Ottawa vs San Antonio: which should you move to?
Ottawa or San Antonio? Housing, rent, crime, climate, income, taxes and transit, side by side, from each city's own published figures. Written for someone deciding where to live, not for a ranking.
Ottawa
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San Antonio
The two housing bills are in different currencies, and held against local pay they come out almost level. Ottawa's composite benchmark is 6.2 times local median household income and the Bexar County median sale price, a county figure, about 4.2 times the City of San Antonio's, yet mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $3,350 CAD a month in Ottawa, roughly 39% of the city's 2020 median, and about $2,116 USD in San Antonio, roughly 38% of its 2024 median. The cheaper San Antonio home costs nearly as large a share to hold because of a 7.03% mortgage rate against 4.34%, a property tax of 1.56% against 0.83% and insurance of $250 USD a month against $145 CAD, which is how Texas collects what it does not take in income tax. Both cities lean on a federal payroll that is shrinking. San Antonio has the lower unemployment rate on its own measure and more than twice the flights; Ottawa has the transit and, by a wide margin, the lower homicide rate, 21 in 2025 at 1.59 per 100,000 against 106 at about 6.8. Choose Ottawa for coverage that comes with residency, French schooling and a mild summer. Choose San Antonio for the job market, an 11.2 C January and a salary taxed only by Washington.
Ottawa prices are in CAD and San Antonio prices are in USD. The tables leave them in their own currency and compare ratios and rates instead; a conversion would be stale by the time you read it.
| Measure | Ottawa | San Antonio | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| City population | 1,188,114 (2025) | 1,548,422 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
| Metro population | 1,700,014 (2025) | 2,813,140 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
| Five-year growth Growth is pressure on rents and roads as much as it is opportunity, so it is reported without a winner. | 8.9% (2016-2021) | 8.0% (2020-2025) | Not directly comparable |
What a home costs in each
The figures the two cities' rent-versus-buy and mortgage calculators run on, read from the same tables.
| Measure | Ottawa | San Antonio | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Benchmark home price MLS® HPI or equivalent benchmark. Lower is treated as the advantage, which is the buyer's view rather than the owner's. | $634,000 (July 2026) | $280,999 (August 2026) | Not directly comparable |
| Detached house benchmark | $725,000 | $249,206 | Not directly comparable |
| Apartment or condominium benchmark | $385,500 | $167,371 | Not directly comparable |
| Two-bedroom rent | $1,916/mo (average, October 2025) | $1,179/mo (median, September 2026) | Not directly comparable |
| One-bedroom rent | $1,593/mo | $957/mo | Not directly comparable |
| Two-bedroom rent against median income A year of two-bedroom rent as a share of the median household income below. A household paying the median rent out of the median income is a fiction, but it is the same fiction in both columns and it crosses currencies. | 22.5% of a year's income | 21.4% of a year's income | San Antonio |
| Mortgage payment on the benchmark, 20% down 25 years in Ottawa against 30 in San Antonio, each compounding the way its own country's lenders do. The rates are not a spread you can shop: they are what each market charges. | $2,762/mo at 4.34% | $1,500/mo at 7.03% | Not directly comparable |
| Price to household income Benchmark price divided by the median household income below. A ratio is comparable across currencies; the dollars are not. | 6.2× | 4.2× | San Antonio |
| Property tax on the benchmark home The effective rate on market value, which is what the two rates have in common and what the Advantage column is decided on; the bills are in each city's own dollars. | $5,262/yr (0.83%, 2026) | $4,389/yr (1.562%, 2025) | Ottawa |
| Transfer tax on the benchmark home Compared as a share of the price. Where the seller pays it, it is a cost of leaving rather than arriving. | $9,155 (buyer pays) | None | San Antonio |
| Rent control A cap protects a sitting tenant and does nothing for the next lease, so neither column is simply better. | 2.1% guideline (2026) | Forbidden by state law | Not directly comparable |
Ottawa: About 0.83% of market value. Ottawa levies roughly 1.26%, but against a Current Value Assessment frozen at 1 January 2016 values, because Ontario has deferred every reassessment since. The average urban home is assessed at $415,000 and pays about $5,246 in 2026, which on the $634,000 composite benchmark is 0.83%. Ottawa's municipal taxes on a representative detached house were the lowest of Ontario's ten largest cities in 2025. San Antonio: About 1.56% of value for a homesteaded owner, worked out on the $280,999 Bexar County median sale price. A house in the City of San Antonio and Northside ISD, the school district more of the city's residents live in than any other, is taxed by seven units for 2025, which add to 2.290174 per $100 before any exemption. Each takes its own homestead exemption off the appraised value first: Northside ISD the state's $140,000 and nothing more, the county's Road and Flood Control Fund the state's $3,000 for a flood control tax and a further 20%, the Alamo Community College District 1% with the state's $5,000 floor, the San Antonio River Authority 4%, and Bexar County, University Health and the City 20% each. So Bexar County levies 0.276331 per $100 on $224,799 after an exemption of $56,200, $621; Bexar County Road and Flood Control Fund levies 0.023668 per $100 on $221,799 after an exemption of $59,200, $52; University Health levies 0.276235 per $100 on $224,799 after an exemption of $56,200, $621; City of San Antonio levies 0.54159 per $100 on $224,799 after an exemption of $56,200, $1,217; Northside ISD levies 1.0049 per $100 on $140,999 after an exemption of $140,000, $1,417; Alamo Community College District levies 0.14915 per $100 on $275,999 after an exemption of $5,000, $412; San Antonio River Authority levies 0.0183 per $100 on $269,759 after an exemption of $11,240, $49. The seven come to $4,390 a year, 1.56% of the price. Without a homestead, as a landlord or a buyer who never files, the same house owes $6,435. In San Antonio ISD, the inner-city district, the school line is 1.1552 per $100 after an exemption of $145,000, and the same house comes to $4,544, 1.62%. The median is the county's, and a typical home inside the city is cheaper: on $247,453, Zillow's August 2026 value for a typical City of San Antonio home, the Northside ISD stack comes to $3,697, 1.49%, lower because the school district's flat exemption is a larger share of a cheaper house. These are the 2025 rates, the bills due by 31 January 2026. When these figures were retrieved the Bexar County Tax Assessor-Collector's official table ran to 2025, with the units' 2026 rate calculation worksheets posted but no 2026 official rates, so the calculators stay on 2025 until all seven are published.
How safe each city is, by the numbers it publishes
Police-reported figures for the most recent year each force or statistics agency has released. Rates describe a whole city or metro area, and the spread between neighbourhoods inside one city is usually wider than the gap between the two cities.
| Measure | Ottawa | San Antonio | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crime Severity Index Statistics Canada's weighted index for the metropolitan area, where 100 is Canada in 2006. American cities have no equivalent series. | 50.6 (2025) | Not published | Not directly comparable |
| Violent crime per 100,000 Canada counts every violent Criminal Code incident; the FBI counts four offences. The Canadian figure is always the larger one for that reason alone. | 814 (2025) | 532 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
| Property crime per 100,000 | 2,835 (2025) | 3,920 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
| Homicides Counts, not rates, and a single year in a small city moves a long way on chance alone. What each figure covers is under the table. | 21 (2025) | 106 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
The Ontario-part CSI rose from 46.85 in 2021 to 54.20 in 2023, held at 54.12 in 2024 and fell 6% to 50.61 in 2025 (table 35-10-0026-01). The violent crime rate has kept climbing, from 744 per 100k in 2021 to 814 in 2025, while property crime peaked in 2024 at 2,957 per 100k and eased to 2,835 in 2025.
What the rates cover: Total violent Criminal Code violations, rate per 100,000, Ottawa-Gatineau CMA Ontario part, table 35-10-0177-01 (10,745 incidents).
Homicides: Ottawa-Gatineau CMA Ontario part, table 35-10-0177-01; rate 1.59 per 100,000. 2024 was 27 (2.10 per 100k), the highest of the last five years.
On the FBI's definitions, violent offenses in San Antonio went from 11,219 in 2021 to a peak of 13,105 in 2022, then 10,440 in 2023, 9,173 in 2024 and 8,241 in 2025, a 10% drop in the last year and 37% below the peak, and property offenses from 61,559 to 74,787 and a peak of 80,789 in 2023, then 70,657 and 60,693, 25% below the peak. Motor vehicle theft drove most of that swing: 8,912 in 2021, 19,090 in 2023 and 9,527 in 2025, half the peak. In 2025 the CDE shows aggravated assaults down 9% (6,037 to 5,506), robberies down 17% (1,656 to 1,380), rapes down 8% (1,354 to 1,249) and murders down 16% (126 to 106). SAPD's own January-to-November comparison points the same way: all reported crime down 13% (143,529 to 124,314), crimes against property down 18.1%, motor vehicle theft down 26.5% and robberies down 16.4%, while crimes against society rose 15.4%, which the chief put down to more drug arrests. A University of Texas at San Antonio evaluation of the city's Violent Crime Reduction Plan found violent street crime fell 22% in treated hot spots in 2024 against 9.6% citywide (San Antonio Report). The 2025 CDE counts were read on 30 September 2026 from a feed last refreshed on 15 September and can still be revised.
