Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, and San Jose: Moving to America's Next 5 Most Populous Cities

Four of these five cities do hold places six through nine on the national list, but San Jose no longer belongs in the group. In the Census Bureau’s Vintage 2025 estimates, Philadelphia ranks sixth, San Antonio seventh, San Diego eighth, and Dallas ninth, while San Jose ranks thirteenth; Fort Worth now holds tenth place. The Census Bureau re-ranks cities with each new set of estimates, and the change in this group comes from two directions at once: San Antonio posted the largest gain of the five, and San Jose and Philadelphia lost residents.

City	Rank, 2025	Population, July 1, 2025	Change since April 2020	Metro price level, 2024 (US = 100)	Metro housing rents, 2024 (US = 100)
Philadelphia	6	1,574,281	down 29,519	102.6	113.1
San Antonio	7	1,548,422	up 115,074	94.7	94.6
San Diego	8	1,406,106	up 21,625	111.9	179.3
Dallas	9	1,329,491	up 25,150	103.1	117.9
San Jose	13	989,814	down 23,507	110.4	211.9

Ranks and populations count residents inside city limits; the change column compares the July 1, 2025 estimate with the Census Bureau’s April 1, 2020 estimates base in the same table. The two price columns describe the surrounding metro area in 2024. They are Bureau of Economic Analysis regional price parities from the February 2026 release, read from the St. Louis Fed’s table of metro price parities. The utilities figures mentioned below are BEA’s 2023 values, from Table 4 of its December 2024 release; they show which metros ranked high on utilities a year earlier, not what a 2024 bill would be. Dallas shares its metro area, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, with Fort Worth, so those two cities carry the same price figures.

Philadelphia’s Deposit Cap Drops After the First Year

Pennsylvania ties the deposit limit to how long you have rented. The state Attorney General’s Consumer Guide to Tenant and Landlord Rights says that during the first year of a lease the security deposit “cannot exceed two months’ rent” and that at the beginning of the second year it cannot exceed one month’s rent, citing 68 P.S. section 250.511a. From the start of the third year, a deposit over $100 must sit in an interest-bearing bank account unless the landlord obtains a bond, and a tenant who stays two or more years is entitled to interest beginning with the 25th month.

For someone moving to Philadelphia, that schedule changes two decisions. At signing, a two-month deposit is within the law for a first-year lease, so the cash you need up front can be higher than in a state that caps deposits at one month. And if you renew, the guide’s rule means the amount the landlord may hold falls to one month at the start of year two, which is worth raising at renewal if the landlord still holds two.

The guide also sets out what you owe at move-out. To have the deposit refunded, you must give the landlord a forwarding address and return the keys. Within 30 days after you move out, the landlord must either return the whole deposit or send a list of damages, the cost of repairs, and the money remaining. A landlord who does not send that written list within 30 days, the guide says, “may not keep any part of the security deposit.”

If you bring a car, Pennsylvania’s clock for the vehicle runs faster than the one for your license. PennDOT’s new-resident vehicle page says: “All new residents are required to make application for Pennsylvania title and registration of their vehicle(s) within 20 days of establishing residency in Pennsylvania.” The page adds that a newly registered vehicle must pass a safety inspection within ten days. The license deadline is longer: according to PennDOT’s Moving to Pennsylvania page, new residents with an out-of-state non-commercial license must get a Pennsylvania license within 60 days of establishing residency. The same vehicle page notes that applying for title and registration requires a valid form of Pennsylvania identification, so in practice the license visit may need to come first even though its own deadline is later.

Philadelphia’s metro price level in the table, 102.6 in 2024, sits close to the national level, but its 2023 utilities figure was 119.9, the highest of the five metros here outside California. Ask which utilities a Philadelphia lease includes before you compare it with an apartment elsewhere in the region on rent alone.

San Antonio: Line Up the Utility Account Before You Arrive

San Antonio is the growth story in this group: the Census table shows it adding 115,074 residents between April 2020 and July 2025, the largest gain of the five. Its metro price levels were below the national level in 2024, at 94.7 overall and 94.6 for housing rents.

The utility setup is a San Antonio task to start before you arrive. CPS Energy handles new service on its moving page, and the instructions differ for newcomers: if you are not already a CPS Energy customer, the page asks you to request a letter of reference as part of starting service, so ask the utility for its requirements before your move-in date rather than after it. For military households, the same page says, “If you’re in the military and relocating to San Antonio, CPS Energy may waive your deposit fee.”

The calendar matters too. A National Weather Service ranking sheet for the San Antonio area, updated July 2026, puts the 1991 to 2020 average first 100-degree day on June 26 and the average last on August 26, with 18 days a year at 100 degrees or more over that period, twice the long-run average of 9 days for the full record. A move scheduled for July or August lands in the stretch where those days fall, which argues for an early-morning loading slot.

