Montana City Ranks in Top 5 for One Aspect of Retirement

For much of 2024, we've seen stories and studies about Montana falling out of the spotlight. People are moving to Montana less often, and one study shows that Montana is only average when compared to other states for those considering retirement.

Even when Montana makes it into the top 10 for the best places to retire, it's closer to 10 than it is to 1.

READ MORE: Montana May Be Ranked Even Worse for Retirement Than We Thought

What may matter more is how Montana's cities rank for retirement.

In a review of 182 cities, Wallet Hub looked at affordability, activities, quality of life, and health care for retirees and ranked the U.S. cities that are best for retirement.

Somewhat surprisingly, Missoula is ranked in the top 50 at #37. But what is more interesting is that in one aspect of retirement, Missoula ranks in the top 5 cities in the whole country.

Even with Missoula ranking overall at #37, it ranks better for retirement than Boise, ID, Salt Lake City, UT, and Spokane, WA. It also ranks better than Billings, which was #127 on the list.

While Missoula ranked poorly for affordability and quality of life, it ranked in the top 50 for activities, and health care it was in the top five.

• Missoula's Affordability Rank: 125
• Missoula's Activities Rank: 39
• Missoula's Quality of Life Rank: 167
• Missoula's Health Care Rank: 4

Recent news that St. Patrick's Hospital in Missoula was named Montana's best hospital by U.S. News and World Report is one indicator that our healthcare rank would be high. But Wallet Hub looked at not only the quality of public hospitals, but other factors like the number of physicians available, the home-care facilities per capita, and life expectancy.

It might seem like the quality of life rank would be positively correlated with the healthcare given some of the individual metrics, but not in this case for Missoula. You can read more about Wallet Hub's study here.