What the rates cover: Computed: 8,241 violent offenses (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) in the FBI Crime Data Explorer's summarized data for the San Antonio Police Department (ORI TXSPD0000) in calendar 2025, divided by the 1,548,422 Vintage 2025 city population. On the CDE's own agency population of 1,549,306 the rate is also 532. No SAPD total on this definition was found in anything fetched. Its year-end report to the City Council's Public Safety Committee in December 2025 counted NIBRS crimes against persons, which include simple assaults, and put them at 28,361 for January through November 2025, down 9% from 31,179 in the same months of 2024 (KSAT).
Homicides: 106 murders and nonnegligent manslaughters in 2025 in the FBI CDE, against 126 in 2024, about 6.8 per 100,000 on the city population. SAPD's own count for January through November 2025 was 99 against 119 in the same months of 2024, a drop of nearly 17% (KSAT); a full-year SAPD figure was not found in anything fetched. The high point in the CDE series since 2021 is 233, in 2022, a year whose count includes the 53 migrants found dead in a tractor-trailer on the Southwest Side (San Antonio Report).
Winters, summers and what the weather can do to a house
| Measure | Ottawa | San Antonio | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| January mean | -10.0 °C | 11.2 °C | Not directly comparable |
| July mean | 21.2 °C | 29.3 °C | Not directly comparable |
| Precipitation a year | 930 mm | 822 mm | Not directly comparable |
| Snowfall a year | 232 cm | 1 cm | Not directly comparable |
| Sunshine a year | 2,084 hours | 2,629 hours | San Antonio |
Environment and Climate Change Canada 1991-2020 normals at Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier Int'l A (climate ID 6106000). Annual mean 6.5 C, rainfall 757.2 mm. Sunshine hours are from the 1981-2010 normals at Ottawa CDA (climate ID 6105976) because the 1991-2020 airport table does not publish sunshine totals.
Hazards: Cold winters with regular snowstorms and freezing rain, spring flooding along the Ottawa River (2017 and 2019), summer heat and humidity, occasional severe thunderstorms and tornadoes (September 2018, the May 2022 derecho), and wildfire smoke episodes such as June 2023.
NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals for San Antonio International Airport (station USW00012921), inside the city about 8 miles north of downtown and the station where the National Weather Service keeps San Antonio's official record: January mean 52.2F, July mean 84.8F, annual mean 69.6F, 32.38 in of precipitation, 0.2 in of snow. August is the warmest month at 85.5F, with a mean high of 96.0F; July's mean high is 94.9F and January's mean low is 41.0F. May (4.40 in) and September (3.88 in) are the wettest months and February (1.74 in) the driest; the little snow the normals record falls in February and December. The normals count 122.4 days a year at 90F or above, 17.7 at 100F or above and 14.0 nights at or below freezing. Converted here to 11.2 C, 29.3 C, 822 mm and 0.5 cm. That January mean is the same as Austin's at Camp Mabry and the precipitation is the least of the Texas cities this site compares, 99 mm less than Austin's and 495 mm less than Houston's. Sunshine hours are the older 1961-1990 NCDC means (2,629 hours, 60% of possible, and 105 clear days), since the 1991-2020 normals do not include sunshine.
Hazards: Flash flooding is the defining hazard. San Antonio sits on the Balcones Escarpment in what a National Weather Service meteorologist calls Flash Flood Alley, where shallow soil over limestone sends heavy rain straight into the creeks. On 17 and 18 October 1998 a nearly stationary storm complex, fed by moisture from two Eastern Pacific hurricanes, dropped 11.26 in (286 mm) on San Antonio International on the 17th, still the station's wettest calendar day, and 13.35 in (339 mm) in 24 hours, and October 1998's 18.07 in (459 mm) remains the wettest month on record there. Across South Texas that flood killed 31 people, and NOAA puts the damage at $942 million ($1.81 billion in 2024 dollars); the San Antonio Report counts 11 of the dead in San Antonio. On 25 May 2013, over Memorial Day weekend, 9.87 in (251 mm) fell at the airport, the station's second-wettest day, and a gauge on Olmos Creek caught 15.31 in in five hours and about 17 in by the end of the day; US 281 stayed under water for days, crews made more than 235 rescues and at least two people died. The deadliest single day came on 12 June 2025, when more than 7 in fell in three hours over the Beitel Creek watershed on the Northeast Side and the airport recorded a record 3.9 in (99 mm) in one hour and 6.11 in (155 mm) for the day: the creek rose by as much as a foot every ten minutes, and 13 people died, 11 of them along Beitel Creek, where at least 15 vehicles were swept off the Loop 410 frontage road. Two more were found dead after a storm flooded Salado Creek over Labor Day weekend, and over the July Fourth weekend between the two 117 people died in nearby Kerr County and 135 across the state. Heat is the constant. The normals count 122.4 days a year at or above 90F, about the same as Austin's 122.8 and more than Houston's 111.3 or Dallas's 107.5, and 17.7 at or above 100F (37.8 C), between Houston's 7.0 and Dallas's 22.4. The airport's record is 75 days of 100F in 2023, including 23 in a row from 30 July to 21 August, well ahead of 59 in 2009 and 58 in 2022, and its highest reading is 111F (43.9 C), on 5 September 2000; 2026 had 24 such days through 22 September. Cold is rare and badly handled. Winter Storm Uri left 6.2 in (15.7 cm) of snow at the airport from 14 to 18 February 2021 and a low of 9F (-12.8 C) on the 15th, the coldest there since 6F (-14.4 C) on 23 December 1989; the station's record low is 0F (-17.8 C), on 31 January 1949, and its biggest snowfall 13.2 in (33.5 cm), on 12 January 1985. ERCOT cut power across the state grid from 15 to 18 February and about 4.5 million customers lost it at the worst; Texas counted 246 deaths from the storm, 16 of them in Bexar County, and CPS Energy, the city's municipal electric and gas utility, reported $675 million to $850 million of losses on natural gas purchases and $175 million to $250 million on purchased power.
What people earn and what the government takes
| Measure | Ottawa | San Antonio | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income | $102,000 CAD (2020) | $66,176 USD (2024) | Not directly comparable |
| Unemployment rate Statistics Canada and the Bureau of Labor Statistics define unemployment slightly differently; the Canadian measure runs about a point higher on the same labour market. | 6.8% (July 2026) | 4.7% (July 2026) | Not directly comparable |
| Sales tax | 13% | 8.25% | San Antonio |
| Top marginal income tax Federal plus provincial or state. The American figure leaves out payroll taxes and the cost of health insurance, both of which a Canadian household covers through the tax it pays here. | 53.53% | 37% | San Antonio |
| Income tax on $100,000, single filer Computed from each jurisdiction's brackets at a single filer's $100,000 and rounded to the dollar, so a gap of a dollar is rounding rather than tax. Two cities in one province or state are shown as Even, because there the two cells describe the same tax and whatever separates them is method. | $21,930 CAD | $13,449 USD | Not directly comparable |
The federal government is the anchor employer: 130,628 of 279,707 federal public servants were based in the National Capital Region at March 31, 2025, and Budget 2025 announced about 28,000 more public service job cuts by 2029. Regional unemployment ran from 6.4% in mid 2025 to 7.3% in late 2025 before easing to 6.8% in July 2026.
Main sectors: Federal public administration, Technology (Kanata North, Shopify, telecom and defence), Health care and hospitals, Post-secondary education, Tourism and national institutions.
Property tax is set by the City of Ottawa; not verified here.