If you bring a car, note a rule that begins in November 2026. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s vehicle emissions program page lists the San Antonio area as Bexar County and says: “Enhanced inspections will begin in Bexar County on November 1, 2026.” From that date, the page adds, a vehicle registered in Bexar County cannot renew its annual registration unless it has passed its annual emissions inspection. The program inspects gasoline vehicles from 2 through 24 years old, and it does not require inspection of electric vehicles, diesel vehicles, motorcycles, or mopeds. Check the program page again before your registration date, since the rule is new.

Texas also changes the tax side of the budget. The Texas Comptroller puts it plainly: Texas “does not levy an income tax, so it must generate revenue from other sources, primarily sales tax.” A move from a state with an income tax changes what lands in your paycheck, while the same analysis names sales tax as the state’s main source of revenue, so the comparison belongs in the whole budget rather than the paycheck alone.

San Diego: Eviction Protections That Generally Start on Day One

Under California’s statewide rule, the Legal Aid Society of San Diego explains, a landlord needs just cause to evict once all tenants have lived in the property for a year or more, or at least one tenant has lived there two years or more. The City of San Diego wrote its own rule, and the legal aid page puts the difference this way: “In the City of San Diego and in Chula Vista these protections generally apply from the day you move in.” The same page lists the relocation payment a landlord owes in the City of San Diego when ending a tenancy for a no-fault reason: two months of your current monthly rent, or three months if someone in the household is disabled or 62 years or older. The page also lists housing that the statewide law does not apply to, including housing built within the past 15 years, an exclusion it says does not apply in Chula Vista, and affordable housing units.

For a newcomer, this matters in two ways. Your lease should tell you whether the property has just-cause protections; the legal aid page says the landlord must notify you of that in the lease, so look for that notice before you sign. And because the protections cover the city, not the whole county, an apartment in a neighboring city follows that city’s rules or state law.

San Diego’s price figures explain why that protection carries weight. Housing rents in the San Diego metro priced at 179.3 against a national 100 in 2024, second only to San Jose among these five, and its 2023 utilities figure, 154.2, was the highest utilities figure of the five metros.

Dallas: What a Texas Landlord Must Install and Repair

In a Texas apartment, a short list of hardware is the landlord’s responsibility by statute, and it is worth checking on move-in day. The Texas Attorney General’s renters’ rights page says that, with some exceptions, a dwelling must be equipped with security devices such as window latches, keyed dead bolts on exterior doors, sliding door pin locks and door viewers, installed at the landlord’s expense, and that the landlord must also provide smoke detectors. If a device is missing or broken, you have the right to request installation or repair.

The same page sets out the larger repair rule: “You have a right to demand that the landlord repair any condition that materially affects your physical health or safety.” It cites Property Code section 92.052 for that right and says justices of the peace can order repairs costing up to $10,000. The remedies it lists, including repair-and-deduct or a lawsuit, apply only if you follow the procedures the law requires, so a newcomer’s first step is to keep a written, dated record of every repair request.

Heat sets the Dallas moving calendar as well. The National Weather Service office for Dallas-Fort Worth puts the average first 100-degree day at DFW on July 1 and the average last on August 27, based on its 1899 to 2024 record, and notes that 100-degree days have occurred as early as March and as late as October. A July or August move date sits inside that window.

Dallas’s metro, shared with Fort Worth, priced at 103.1 overall and 117.9 for housing rents in 2024. The Texas tax point in the San Antonio section applies here as well.

San Jose: The Price Level Behind the Population Drop

San Jose fell out of the top ten because it lost residents while other cities grew. The Census table puts it at 1,013,321 in the April 2020 base and 989,814 on July 1, 2025.

The price table shows the pressure behind a move there. The San Jose metro’s housing rents figure was 211.9 in 2024, more than twice the national level and the highest housing figure among the metros in this table, while its overall price level was 110.4. Because the housing figure is so far above the overall one, rent is the line of the budget where a San Jose move differs most from a move to the other four cities.

California’s statewide deposit limit applies in San Jose as in the rest of the state: since July 1, 2024, a landlord may collect no more than one month’s rent as a deposit, with a two-month exception for certain small landlords, according to the California State University, Long Beach legal resource center. In a market where one month’s rent is high, that cap sets the ceiling on the deposit due at signing.

Before You Commit to One of the Five

Do not carry another city’s rules into these five. A two-month deposit is lawful for a first-year Philadelphia lease and not for most California leases; a City of San Diego tenancy generally has just-cause protection from the day you move in, while the statewide rule elsewhere in California starts only at the one-year or two-year marks the legal aid page describes; a new San Antonio utility account asks for a letter of reference; and a Dallas lease leaves the security hardware to the landlord, which only helps if you check it on move-in day and ask in writing. Check each rule against the source linked in its section before you sign, because the rule that applies is the one for the address on the lease.