The authoritative report on US rent data
Original analysis on apartment asking prices, built on live listings from 1,412 properties in 132 cities. No statistical models. No flat-line indices. Just the raw numbers, refreshed every morning.
Pick a state, see the rent trend
Every shaded state has live listings in our dataset. Click one to open its state-wide rent trend, bedroom breakdown, and city rankings.
What is the median rent in the US? (2026 data)
Live asking-rent data from 12,485 units across 1,412 apartment properties in 132 cities. Raw percentile distribution, bedroom medians, state rankings, and the 12-month trend line that index publishers smooth away.
National median asking rent: $1,931
How much does an apartment cost in America? (2026 breakdown)
Real apartment prices from 12,485 live US listings. Studio through 3-bedroom medians, how much you need to earn to rent each, and the cheapest and most expensive markets tracked right now.
Median 1BR: $1,843 | Median 2BR: $2,345
Why our research is different
Zillow's ZORI is a statistical model estimating market-wide rents. RentCafe's public charts pull from Yardi industry indices that smooth away month-to-month movement. Our reports publish the raw asking-price distribution from 12,485 live listings, including the tails, gaps, and outliers that indices hide.