BLS counted 1,191,700 nonfarm jobs in the San Antonio-New Braunfels MSA in August 2026 (not seasonally adjusted, preliminary), up 6,100 or 0.5% on the year. Professional and business services grew fastest (+4.8%, to 162,400), then construction (+2.9%) and trade, transportation and utilities (+2.8%), while information (-7.7%), government (-3.1%, to 181,800) and private education and health services (-2.0%, to 180,300) shrank; federal government employment fell 6.7%, from 38,700 to 36,100. Trade, transportation and utilities is the largest sector at 216,300 jobs. The seasonally adjusted series (SMS48417000000000001) was 1,195,900 in August 2026, 0.8% above August 2025. BLS's federal line is far smaller than the base itself: the Texas Comptroller counts 74,713 direct employees at Joint Base San Antonio in 2025, 33,256 of them active-duty military, and estimates the base supported 223,349 Texas jobs and $33.9 billion of the state's GDP ($53.5 billion of output). Greater SATX, the regional economic development group, calls it the largest joint base in the US military. UT San Antonio, formed when UTSA and UT Health San Antonio merged in September 2025, calls health care and biosciences, a $44.1 billion sector, the city's largest industry. H-E-B, USAA, Valero Energy and iHeartMedia are all headquartered in the city.
Main sectors: Military and federal installations: Joint Base San Antonio (Fort Sam Houston with Brooke Army Medical Center, Lackland Air Force Base with the Air Force's basic military training and the 16th Air Force, and Randolph Air Force Base with the Air Education and Training Command), Health care and biosciences (the South Texas Medical Center, University Health, UT Health San Antonio and UT San Antonio, Methodist Hospital, the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Hospital), Tourism and hospitality (Visit San Antonio counts $23.4 billion of economic impact and more than 150,000 jobs in 2024), Trade, transportation and utilities, the metro's largest sector by payroll jobs (H-E-B, headquartered in the city; CPS Energy; San Antonio International Airport's cargo), Financial services, energy and media headquarters (USAA, Valero Energy, iHeartMedia).
Property tax is the local levy that matters. Tax Foundation puts Texas's effective property tax rate on owner-occupied homes at 1.40%, and school districts must exempt $140,000 of a homestead's value from their tax. On 17 September 2026 the City Council voted 7 to 4, with Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones in the minority, to raise the city's own rate for the first time since 1992, as part of a plan to close a $158 million deficit over two years that also includes cuts, fee increases and a second rate increase planned for fiscal 2028. The fiscal 2027 rate is 56.288 cents per $100 of taxable value: 35.138 cents for maintenance and operations, two cents more than before, and 21.150 cents for debt service. The two outlets that gave a figure for the average homestead disagree: KSAT put it at about $49 more a year on a taxable value of $231,356, and the San Antonio Report at $35.43 on a $234,000 home. Senior and disabled homeowners with a tax freeze, about 47% of the city's homesteads, are unaffected (KSAT). The county, school district, University Health, San Antonio River Authority, Alamo Colleges and other levies on the same bill belong to the housing layer.
Whether you need a car
| Measure | Ottawa | San Antonio | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| System | OC Transpo (buses, O-Train Lines 1, 2 and 4, Para Transpo); STO serves Gatineau | VIA buses on 95 routes (three Primo rapid lines, 21 frequent and 70 standard) with 511 buses and 5,984 stops, VIA Link on-demand rideshare zones and paratransit (138 vehicles), across San Antonio, 13 smaller cities and unincorporated Bexar County; there is no rail, and the Green Line, the first of two Advanced Rapid Transit bus lines, is under construction | Not directly comparable |
| Commute by public transit | 11.2% (2021) | 2.4% (2024) | Ottawa |
| Walk or cycle to work | 8.5% (2021) | 2.5% (2024) | Ottawa |
| Airport | Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport, YOW, 4.9 million passengers in 2025, up 6% on 2024 (Ottawa International Airport Authority, 2025 results) | San Antonio International Airport (SAT), about 8 miles north of downtown and with no airline hub, handled 10,740,694 passengers in 2025, 3.2% fewer than the record 11,094,278 of 2024, and a record 274,847,470 pounds of air cargo, up 15.7%, per the airport's year-end statistics report, which puts the passenger decline down to economic uncertainty and the federal government shutdown. The airport is building Terminal C, which it says will add more than 850,000 square feet and up to 18 domestic and international gates by mid-2028. | Not directly comparable |
70.6 million O-Train and bus trips in 2025, up 3.9% on 2024 (OC Transpo report to Transit Committee, February 12, 2026). Ridership fell in early 2026: 11.5 million trips in January-February versus 12.4 million a year earlier.
VIA carried 30,665,700 unlinked trips in 2025 and about 105,800 a weekday in the second quarter of 2026 (APTA ridership reports, as cited by Wikipedia; APTA's PDFs refused the fetcher), against 78.0 million for Houston's METRO and 52.8 million for DART. Bexar County voters created VIA in 1977 with a half-cent sales tax, and a city-only Advanced Transportation District approved in 2004 adds more. The VIA Rapid Green Line will run along San Pedro Avenue from San Antonio International Airport through downtown to Brooks Transit Center, with dedicated bus lanes and new signal-protected crossings. It is a $481 million project, $268 million of it a federal grant the Federal Transit Administration committed in December 2024; construction began in the summer of 2025, work is active along San Pedro, and the FTA's revenue service date is April 2028. The east-west Silver Line, from the Frost Bank Center area to General McMullen Drive, is in design and projected for late 2030.
Health care, schools and what each city is like
Health care
Care is publicly funded through OHIP after a residency waiting period for newcomers, with prescription drugs, dental and vision outside the public plan for most working-age adults. The main hospitals are The Ottawa Hospital (Civic and General campuses), CHEO for children, the Queensway Carleton and Montfort; a replacement Civic campus was promised for 2028 but construction on the hospital itself had not begun as of 2026, and finding a family doctor is the hardest part of access, with the Ontario College of Family Physicians projecting 4.4 million Ontarians without one by 2026.
Education
The University of Ottawa (bilingual) and Carleton University are the large universities, with Algonquin College and La Cite for applied programs. Publicly funded schools run through four boards: the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, the Ottawa Catholic School Board, and French-language public and Catholic boards, so French immersion and full French schooling are both widely available.
Living there
Ottawa is a government town that behaves like a mid-sized city: quiet downtown evenings, a large share of households with two stable incomes, and a weekend life built around the Rideau Canal, the Gatineau Park hills across the river and the river pathways. Winters are long and cold, with roughly 232 cm of snow in a normal year, and summers are warm and humid. The O-Train light rail has had reliability problems since it opened in 2019, and the bus network has been cut back, so most households still drive.
Health care
Care is paid for through employer or marketplace insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, and Texas is one of the ten states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (KFF, August 2026). It had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024: 16.7%, or 5,152,427 of 30,799,312 people, against 8.2% nationally and 12.0% in Georgia, the next highest, on the ACS 2024 1-year estimates. The City of San Antonio's rate was 18.0% (268,665 of 1,496,335), Bexar County's 15.8% and the metro's 14.5%. The South Texas Medical Center on the Northwest Side covers more than 900 acres around the medical school that opened there in 1968 and holds the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Medical Center and a dozen other hospitals; a UTSA study cited by the San Antonio Report in 2022 put its annual economic effect on the region at $24.5 billion. University Health, the Bexar County Hospital District, runs University Hospital there, a 716-bed teaching hospital and a Level I trauma center for adults and children, and the 300-bed Women's & Children's Hospital that opened on the same campus in 2023; it plans to open two community hospitals elsewhere in the county in 2027. Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston has about 8,500 staff. UT Health San Antonio, the clinical arm of UT San Antonio, counts more than 2.5 million patient visits a year. This file did not verify a wait time figure for primary or specialist care.
Education
No single school district covers the city. Northside ISD, the largest in the San Antonio area with about 98,000 students, faced a $35 million deficit in March 2026, down from nearly $108 million, and its superintendent said closures were possible but not expected for 2026-27 (KSAT). North East ISD lost about 2,000 students in 2025-26, now serves about 55,000, closed three campuses the year before and will accept students from anywhere in the region from 2026-27 (San Antonio Report). San Antonio ISD has closed 25 schools in the last decade and in March 2026 voted to close Rhodes Middle School and hand three other campuses to a charter operator, Third Future Schools, citing falling enrollment and state accountability ratings. Districts say they cannot yet tell how many students the state's new education savings accounts, which help pay private school tuition from 2026-27, will draw away. UT San Antonio, formed on 2 September 2025 when UTSA merged with UT Health San Antonio, has about 40,000 students and 17,000 employees and calls itself the third-largest public research university in Texas by research spending, and the Alamo Colleges District runs five community colleges.
