United States · North America
Moving to Memphis
Memphis quick facts
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North America
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World Bank · 2025Religion
% of populationCIA World Factbook / national censuses
Cost of living in Memphis
Can you move to United States?
Pick your passport to see whether you can enter United States — and what it takes to stay.
Entry rules come from github.com/imorte/passport-index-data, updated 17 February 2026. They change without notice — confirm with the official immigration service before booking.
Getting set up in United States
Status, Social Security number and a Tennessee ID
There is no post-arrival registration in the US: your electronic I-94 record is your status. In the first weeks you need a Social Security number if you are work-authorised, or an ITIN if not, then a Tennessee credential. Tennessee expects new residents to convert within about 30 days. The genuinely local step is opening the MLGW utility account, because in Memphis electricity, gas and water are a single municipal account rather than three separate suppliers, and it will normally want a deposit from someone with no US credit history.
Read the full step-by-step guideNo emissions test, no safety inspection, and no foreign licence exchange either
Registering a vehicle in Tennessee is simpler than in most states: the emissions testing programme ended in January 2022 and there is no periodic safety inspection either, so it is title, insurance, plates and go. Licensing is the harder half. Tennessee runs no foreign licence-exchange programme, so a foreign licence holder should expect the knowledge test and the road skills test, and new residents are expected to convert within about 30 days.
Read the full step-by-step guideOpening an account, the utility deposit, and building credit from zero
You can open a US account without a Social Security number: federal rules explicitly permit a bank to use your passport number and country of issuance, or an ITIN, as the identifying number. The credit problem is the standard American one — no file scores worse than a bad file. In Memphis it shows up unusually early, because MLGW asks new customers without established credit for a refundable deposit before it will connect electricity, gas and water, so the consequence of a thin file arrives in your first week rather than your first year.
Read the full step-by-step guideTennCare without expansion, CoverKids, and a children's hospital that never bills
Coverage comes from an employer or from HealthCare.gov. Tennessee did not expand Medicaid, so a childless adult is generally ineligible for TennCare however low their income, and there is a band between the TennCare ceiling and the marketplace subsidy floor with nothing in it. Children are treated far better: CoverKids reaches well up the income scale. The Memphis-specific fact is St. Jude, where families of treated children never receive a bill for treatment, travel, housing or food — but it is a referral research hospital, not a substitute for cover.
Read the full step-by-step guideA US number on day one, and the alerts that matter in Dixie Alley
The US has no SIM registration requirement, so getting connected is trivial — buy a prepaid SIM or activate an eSIM and it works immediately, with no identity check at any point. The friction is postpaid contracts, which run a credit check a newcomer cannot pass. Locally, leave Wireless Emergency Alerts on and add MLGW's outage channel: an ice storm or a straight-line wind event can take power out across large parts of the city for days.
Read the full step-by-step guideNo income tax at all, a 9.75% sales tax on everything including food, and two property tax bills
Tennessee taxes no personal income at any level, and since the Hall tax on interest and dividends was fully repealed from 1 January 2021 there is no state individual return to file at all. The revenue comes from the other two directions and both are at the top of their national ranges here: sales tax in Memphis is 9.75%, applying to food at a reduced state rate rather than exempting it, and a property inside the city limits pays both the Shelby County rate and the City of Memphis rate.
Read the full step-by-step guideEach guide has verified costs, timelines, required documents, and the non-obvious gotchas — sourced from official government pages. Last verified August 2026.
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What to know before you go
MLGW is one bill for electricity, gas and water — and it will want a deposit
CriticalMemphis Light, Gas and Water is a division of the city government and supplies all three utilities to over 400,000 customers, which is unusual anywhere in the US. Practically, that means one account to open and one bill to budget for. A newcomer with no US credit file will normally be asked for a security deposit, refundable after a period of on-time payment, so set the account up before move-in day rather than on it.
There is no state income tax and no state return — the money comes from sales and property tax
CriticalTennessee's constitution bars a personal income tax, and the last remnant, the Hall tax on interest and dividends, was fully repealed from 1 January 2021. In exchange, sales tax in Memphis is 9.75% — the top of the Tennessee range — and it applies to groceries at a reduced state rate rather than exempting them. The combined property tax rate is the highest of Tennessee's big cities.
Memphis property owners pay the city rate AND the county rate
CriticalFor 2026 the Shelby County rate is about $2.70 per $100 of assessed value and the City of Memphis rate is about $2.58, and a property inside the city limits pays both — roughly $5.28 per $100 assessed. Tennessee assesses residential property at 25% of appraised value, so that works out at roughly 1.3% of market value a year. It is comfortably the heaviest property tax burden of Tennessee's large cities, and it is the direct consequence of having no income tax.
Thirty days for the licence, and Tennessee runs no foreign exchange programme
CriticalNew residents are expected to obtain a Tennessee licence within about 30 days of establishing residency. Tennessee does not operate licence-exchange reciprocity with foreign countries, so a foreign licence holder should plan on the knowledge test and the road skills test. Applicants with temporary lawful status receive a temporary credential tied to the length of their authorised stay. Confirm the current document list with the Department of Safety before your appointment.
