life in Tarrant County

Tarrant County has more parkland per resident than 72% of counties and more late-night spots per resident than 74% of counties. Dining, parks, and nightlife concentrates in some parts of Tarrant County and thins out in others, which the map shows.

Places to eat and drink
9,923
restaurants, bars, and fast food, about 47.0 per 10,000 residents, more than 53% of counties
Coffee shops
959
about 4.5 per 10,000 residents, more than 41% of counties
Parkland
14,258 acres
about 6.8 acres per 1,000 residents, more than 72% of counties
Open past 10pm
~2,005
food and drink venues open late, about 9.5 per 10,000 residents, more than 74% of counties
Living on campus
8,361
students living in college or university housing

Is Tarrant County growing, and who is moving in?

Tarrant County has grown about 15% over the last decade. The largest inbound stream comes from the rest of the Dallas, TX metro.

Population growth
+15%
over the decade, vs about 6% nationally
Population
2.23M
up from 1.95 million a decade ago
Population by year. Source: U.S. Census Population Estimates Program.

Where new residents come from

The rest of the Dallas, TX metro38,139 / yr
Houston, TX5,103 / yr
Los Angeles, CA3,630 / yr
San Antonio, TX2,569 / yr
Austin, TX2,453 / yr

Where people leaving Tarrant County go

The rest of the Dallas, TX metro38,109 / yr
Austin, TX5,175 / yr
Houston, TX4,807 / yr
Oklahoma City, OK1,788 / yr
San Antonio, TX1,530 / yr

Move counts are the latest county-to-county migration flows, each county grouped into its metro.


What the weather is like in Tarrant County, month by month

Tarrant County sees roughly 132 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 97 degrees. January highs sit near 58, with lows near 37. The comfortable stretch runs March through May, October, and November.

Average daily high, mean, and low in degrees Fahrenheit, NOAA station data 2016 to 2025.
Show the monthly temperatures
MonthAvg highAvgAvg low
January58°46°37°
April77°66°56°
July97°86°76°
October81°69°58°

Flying in and out of Tarrant County

Dallas-Fort Worth International sits about 15 miles away. It is a large hub and boarded 41.3 million passengers in 2025, with 289 nonstop destinations.

Nearest airport
DFW
Dallas-Fort Worth International, about 15 miles
Airport size
Large hub
2nd-busiest in the US, 289 nonstop destinations
Average drive
22 min
from the area, with no traffic

The best schools in and around Tarrant County

Schools across Tarrant County average a C+, better than 55% of counties.

Top elementary schools

Top middle schools

Top high schools

Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Tarrant County school and its grade on SchoolGrade.


Tarrant County measure by measure

Cards are ordered by how much each measure matters to you, so the ones you weighted highest come first. Expand to see every measure. Percentages compare Tarrant County against the other 3,143 counties.


Who Tarrant County suits

Families

Schools land around the 55th percentile.

See the families priority ↑

Remote workers

Cost of living against local pay beats 92% of counties, internet is fast and widely advertised, and 15% already work from home.

See the remote-work priority ↑

Retirees

The weather beats 84% of counties.

See the retirees priority ↑


Common questions about living in Tarrant County

Is Tarrant County a good place to live?

Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Tarrant County ranks 529th of 3,144 counties. It scores highest on big-city access, cell coverage, and biking, and lowest on civic engagement and property taxes. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.

Is Tarrant County expensive to live in?

The median home is worth $342,943. The overall cost of living runs about 9% below the national average. Set against a $96,730 median income, cost of living beats 92% of counties.

Is Tarrant County safe?

Tarrant County is safer than 42% of counties. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $430 per resident a year.

What is the weather like in Tarrant County?

July highs average about 97 degrees, and January highs near 58 with lows near 37. That works out to about 132 pleasant days a year, more than 84% of counties.

What are the best neighborhoods in Tarrant County?

Using the default rankings, the highest-scoring areas are Euless, Bedford & Grapevine, Keller, North Richland Hills & Haltom City, and Saginaw, Haslet & Azle. The ranked list and the re-weightable map above let you re-sort them for your own priorities.

Is Tarrant County good for families?

Schools beat 55% of counties, crime safety beats 42%, and childcare runs $907 a month.

Is Tarrant County good for remote workers?

Cost of living against local pay beats 92% of counties, and the fastest advertised internet here beats 91% of counties. About 15% of workers already work from home.


Compare Tarrant County with other counties


Sources and methodology

Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Tarrant County. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Tarrant County represents the same real quantity as a 60 anywhere else, and the ranking is a weighted average of those absolutes. The map colors come from a national scale calibrated against a population weighted random sample of 5,000 neighborhoods. That absolute scoring is what no other places-to-live ranking does: it puts a single neighborhood, a town, a metro, and a state on one scale, so the same 40 measures answer both which metro to move to and which street inside it to buy on. Read the full methodology.

Tarrant County detail on BestNeighborhood maps:

  1. Walk Grade for Tarrant County: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
  2. Noise in Tarrant County: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
  3. Conservative vs liberal map of Tarrant County: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
  4. Mobile and cell coverage in Tarrant County: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.

Tarrant County detail on related sites:

  1. CrimeGrade: neighborhood crime rates behind the crime safety score.
  2. ISPreports.org: provider by provider internet availability and advertised speeds.
  3. CoverageWatch: the car insurance premiums behind the cheap car insurance score.

Federal and public data:

  1. U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey: income, home value, rent, vacancy, commute time and mode, educational attainment, home age, age structure, household type, industry, and race.
  2. U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program: population growth and net migration behind the population-change section.
  3. NOAA Global Surface Summary of the Day: the daily station record behind the monthly temperatures and the pleasant-day count.
  4. FAA Passenger Boarding Data: airport size and annual passenger counts.
  5. Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey: the 30-year fixed rate used in the cost-to-buy estimate.
  6. FBI Crime Data Explorer: reported offenses behind the tangible crime cost estimate.
  7. U.S. EPA Air Quality System: five year average air quality index.
  8. FEMA National Risk Index: expected annual loss from natural hazards.
  9. CDC PLACES: disease burden, preventable risk, and barriers to care.
  10. National Center for Education Statistics: school enrollment and assessment inputs behind the school grade.
  11. FCC National Broadband Map: internet and wireless availability.
  12. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: employment and job growth behind the local economy score.
  13. Religious activity uses a proprietary religious signal measurement.