Living there
San Antonio is the second city of Texas and the seventh-largest in the country, and unlike Dallas it is still growing inside its own limits: it added 14,359 residents in 2024-25, the third-largest gain of any US city, and 8.0% since 2020. The military has shaped it for three centuries, and Joint Base San Antonio, with 74,713 direct employees, sits beside the South Texas Medical Center and a tourism trade Visit San Antonio values at $23.4 billion as the pillars of the economy. Household income is lower than in Dallas or Austin, and 18.0% of residents have no health insurance. VIA runs buses only, 2.4% of workers take them and 68.2% drive alone, and the Green Line along San Pedro Avenue, the city's first rapid transit line, is due in April 2028. Summers are long and dry rather than humid, with 122 days a year at 90F or above and 75 at 100F in 2023, and water is the killer: the creeks rise within minutes, and a single night of rain on 12 June 2025 drowned 13 people. The open questions are fiscal and civic: the council raised the city's property tax rate for the first time since 1992 on a 7 to 4 vote the mayor opposed, with a second increase planned, and the big school districts are shrinking, closing campuses and competing for each other's students as the state's education savings accounts begin.
Where each city wins, and where it loses
Ottawa's figures are in Canadian dollars and San Antonio's in US dollars, and against local pay the cheaper home is nearly as dear to hold. Ottawa's composite benchmark, a blend of houses, townhouses and apartments, was $634,000 CAD in July 2026. The San Antonio price is the San Antonio Board of REALTORS' median sale price for Bexar County, $280,999 USD in August 2026, 3.1% below a year earlier, a county figure because no city-level median could be retrieved; the city is about 72% of the county's population, and Zillow's index for the City of San Antonio stood at $247,453. The headlines are 6.2 times Ottawa's 2020 median household income of $102,000 CAD and about 4.2 times San Antonio's 2024 median of $66,176 USD. At 20% down, Ottawa's mortgage at 4.34% is $2,762 CAD a month over 25 years, and San Antonio's $224,799 loan at Freddie Mac's 7.03% of 24 September 2026 about $1,500 USD over 30. Property tax is 0.83% of market value in Ottawa, $5,262 CAD a year, against $4,390 USD from seven taxing units on a Bexar County address in the City and Northside ISD, an effective 1.56% with a homestead and $6,435 without. With insurance at $145 CAD and $250 USD a month, the owners carry about $3,350 CAD and $2,116 USD, roughly 39% and 38% of local median income. A two-bedroom averaged $1,916 CAD in October 2025 and a median one $1,179 USD in September 2026. Ontario caps increases at 2.1% for 2026 in units first occupied before 15 November 2018; Texas forbids rent control.
Homicide is the one count that crosses the border intact, and it favors Ottawa by a wide margin, though Ottawa's covers the Ontario part of its metro and San Antonio's the city of 1,548,422. The Ontario part of Ottawa-Gatineau recorded 21 homicides in 2025, 1.59 per 100,000, against 27 in 2024; San Antonio recorded 106 in the FBI's file, about 6.8 per 100,000, against 126 in 2024, and its police department counted 99 in January through November. The other rates are different instruments. Statistics Canada put the Crime Severity Index for the Ontario part at 50.61 in 2025, below the national 75.0; American cities have no equivalent. Ottawa's violent rate of 813.79 per 100,000 counts every violent Criminal Code violation, common assault and uttering threats included. San Antonio's 532 is 8,241 FBI-definition offenses of murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, divided by the Census estimate, because no San Antonio Police Department total on those definitions was found. Property crime, 2,834.59 per 100,000 against 3,920, is defined differently too. The directions differ: Ottawa's violent rate has increased every year since 2021, from 744 per 100,000, while San Antonio's violent offenses dropped 10% in 2025 and stood 37% below their 2022 peak. The San Antonio counts, read on 30 September 2026, can still be revised.
The two Januaries are 21 degrees apart. Ottawa's mean of -10.0 C at the airport is the coldest of the cities this site compares, and San Antonio's is 11.2 C at San Antonio International. July is 21.2 C in Ottawa and 29.3 C in San Antonio, where August is warmer still and the normals count 122.4 days a year at or above 90F and 17.7 at or above 37.8 C (100F). Ottawa gets 929.8 mm of precipitation a year against 822 mm, and takes 231.9 cm of its share as snow against 0.5 cm. Ottawa's hazards are freezing rain, spring flooding along the Ottawa River in 2017 and 2019, the September 2018 tornadoes, the May 2022 derecho and wildfire smoke. San Antonio's is flash flooding. The city sits on the Balcones Escarpment, where rain runs off shallow soil into the creeks within minutes, and on 12 June 2025 a storm on the Northeast Side drowned 13 people, most of them in vehicles swept off a Loop 410 frontage road into Beitel Creek. Cold is rare and badly handled: Winter Storm Uri brought 9F (-12.8 C) to the airport in February 2021 while ERCOT cut power across the state grid, and Bexar County counted 16 of the state's 246 deaths. An owner's utility premium over a renter is budgeted at $155 CAD a month in Ottawa, mostly heat from October to April, and $150 USD in San Antonio, mostly cooling plus the City's garbage and stormwater fees.
Both economies lean on a federal payroll, and both payrolls are shrinking. Ottawa's anchor employer is the federal public service, with 130,628 of 279,707 federal public servants based in the National Capital Region at 31 March 2025, and Budget 2025 announced about 28,000 more positions to go by 2029. San Antonio's is the military: Joint Base San Antonio, which is Fort Sam Houston, Lackland and Randolph, had 74,713 direct employees in 2025, 33,256 of them on active duty, and the civilian federal jobs in the metro's payroll count fell 6.7% in the year to August 2026, from 38,700 to 36,100. Around it are health care and biosciences, which UT San Antonio calls a $44.1 billion sector, tourism, and the headquarters of H-E-B, USAA and Valero Energy. The San Antonio metro's unemployment rate was 4.7% in July 2026, not seasonally adjusted and preliminary, on 1,191,700 nonfarm jobs in August. Ottawa-Gatineau's was 6.8% the same month, seasonally adjusted and above Canada's 6.4%; the two are not directly comparable, though the gap is wide. Median household income was $102,000 CAD in Ottawa in 2020 and $66,176 USD in San Antonio in 2024. Ontario levies a provincial income tax, so $100,000 pays about $21,930 CAD, including the $750 Ontario Health Premium and before CPP and EI, with a top combined rate of 53.53% and 13% HST. Texas levies none, so the same salary pays $13,449 USD in federal tax for 2025; the top rate is the federal 37% and sales tax is 8.25%. Property tax carries the load instead, 1.56% on the Bexar County median against 0.83% on Ottawa's benchmark.
Transit is Ottawa's by a wide margin. In the 2021 census 11.2% of Ottawa commuters took transit and 8.5% walked or cycled, counted in May 2021 with remote work at its height, so the share now is unknown rather than low. In San Antonio in 2024, 2.4% took transit, all of them by bus, 2.5% walked or cycled, 68.2% drove alone and 11.1% worked from home. OC Transpo carried 70.6 million trips in 2025 on buses and O-Train Lines 1, 2 and 4, though the O-Train has had reliability problems since it opened in 2019 and January and February 2026 slipped to 11.5 million trips from 12.4 million a year earlier. VIA carried 30,665,700 on 95 bus routes, three of them Primo rapid lines, and runs no rail. Its first rapid transit line, the $481 million Green Line, is a bus route with dedicated lanes along San Pedro Avenue from the airport through downtown to Brooks Transit Center, under construction since the summer of 2025 and due in April 2028. Flying favors San Antonio: San Antonio International, which is no airline's hub, handled 10,740,694 passengers in 2025, 3.2% fewer than in 2024, against 4.9 million at Ottawa, and it is building a Terminal C due by mid-2028.
Health care is where the border shows most. In Ottawa, OHIP pays for physician and hospital care with nothing due at the point of use after a residency wait for newcomers, though prescriptions, dental and vision mostly fall outside it. The bottleneck is a family doctor: the Ontario College of Family Physicians projected 4.4 million Ontarians without one by 2026, and the replacement Civic campus, promised for 2028, had not begun construction. In San Antonio care is bought through an employer or marketplace plan, Medicare or Medicaid, and Texas is one of ten states that have not expanded Medicaid. It had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024, 16.7%, and the City of San Antonio's was 18.0%. University Health, the county's hospital district, runs University Hospital in the South Texas Medical Center, a 716-bed teaching hospital and a Level I trauma center for adults and children, and Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston has about 8,500 staff. This site verified no wait time for either city. Ottawa has four publicly funded school boards, English and French, public and Catholic, so French immersion and full French schooling are ordinary choices. No single district covers San Antonio: Northside ISD, the largest, with about 98,000 students, faced a $35 million deficit in March 2026, San Antonio ISD has closed 25 schools in a decade, and the state's education savings accounts begin paying toward private tuition in 2026-27.
