fit for fica

Houston suburbs charge ahead with some of the highest credit scores in Texas

Give credit where credit is due. The Woodlands falls in the "very good" category.

Photo courtesy of Local Government Federal Credit Union

Give the residents of The Woodlands some credit. They’re able to brag about achieving some of the highest credit scores in Texas.

A new study from personal finance website WalletHub shows the median credit score of a Woodlands resident is 757. Among the 2,572 U.S. cities covered in the study, The Woodlands nabs a 287th-place tie for cities with the highest median credit score.

FICO, the primary producer of credit scores in the U.S., characterizes 757 as a “very good” credit score. On the FICO scale, credit scores range from 300 to 850. A credit score anywhere from 740 to 799 is above the U.S. average “and demonstrates to lenders that the borrow is very dependable,” according to FICO.

WalletHub based the study on September 2021 data from TransUnion, one of the three major credit-reporting bureaus. In the study, The Villages, a retirement community in Florida, is the only city where the median credit score is above 800 — 806, to be exact.

Two other Houston-area suburbs — Montgomery and Friendswood — ranked among Texas cities for the highest credit scores, coming in with a median credit score of 738 and 732, respectively.

Here are the other cities in the top 15 statewide:

Colleyville (Dallas-Fort Worth), 777, 23rd nationally.
Flower Mound, 762, tied for 185th place nationally.
Coppell (Dallas-Fort Worth), 758, tied for 262nd place nationally.
The Woodlands (Houston), 757, tied for 287th nationally.
Keller (Dallas-Fort Worth), 756, tied for 300th nationally.
Allen (Dallas-Fort Worth), 750, tied for 428th nationally.
Georgetown (Austin), 749, tied for 446th nationally.
Frisco (Dallas-Fort Worth), 748, tied for 467th nationally.
Cedar Park (Austin), 743, tied for 568th nationally.
Plano (Dallas-Fort Worth), 740, tied for 629th nationally.
Montgomery (Houston), 738, tied for 681st nationally.
Friendswood (Houston), 732, tied for 784th nationally.
Rockwall (Dallas-Fort Worth), 732, tied for 784th nationally.

Among Texas’ biggest cities, Austin is the only one where the median credit score exceeds 700. In the Capital City, the median score is 713, tied for 1,208th nationally. San Antonio is next in line, at 664 (tied for 2,236th nationally), followed by Houston (662, tied for 2281st nationally), Dallas (661, tied for 2,299th nationally), and Fort Worth (615.5, tied for 2,545th nationally).

Bad news for Sugar Land, which is the only Texas city with a median credit score below 600. According to the study, the median score there is 571, putting it in 2,563rd place nationally. FICO identifies that as a “poor” credit score.

J. Keith Baker, a CPA and certified financial planner who teaches at Dallas College’s North Lake campus in Irving, tells WalletHub that the best way to improve or maintain your credit score is to pay your credit card balances in full every month.

“Some folks will close a credit card account thinking it will help them manage their spending and protect them from identity theft since they are not using an account,” Baker says. “While this may make sense for an individual’s financial situation, do not assume it will automatically improve your credit scores.”

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Stretching the budget

A $100,000 salary in 2026 goes further in Houston than it did last year

Photo by Leo Yao on Unsplash

$100,000 stretches a little further in 2026.

A 2026 income study has good news for big earners in Houston: A six-figure salary goes further than it did last year.

A Houston resident's $100,000 salary is worth $84,840 after taxes and adjusted for the local cost of living, according to the new financial analysis from SmartAsset. That's about $1,500 more than Houstonians were bringing home last year.

The 2026 take-home pay is about eight percent higher than it was in 2024, when the same salary had an adjusted value of $78,089.

SmartAsset used its paycheck calculator to apply federal, state and local taxes to an annual salary of $100,000 in 69 of the largest American cities. The figure was then adjusted for the local cost of living (which included average costs for housing, groceries, utilities, transportation, and miscellaneous goods and services). Cities were then ranked based on where a six-figure salary is worth the least after applicable taxes and cost of living adjustments.

Houston ranked No. 60 in the overall ranking of U.S. cities where $100,000 is worth the least. If the rankings were flipped and the cities were ranked based on where $100,000 goes the furthest, that places Houston in the No. 10 spot nationwide.

Manhattan, New York remains the No. 1 city where a six-figure salary is worth the least. A Manhattan resident's take-home pay is only worth $29,420 after taxes and adjusted for the cost of living, which is 3.10 percent lower than it was in 2025.

SmartAsset determined Manhattan has a 29.7 percent effective tax rate on six-figure salaries. Meanwhile, the effective tax rate on a $100,000 salary in Texas (based on the eight cities examined in the report) is 21.1 percent. It's worth highlighting that New York implements a statewide graduated-rate income tax from 4-10.90 percent, whereas Texas is one of only eight states that don't tax residents' income.

Oklahoma City, No. 69, is the U.S. city in the report where a $100,000 salary stretches the furthest. A six-figure salary is worth $91,868 in 2026, up from $89,989 last year.

This is the post-tax value of a $100,000 salary in other Texas cities, and their ranking in the report:

Plano (No. 27): $72,653
Dallas (No. 47): $80,103
Austin (No. 53): $82,446
Lubbock (No. 59): $84,567
San Antonio (No. 62): $86,419
El Paso (No. 67): $90,276
Corpus Christi (No. 68): $91,110

According to the report, getting some "financial breathing room" by making six-figures really depends on where someone lives and what their lifestyle is. For residents living in the 42 states that levy some amount of income tax, their take-home pay dwindles further.

"And depending on how taxes are filed, reaching a $100,000 income may push a household from the 22 percent to 24 percent marginal tax bracket," the report's author wrote. "Meanwhile, locations with high costs across housing and everyday essentials may be less forgiving to a $100,000 income."

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