What people underestimate is that the near tie rests on figures with dates on them. The rate is one. Ottawa's 4.34% is fixed for a five-year term and then renews at whatever the rate is then, while the San Antonio 7.03% holds for thirty years; at 6.67%, the August rate Charlotte and the Florida cities on this site were written at, the San Antonio carry would be about $2,062. The tax is the other. Ottawa levies about 1.26% against assessments frozen at 1 January 2016, which is why the bill works out to 0.83% of what a buyer pays today, and none of this site's sources dates the next reassessment. The San Antonio $4,390 is the 2025 tax year across seven units, and on 17 September 2026 the City Council voted 7 to 4 to raise the city's own rate for the first time since 1992. It assumes a filed homestead, after which the appraised value can rise no more than 10% a year, holds only inside the City and Northside ISD, and leaves out the 24 special improvement districts Bexar County has created in the City's extraterritorial jurisdiction, where a San Antonio mailing address can sit outside the city and pay a district's 0.54159 per $100 in the City's place. The flood cover is left out too, because a homeowners policy does not pay for rising water. Getting in differs as well: an Ottawa buyer owes $9,155 CAD in Ontario land transfer tax on the benchmark, and a Texas buyer owes none.
Better here
- There were 21 homicides in 2025 across the Ontario part of the metro, 1.59 per 100,000, against 106 in San Antonio at about 6.8.
- OHIP covers physician and hospital care whoever employs you, where 18.0% of San Antonio residents had no health insurance in 2024.
- Transit carried 11.2% of commuters in the 2021 census and 8.5% walked or cycled, against 2.4% and 2.5% in San Antonio in 2024, and Ottawa has the O-Train where San Antonio has no rail.
- Property tax works out to 0.83% of market value for 2026, $5,262 CAD a year on the benchmark, against an effective 1.56% on the Bexar County median for the 2025 tax year.
- July averages 21.2 C on the 1991-2020 normals, against 29.3 C at San Antonio International, where the same normals count 122.4 days a year at or above 90F.
- Four publicly funded school boards, English and French, public and Catholic, make French schooling an ordinary choice.
Worse here
- Regional unemployment was 6.8% in July 2026 against 4.7% around San Antonio on an unadjusted basis, and Budget 2025 announced about 28,000 more federal public service cuts by 2029.
- January averages -10.0 C on a 231.9 cm snow normal, the coldest January mean of the cities this site compares, against 11.2 C and 0.5 cm in San Antonio.
- Income tax on $100,000 is about $21,930 CAD for 2025 against $13,449 USD of federal tax in San Antonio, sales tax is 13% HST against 8.25%, and the top combined rate is 53.53% against 37%.
- A buyer owes $9,155 in Ontario land transfer tax on the July 2026 benchmark, where Texas has no transfer tax.
- 4.4 million Ontarians were projected to be without a family doctor by 2026, and the replacement Civic campus promised for 2028 had not begun construction.
- Ottawa's airport handled 4.9 million passengers in 2025, against 10,740,694 at San Antonio International.
Choose Ottawa if
- you want health coverage that comes with residency and survives a layoff
- you would take a -10.0 C January over a summer with 122 days a year at 90F or more
- you are raising children and want French schooling to be an ordinary option
- you want to get to work by train or bus rather than by car
The Ottawa guide · Neighbourhoods · Ottawa rent vs buy · Ottawa mortgage calculator
Better here
- Metro unemployment was 4.7% in July 2026, not seasonally adjusted, against 6.8% in Ottawa-Gatineau, on 1,191,700 nonfarm jobs in August.
- Texas levies no income tax, so $100,000 pays $13,449 USD in federal tax for 2025 and $13,170 for 2026, against about $21,930 CAD in Ottawa.
- January averages 11.2 C with 0.5 cm of snow a year on the 1991-2020 normals, against -10.0 C and 231.9 cm in Ottawa.
- The Bexar County median of $280,999 USD is about 4.2 times the city's median household income, against 6.2 times for Ottawa's benchmark, and the buyer pays no transfer tax.
- San Antonio International handled 10,740,694 passengers in 2025, more than twice Ottawa's 4.9 million, and a Terminal C is due by mid-2028.
- Violent offenses on the FBI's definitions dropped 10% in 2025 to 8,241 and stood 37% below their 2022 peak, while Ottawa's police-reported violent rate has increased every year since 2021.
Worse here
- There were 106 homicides in 2025, about 6.8 per 100,000, against 21 and 1.59 in the Ontario part of the Ottawa metro.
- Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,116 USD a month on the August 2026 county median, roughly 38% of the city's 2024 median household income against 39% in Ottawa, before any flood policy.
- Property tax on the county median is $4,390 a year for the 2025 tax year with a homestead, an effective 1.56%, and $6,435 without one, and the City Council voted in September 2026 to raise the city's rate.
- Texas had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024, 16.7%, the City of San Antonio's was 18.0%, and in August 2026 Texas was one of ten states that have not expanded Medicaid.
- Flash floods on 12 June 2025 killed 13 people, most of them in vehicles swept into Beitel Creek, and a homeowners policy does not cover rising water.
- Only 2.4% of workers commuted by transit in 2024 and 68.2% drove alone, and VIA's first rapid transit line, a bus route, is due in April 2028.
Choose San Antonio if
- you work in the military, medicine or tourism rather than in a public service facing cuts
- you want an 11.2 C January instead of -10.0 C and can plan a summer around 122 days at 90F or more
- you fly often enough that an airport with more than twice Ottawa's passengers changes how you travel
- you have employer health insurance you trust and would rather pay property tax on a house than provincial income tax on a salary
The San Antonio guide · Neighborhoods · San Antonio rent vs buy · San Antonio mortgage calculator
Ottawa or San Antonio, in short
Is Ottawa or San Antonio cheaper to live in?
Neither by much to own, once each bill is held against its own city's pay, because the currencies do not convert here. The San Antonio home is the lower multiple of income: the San Antonio Board of REALTORS' $280,999 USD median for Bexar County, a county figure, is about 4.2 times the City of San Antonio's 2024 median household income of $66,176 USD, and Ottawa's $634,000 CAD composite benchmark 6.2 times the city's 2020 median of $102,000 CAD. But an Ottawa owner pays about $3,350 CAD a month on mortgage, property tax and insurance, roughly 39% of that income, and a San Antonio owner about $2,116 USD, roughly 38%, because the mortgage rate is 7.03% against 4.34%, the property tax 1.56% against 0.83% and the insurance $250 USD a month against $145 CAD. Zillow's index for the City of San Antonio stood lower than the county median, at $247,453. Renting favors San Antonio slightly: a two-bedroom averaged $1,916 CAD in October 2025 in Ottawa and a median one was $1,179 USD in San Antonio in September 2026, about 23% and 21% of each city's median household income. San Antonio takes less income tax, $13,449 USD on $100,000 for 2025 against about $21,930 CAD, and less sales tax, 8.25% against 13%, and an Ottawa buyer funds $9,155 CAD of land transfer tax at closing.
Is Ottawa or San Antonio safer?
Ottawa on homicide, the one count that crosses the border, though it is a count for the Ontario part of the metro against one for the City of San Antonio. Ottawa's recorded 21 homicides in 2025, 1.59 per 100,000, against 27 in 2024; San Antonio recorded 106 in the FBI's file, about 6.8 per 100,000, against 126 in 2024. The other rates are different instruments. Ottawa's violent rate of 813.79 per 100,000 counts every violent Criminal Code violation, including common assault, while San Antonio's 532 is murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault from the FBI's counts, divided by the Census estimate and still open to revision. Property crime, 2,834.59 per 100,000 against 3,920, is defined differently as well. Statistics Canada put Ottawa's Crime Severity Index at 50.61 in 2025 against a national 75.0; American cities have no equivalent. Ottawa's violent rate has increased every year since 2021; San Antonio's violent offenses dropped 10% in 2025.
Which has the better climate, Ottawa or San Antonio?
San Antonio in winter and Ottawa in summer, and the winters are 21 degrees apart. January averages 11.2 C in San Antonio with 0.5 cm of snow a year, against -10.0 C and 231.9 cm in Ottawa, the coldest January mean of the cities this site compares, and an Ottawa owner heats from October to April. July averages 21.2 C in Ottawa against 29.3 C at San Antonio International, where the normals count 122.4 days a year at or above 90F and 17.7 at or above 37.8 C (100F). Ottawa is the wetter city, 929.8 mm a year against 822 mm, though San Antonio's rain comes in storms that flood the creeks within minutes. Ottawa's hazards are freezing rain, Ottawa River flooding as in 2017 and 2019, the May 2022 derecho and wildfire smoke; San Antonio's are flash floods like the one that drowned 13 people in June 2025, long runs of 100F heat and the rare hard freeze, like February 2021, when ERCOT cut power across the state grid.
What happens to my health care if I move from Ottawa to San Antonio?
Coverage stops coming with residency and starts coming with a job or a purchase. In Ottawa, OHIP pays for physician and hospital care with nothing due at the point of use after a residency wait for newcomers, and an employer plan matters for prescriptions, dental and vision; the problem is access, with 4.4 million Ontarians projected to be without a family doctor by 2026. In San Antonio you need an employer or marketplace plan, Medicare or Medicaid, with the premium, deductible and copay that come with it. Texas is one of the ten states that have not expanded Medicaid and had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024, 16.7%; the City of San Antonio's was 18.0%. For the insured, University Health's University Hospital in the South Texas Medical Center is a 716-bed teaching hospital and a Level I trauma center for adults and children, and Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston has about 8,500 staff. This site verified no wait time figure for either city.
Where the figures come from
Housing figures are the ones behind each city's calculators, dated on those pages. The rest are listed here with the date they were retrieved. See the methodology for how facts, estimates and opinion are kept apart.
- Census Profile, 2021 Census of Population: Ottawa, City (CSD) and Ottawa-Gatineau (Ontario part) · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: population.city (2021 count), Five-year growth, Median household income, Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share
- Census Profile, 2021 Census of Population: Ottawa-Gatineau (CMA) · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: population.metro (2021 count), population.growthPct5y (CMA)
- Population estimates, July 1, by census subdivision, 2021 boundaries (table 17-10-0155-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: City population
- Population estimates, July 1, by census metropolitan area and census agglomeration, 2021 boundaries (table 17-10-0148-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: Metro population
- Crime severity index and weighted clearance rates, Canada, provinces, territories and Census Metropolitan Areas (table 35-10-0026-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: Crime Severity Index, Crime trend
- Police-reported Crime Severity Index and crime rate, by census metropolitan area, 2025 · Statistics Canada, The Daily · retrieved Supports: Crime Severity Index, crime.propertyRatePer100k (all-crime rate context)
- Incident-based crime statistics, by detailed violations, Canada, provinces, territories, CMAs (table 35-10-0177-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend
- Ottawa crime rate increases in 2025, remains above Ontario average · Yahoo News Canada (Ottawa Police Service KPI report to the Police Services Board, January 26, 2026) · retrieved Supports: crime.index (OPS city CSI 55.8)
- Canadian Climate Normals 1991-2020, Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier Int'l A · Environment and Climate Change Canada · retrieved Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Annual snowfall
- Canadian Climate Normals 1981-2010, Ottawa CDA · Environment and Climate Change Canada · retrieved Supports: Sunshine hours
- Labour force characteristics by census metropolitan area, three-month moving average, seasonally adjusted (table 14-10-0459-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate, Labour market
- Labour Force Survey, July 2026 · Statistics Canada, The Daily · retrieved Supports: economy.unemploymentPct (Canada and Ontario comparison)
- Federal government to cut another 28,000 public service jobs by 2029 · CTV News Ottawa · retrieved Supports: Labour market
- Federal Government Jobs in Ottawa: 2026 Hiring Guide (citing Public Service Commission counts at March 31, 2025) · Via Ottawa · retrieved Supports: economy.note (NCR public servant count)
- 2025 and 2026 Combined Federal and Ontario Tax Rates Including Surtaxes · TaxTips.ca · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
- Ontario Health Premium · TaxTips.ca · retrieved Supports: Income tax on $100,000
- 2025 Non-Refundable Personal Tax Credits, Base Amounts · TaxTips.ca · retrieved Supports: Income tax on $100,000
- Recap: February 12, 2026 Transit Committee · OC Transpo · retrieved Supports: Transit ridership
- OC Transpo sees drop in ridership to start 2026 · CTV News Ottawa · retrieved Supports: transit.ridershipNote (early 2026)
- A transformational year: Ottawa Airport Authority reports 2025 results · Ottawa International Airport Authority · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- More Than Four Million Ontarians Will Be Without a Family Doctor by 2026 · Ontario College of Family Physicians · retrieved Supports: Health care
- New Ottawa Civic hospital opening likely delayed by years, says project consultant · CBC News · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places in Texas: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025 (SUB-EST2025) · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: City population, Five-year growth, Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Character
- Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places of 50,000 or More (all states, SUB-EST2025) · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: City population, Character
- Annual Resident Population Estimates and Components of Change for Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas and Their Counties: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025 (CBSA-EST2025-ALLDATA) · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: Metro population, Five-year growth
- Crime Data Explorer summarized agency data, San Antonio Police Department (TXSPD0000): violent crime, property crime, homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson, 2021-2025 · FBI · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend
- Crime in San Antonio dropped 13% in 2025, SAPD report says · KSAT · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend
- San Antonio sees 20% drop in homicides in 2025, new report shows · San Antonio Report · retrieved Supports: Homicides, Crime trend
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00012921 San Antonio International Airport (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Annual snowfall, Climate normals, Climate hazards, Character, January 52.2F, July 84.8F and August 85.5F from the monthly series, and annual mean 69.6F, precipitation 32.38 in, snowfall 0.2 in and the counts of days at 90F and 100F and nights at freezing from dataset=normals-annualseasonal-1991-2020 for the same station
- Global Historical Climatology Network daily summaries, San Antonio International Airport (USW00012921), 1946-2026 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Character, 11.26 in on 17 October 1998, 9.87 in on 25 May 2013, 6.11 in on 12 June 2025, 75 days at or above 100F in 2023 and 23 in a row from 30 July to 21 August 2023, 59 in 2009, 58 in 2022, 24 in 2026 through 22 September, 111F on 5 September 2000, 6.2 in of snow from 14 to 18 February 2021 and 9F on 15 February 2021, 6F on 23 December 1989, 0F on 31 January 1949, 13.2 in of snow on 12 January 1985
- October 1998 Flood Event (South Central Texas) · National Weather Service, Austin/San Antonio · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Average Annual Sunshine in US Cities · Current Results (NCDC Comparative Climatic Data, 1961-1990) · retrieved Supports: Sunshine hours, Climate normals
- Weather and Climate Billion-Dollar Disasters to affect the U.S. from 1980-2024 (events list) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- October 1998 Central Texas floods · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- 12 years ago, San Antonio's Highway 281 was submerged by record flooding during Memorial Day weekend · KSAT · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Texas flash floods kill 2 in San Antonio · CBS News · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- It's San Antonio's deadliest flood year in 27 years. What's going on? · San Antonio Report · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Character
- February 2021 Winter Storm-Related Deaths, Texas (mortality surveillance report) · Texas Department of State Health Services · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- The Timeline and Events of the February 2021 Texas Electric Grid Blackouts · The University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Main sectors
- ACS 2024 1-year tables B08301 and B19013 for San Antonio city and the San Antonio-New Braunfels MSA · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Median household income, Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share, Character
- ACS 2024 1-year table B27001 (health insurance coverage) for the 50 states, DC, the US, Bexar County, San Antonio city and the San Antonio-New Braunfels MSA · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Health care, Character
- Local Area Unemployment Statistics, San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX MSA (LAUMT484170000000003), Bexar County, the Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin MSAs, and the US rate (LNU04000000), not seasonally adjusted · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate
- Current Employment Statistics, San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX MSA: total nonfarm (SMU48417000000000001, SMS48417000000000001) and supersectors (SMU484170xx00000001) · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- Joint Base San Antonio (Texas military installations economic impact, 2025) · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market, Health care, Character
- Why SATX (Joint Base San Antonio, Military City USA) · Greater SATX Regional Economic Partnership · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- Visit San Antonio celebrates National Travel and Tourism Week 2026 · Visit San Antonio · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Character
- UTSA and UT Health San Antonio complete merger to become The University of Texas at San Antonio · UT San Antonio · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market, Health care, Education
- USAA (headquarters) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- H-E-B (headquarters) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- Valero Energy (headquarters) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- iHeartMedia (headquarters) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- City Sales and Use Tax (city rate table) · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: Sales tax
- Transit Sales and Use Tax (San Antonio MTA, effective January 1, 1978; San Antonio ATD, effective April 1, 2005, raised January 1, 2026) · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: Sales tax, Transit system, Transit ridership
- City's proposed plan: Collect sales tax for 4 years before revenue goes to VIA · San Antonio Report · retrieved Supports: Sales tax
- Texas Tax Rates & Rankings · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000, Tax notes
- 2025 Tax Brackets and Federal Income Tax Rates · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
- 2026 Tax Brackets and Federal Income Tax Rates · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
- Property Tax Exemptions · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: Tax notes
- San Antonio approves first property tax hike in 34 years · KSAT · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, Character
- San Antonio council passes FY 2027 budget with higher property tax revenue and fees · News 4 San Antonio · retrieved Supports: Tax notes
- San Antonio approves first tax increase in more than 30 years · San Antonio Report · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, Character
- VIA Metropolitan Transit (routes, fleet, stops, history, Green and Silver lines) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership
- Template:American transit ridership (APTA Transit Ridership Reports, Q4 2025 and Q2 2026) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Transit ridership
- Construction Updates, VIA Rapid Green Line · VIA Metropolitan Transit (Keep SA Moving) · retrieved Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership, Character
- When will San Pedro construction be complete? Here's what VIA says about progress on the Green Line. · KSAT · retrieved Supports: Transit ridership, Character
- San Antonio locks down federal funding for $480M Green Line · San Antonio Report · retrieved Supports: Transit ridership, Sales tax
- December & Year End 2025 Statistics · San Antonio International Airport · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- December 2024 Statistics (2024 passenger record) · San Antonio International Airport · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- Terminal Development Program (ELEVATE/SAT) · San Antonio International Airport · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- San Antonio International Airport (location, airlines, 2025 statistics) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers, Climate normals
- Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions · KFF · retrieved Supports: Health care
- San Antonio Medical Foundation marks 75th anniversary · San Antonio Report · retrieved Supports: Health care, Main sectors
- About Us · University Health · retrieved Supports: Health care
- University Hospital · University Health · retrieved Supports: Health care
- University Health (University Hospital beds, Women's & Children's Hospital) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Northside ISD faces $35 million deficit, but does not anticipate layoffs · KSAT · retrieved Supports: Education
- Like other San Antonio districts, NEISD drops its boundaries · San Antonio Report · retrieved Supports: Education, Character
- San Antonio ISD cites declining enrollment, poor academics for school closure · KSAT · retrieved Supports: Education, Character
- Alamo Colleges District (five colleges) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Education
- MLS® Home Price Index: Ottawa Real Estate Board, July 2026 · Canadian Real Estate Association / Ottawa Real Estate Board · retrieved Supports: Composite MLS® HPI benchmark of $634,000 in July 2026, down 0.5% year over year, Single-family benchmark of $725,000, up 0.7% year over year, Townhouse and row benchmark of $542,500, down 5.1% year over year, Apartment benchmark of $385,500, down 5.2% year over year, 1,325 sales and 4,678 active listings in July 2026
- Rental Market Survey: Ottawa, average rent by bedroom type, October 2025 · Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation · retrieved Supports: Ottawa average purpose-built rents of $1,332 studio, $1,593 one-bedroom, $1,916 two-bedroom and $2,090 three-bedroom-plus, An overall average of $1,743 across 89,170 purpose-built units, Year-over-year increases of 3.4% on one- and two-bedroom units and 3.9% overall, Average rent of $2,320 in buildings completed in 2000 or later against $1,529 in buildings from before 1960
- Rental Market Statistics Summary: Ottawa (CV), October 2025 · Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation · retrieved Supports: City of Ottawa purpose-built vacancy rate of 2.9% across 86,550 units, City of Ottawa average rent of $1,741 and median rent of $1,675
- 2026 Tax Policy and Other Revenue Matters · City of Ottawa, Revenue Services · retrieved Supports: Ontario's last province-wide reassessment was completed in 2016 and municipalities rely on 2016 assessment values for the 2026 tax year, The average urban Ottawa home is assessed at $415,000, A 2026 net municipal increase of $184 on that home: $166 from the 3.75% budget increase and $18 from the multi-residential ratio change, The 2026 budget was approved on 10 December 2025 with a 3.75% overall municipal tax increase, Ottawa's 2025 average municipal taxes on a representative two-storey detached house were $5,490, the lowest of Ontario's ten largest municipalities
- Education property tax rates · Government of Ontario · retrieved Supports: The residential education tax rate of 0.153% of assessed value, unchanged since 2020
- Premium information for homeowner and small rental loans · Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation · retrieved Supports: Mortgage default insurance premium rates by loan-to-value
- Regulations amending the Insurable Housing Loan Regulations and the Eligible Mortgage Loan Regulations (SOR/2025-55) · Canada Gazette, Part II · retrieved Supports: The $1.5 million insured price cap, 30-year amortization for first-time buyers and new builds
- Minimum qualifying rate for uninsured mortgages · Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions · retrieved Supports: The qualifying rate of the contract rate plus two points, or 5.25%
- Interest rates charged for new and existing lending by chartered banks · Bank of Canada · retrieved Supports: The default mortgage rate of 4.34%, uninsured five-year-plus fixed, funds advanced May 2026
- Calculating Land Transfer Tax · Ontario Ministry of Finance · retrieved Supports: Provincial transfer tax brackets, The conditional 2.5% band
- Municipal Land Transfer Tax rates and fees · City of Toronto · retrieved Supports: Toronto municipal transfer tax brackets, First-time buyer rebate
- Residential rent increases · Government of Ontario · retrieved Supports: 2026 rent increase guideline of 2.1%, The 2018 occupancy exemption
- Retail Sales Tax · Government of Ontario · retrieved Supports: 8% retail sales tax on insurance premiums
- San Antonio home sales rise 4% in August as prices hold steady · San Antonio Board of REALTORS · retrieved Supports: Bexar County: 2,068 home sales in August 2026, up 8.8% on the year, at a median price of $280,999, down 3.1%, and an average of $336,979, down 2.6%, The San Antonio area MLS: 3,104 sales, up 4%, at a median of $299,275 and an average of $372,989, released 10 September 2026, The release's table: an area median of $310,000 in August 2025 and $313,995 in August 2024, although its prose calls the median unchanged on the year, 5.87 months of inventory, 16,940 active listings and an average of 82 days on the market, 5,024 active residential rental listings at an average monthly rent of $1,832, down 2%, SABOR's membership serving Atascosa, Bee, Bexar, Frio, Karnes, Kendall, La Salle, Maverick, McMullen, Medina, Uvalde, Val Verde and Wilson counties
- South Texas market report: monthly releases · San Antonio Board of REALTORS · retrieved Supports: The monthly MLS releases for January through August 2026, reporting the San Antonio area and Bexar County and no City of San Antonio figure
- Zillow Home Value Index, all homes, middle tier, smoothed and seasonally adjusted, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: A typical home value of $247,453 for the city of San Antonio (region 6915) in August 2026, $253,000 in August 2025, so a fall of 2.2% over the year
- Zillow Home Value Index, single-family and condominium series, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: A typical single-family value of $249,206 in the city of San Antonio in August 2026, against $254,823 a year earlier, down 2.2%, A typical condominium value of $167,371 in the same month, against $174,092, down 3.9%, from the condominium file at https://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public_csvs/zhvi/City_zhvi_uc_condo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv
- San Antonio Rent Report, October 2026 · Apartment List · retrieved Supports: A median rent of $957 for a one-bedroom and $1,179 for a two-bedroom in the city of San Antonio, and $1,121 across all bedroom sizes, Rents down 0.2% over September and down 4.3% over the past 12 months, against -2.1% for the state
- Apartments for rent in San Antonio, TX: average rent · Apartment List · retrieved Supports: Average listed rents of $1,069 and up for a studio, $1,141 and up for one bedroom, $1,477 and up for two, and $1,887 and up for three or more
- FY 2026 fair market rents, San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX HUD Metro FMR Area · United States Department of Housing and Urban Development · retrieved Supports: FY 2026 fair market rents of $1,177 for one bedroom, $1,426 for two and $1,830 for three, as gross rents including utilities, Housing Choice Voucher programs in the metro using Small Area Fair Market Rents set by ZIP code
- Zillow Observed Rent Index, all homes plus multifamily, smoothed, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: An observed rent index of $1,386 for the city of San Antonio in August 2026, against $1,406 a year earlier, down 1.39%
- 2025 official tax rates and exemptions · Bexar County Tax Assessor-Collector · retrieved Supports: 2025 rates per $100: Bexar County 0.276331, Road and Flood Control Fund 0.023668, Hospital District 0.276235, City of San Antonio 0.541590, Northside ISD 1.004900, San Antonio ISD 1.155200, Alamo Community College District 0.149150, San Antonio River Authority 0.018300, Homestead exemptions of $5,000 or 20% for Bexar County, the Hospital District and the City; $3,000 and 20% for the Road and Flood Control Fund; $5,000 or 1% for the college district; $5,000 or 4% for the River Authority; $140,000 for Northside ISD; $140,000 and 0.01% for San Antonio ISD, San Antonio Municipal Utility District No. 1 at 0.20, twelve emergency service districts at up to 0.10, and 24 special improvement districts, 22 of them at 0.541590, The Downtown Public Improvement District at 0.15, and 0.09 on condominiums, Official tables from 2005 to 2025 and none yet for 2026, from https://www.bexar.org/1591/Tax-Rates
- 2024 actual tax rates and 2025 actual tax rates, as of 5 December 2025 · Bexar Appraisal District · retrieved Supports: The same 2025 rates to the sixth decimal, and each unit's 2024 rate beside it: the City, the county, the Road and Flood fund, the Hospital District, the college district and Northside ISD unchanged, and the River Authority up from 0.017870, Local option homestead exemptions not less than $5,000, and the Road and Flood fund's $3,000 homestead exemption, Redbird Ranch water districts at 1.00 per $100
- 2025 tax rate calculation worksheets: City of San Antonio · Bexar County Tax Assessor-Collector · retrieved Supports: A debt rate of 0.21150 per $100 within the City's 0.54159, leaving 0.33009 for maintenance and operations, The same 0.54159 adopted for the 2024 tax year
- Valuing property: limitation on residence homestead value increases · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: A residence homestead's appraised value may not rise more than 10% a year once the owner has qualified in the preceding and current year
- Property tax protests and appeals · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: A protest deadline of 15 May or 30 days after the appraisal district mails the notice of appraised value, whichever is later
- 2020 block assignment files, Texas: unified school districts and places · United States Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: Read with the 2020 redistricting file's block populations, at https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2020/data/01-Redistricting_File--PL_94-171/Texas/tx2020.pl.zip, Of the City of San Antonio's 1,434,625 residents in 2020: 468,901 in Northside ISD, 368,830 in North East ISD, 298,175 in San Antonio ISD, 59,802 in Harlandale ISD, 56,792 in Edgewood ISD and 45,376 in South San Antonio ISD, 298,175 of San Antonio ISD's 300,690 residents inside the city, and 468,901 of Northside ISD's 665,676
- 2025 Gazetteer files: places, Texas · United States Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: A land area of 498.979 square miles and a water area of 5.735 square miles for San Antonio city
- Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (ETJ) · City of San Antonio Planning Department · retrieved Supports: The ETJ as the unincorporated land within five miles of the City's boundaries and not within another city's limits or ETJ, The area in which the City may annex land, with the consent of the landowner or voter approval, Senate Bill 2038, effective 1 September 2023, establishing a petition and election process for releasing property from a city's ETJ
- ETJ planning · City of San Antonio Planning Department · retrieved Supports: Two Military Protection Areas, within five miles of Camp Bullis and the Lackland Training Annex, developed as a direct result of a 2017 state law curtailing unilateral annexation by Texas cities
- Annexation and growth management policy, adopted 31 August 2023 · City of San Antonio Planning Department · retrieved Supports: Senate Bill 6 (2017) curtailing the annexation powers of cities in counties of more than 500,000 people, such as San Antonio, and requiring landowner or voter approval, Elections called in 2018 for areas within five miles of Camp Bullis-Camp Stanley and Lackland Air Force Base-Medina Training Annex, where owners chose land use controls rather than annexation, Chapter 382 public improvement districts created by the county with the City's written consent as the most common special district request
- Public improvement districts and special districts · City of San Antonio Planning Department · retrieved Supports: Special districts in the City's ETJ, including Chapter 382 public improvement districts, also called special improvement districts, water control and improvement districts and fresh water supply districts, Districts created by the county at a landowner's request with the City's consent, conditioned through development agreements
- Our history · CPS Energy · retrieved Supports: The nation's largest public power, natural gas and electric company, serving more than 996,000 electric and 399,000 natural gas customers, $10.6 billion in revenue generated for the City of San Antonio since 1942, Acquired by the City of San Antonio on 24 October 1942
- Edwards Aquifer · San Antonio Water System · retrieved Supports: About 47%, some 154,000 acre-feet, of the water SAWS customers used in 2025 came from the Edwards Aquifer, Permitted withdrawals subject to cutbacks of zero to 44% in critical periods
- Water supplies · San Antonio Water System · retrieved Supports: In 1995 all of San Antonio's water came from the Edwards Aquifer; SAWS now manages 13 supply projects from seven sources
- Stage 3 watering rules · San Antonio Water System · retrieved Supports: Stage 3 rules in effect on 30 September 2026: landscape watering once a week, on the customer's day, from 5 to 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. to midnight
- Stormwater fee · San Antonio Water System · retrieved Supports: SAWS bills the City of San Antonio's stormwater fee on the City's behalf, Residential rates of $3.75 a month up to 2,750 square feet of impervious area, $4.94 to 4,220 square feet and $10.45 above it
- Solid waste rates and fees · City of San Antonio Solid Waste Management Department · retrieved Supports: Monthly totals of $19.76, $25.26 and $35.75 for the small, medium and large garbage cart, including the $3.00 solid waste and $2.00 parks environmental fees, The fee shown and collected on the CPS Energy bill, with no additional fee for the recycling and organics carts
- June 11 to 12, 2025 San Antonio area flood event · National Weather Service, Austin/San Antonio · retrieved Supports: 13 fatalities from flooding across the San Antonio area, 12 in the Beitel Creek basin and one in the Leon Creek basin, 15 vehicles swept into Beitel Creek from the Loop 410 frontage road near Perrin Beitel Road, 3.98 inches of rain in one hour at San Antonio International Airport, the highest hourly rate on record since 1934
- San Antonio, TX · Texas State Historical Association, Handbook of Texas · retrieved Supports: The flood of 9 and 10 September 1921, which put up to twelve feet of water downtown and killed at least fifty-one people, and the Olmos Dam and river bypass built after it
- Home, flood, wind: which policies do you need? · Texas Department of Insurance · retrieved Supports: Most home policies do not cover floods; a flood policy covers damage from rising water
- Primary Mortgage Market Survey, 24 September 2026 · Freddie Mac · retrieved Supports: A 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaging 7.03%, up from 6.95% the week before and 6.30% a year earlier
- Texas homeowners insurance market overview · Texas Department of Insurance · retrieved Supports: A statewide average homeowners premium of $3,489 a year
- How much is homeowners insurance in San Antonio, TX? · Insure.com · retrieved Supports: An average San Antonio premium of $2,866 a year for $300,000 of dwelling cover, $100,000 of liability and a $1,000 deductible, updated 27 May 2026, An average of $2,222 a year for $200,000 of dwelling cover
- Texas homeowners insurance · NerdWallet · retrieved Supports: An average San Antonio premium of $4,565 a year for $500,000 of dwelling cover, $300,000 of liability and a $1,000 deductible, updated 20 February 2026
- Renters insurance in Texas · NerdWallet · retrieved Supports: An average San Antonio renters premium of $167 a year, $14 a month, for $30,000 of personal property, updated 23 September 2026
- Monthly homeowners' association and condominium fee, tables B25142 and B25143, 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates, San Antonio city · United States Census Bureau, via the Census Reporter API · retrieved Supports: A median monthly association fee of $60 among San Antonio owner-occupied units that pay one, 110,122 of 295,530 owner-occupied units, or 37.3%, paying such a fee, and 4,864 paying $500 or more a month
- Homeownership Incentive Programs (HIP) · City of San Antonio Neighborhood and Housing Services Department · retrieved Supports: HIP 80: $1,000 to $30,000 as a 0% interest, no-payment second loan, the first $15,000 forgiven over five years and the rest over ten, on an existing home up to $260,000 or a new one up to $284,000, with 2026 income limits of $56,350 for one person to $80,500 for four, HIP 120: $1,000 to $15,000, 75% forgiven over ten years and 25% perpetual, on an existing home up to $301,700 or a new one up to $332,800, with income limits of $84,500 for one person to $120,700 for four, A HUD-approved eight-hour homebuyer class, a home inside the city limits and a $500 minimum earnest money deposit
- HIP 80 and HIP 120 general information · City of San Antonio Neighborhood and Housing Services Department · retrieved Supports: Both programs for income-eligible first-time homebuyers buying a primary residence, which must pass a HIP property review and inspection, The remaining balance repaid in part on a change of ownership, a sale or a cash-out refinance, from this sheet and the HIP 120 sheet at https://www.sa.gov/files/assets/main/v/5/nhsd/documents/hip120-generalinformation.pdf