Which school district you are in changed in 2014, and it still catches people
ImportantMemphis and Shelby County schools merged and then split: since 2014 the six suburban municipalities — Germantown, Collierville, Bartlett, Arlington, Lakeland and Millington — have run their own municipal school districts, separate from Memphis-Shelby County Schools. Two houses fifteen minutes apart can be in completely different systems with completely different outcomes, and the boundary is the municipal line rather than anything visible.
Tennessee scrapped vehicle inspections entirely — but there is still a wheel tax
Good to knowThe state's vehicle emissions testing programme ended in January 2022 and Tennessee has no periodic safety inspection either, which makes registering a car here simpler than in most states. Shelby County does add a local wheel tax to the state registration fee, so the renewal bill is higher than the state schedule suggests.
Top industries & employers
Logistics, air cargo and distribution
FedEx, Memphis International Airport, Nike, Williams-Sonoma, XPO
FedEx's global superhub is here and is the reason Memphis International trades the title of world's busiest cargo airport with Hong Kong year on year. Five Class I railroads, the Mississippi and three interstates meet in the same place, which is why so much of the country's distribution capacity sits within a few miles of the runway.
Medical devices and biosciences
Medtronic Spine, Smith+Nephew, MicroPort Orthopedics, Wright Medical, UTHSC
Memphis has an unusually deep orthopaedic device cluster, seeded by the old Richards Manufacturing and Wright companies, and it remains one of the largest concentrations of spine and joint implant manufacturing anywhere in the world.
Healthcare and paediatric research
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Le Bonheur Children's, Methodist Le Bonheur, Baptist Memorial, Regional One Health
St. Jude's founding principle is that families never receive a bill for treatment, travel, housing or food — funded largely by ALSAC, its Memphis-based fundraising arm. It is the single most recognisable institution in the city and one of the world's leading paediatric cancer research centres.
Corporate headquarters
FedEx, AutoZone, International Paper, First Horizon, Mueller Industries
Several Fortune 500 companies are headquartered here rather than merely present, which gives the city a professional and finance employment base that its reputation does not suggest.
Advanced manufacturing and automotive
Ford BlueOval City, Blue Oval SK, Valero, Nucor
Ford's BlueOval City complex at Stanton, about fifty miles east, is one of the largest automotive investments in US history and is pulling battery and supplier work into the west Tennessee corridor. It is the biggest change to the regional labour market in a generation.
Music, film and tourism
Graceland, Sun Studio, Stax Museum, Royal Studios, Memphis Tourism
Not nostalgia industry alone — Royal Studios is a working commercial studio that recorded Al Green and, more recently, chart records, and the city's music economy still employs engineers and session players rather than only tour guides.
Where to go in Memphis
National Civil Rights Museum
Culture · Downtown, at the Lorraine Motel
Built into and around the motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, with room 306 preserved and a long chronological exhibition leading to it.
Local tip: Allow three hours and go on a weekday. The final approach to the balcony is deliberately quiet and unhurried; the boarding house across the street, where the shot was fired, is part of the same ticket and most visitors skip it.
Stax Museum of American Soul Music
Culture · Soulsville, south Memphis
A reconstruction of the studio at 926 East McLemore where Otis Redding, Booker T. & the M.G.s and Isaac Hayes recorded, on the original site.
Local tip: The Stax Music Academy next door teaches local teenagers on the same block, and their public performances are the best live music in the city that nobody outside Memphis knows about. Check the schedule before you book the museum.
Shelby Farms Park
Nature · East Memphis, inside the I-240 loop's eastern edge
One of the largest urban parks in the United States at around 4,500 acres — roughly five times Central Park — with a lake, a buffalo herd and the Greenline trail running back into Midtown.
Local tip: The Shelby Farms Greenline is a rail-trail that connects the park to Midtown with no road crossings for most of its length. It is the one genuinely good piece of active-travel infrastructure in the city, and it is how locals get to the park without driving.
Cooper-Young & Overton Square
Neighborhood · Midtown
Two adjoining Midtown districts — Cooper-Young's bungalow grid and independent restaurants, Overton Square's restored 1970s entertainment block with theatres and a courtyard.
Local tip: The Cooper-Young trestle sculpture spanning the railway is made from the names of the neighbourhood's streets in steel. Go on the second Saturday of the month when the night market runs, and eat in Cooper-Young rather than on Beale.
Big River Crossing
Landmark · Harahan Bridge, downtown riverfront
A boardwalk bolted to the side of a 1916 railway bridge, carrying pedestrians and cyclists a mile across the Mississippi into Arkansas — the longest public pedestrian bridge over the river.
Local tip: Free, open until 10pm, and lit at night. Walk it at sunset with the river on one side and freight trains passing a metre away on the other; from the Arkansas end the Memphis skyline is the best view of the city there is.
Elmwood Cemetery
Hidden gemLandmark · South Memphis
An 1852 garden cemetery of eighty acres holding Memphis's yellow fever dead, Confederate and Union soldiers in the same ground, madams, mayors and blues musicians, under enormous old trees.
Local tip: Almost no visitor goes and few residents have. The cottage at the gate lends an audio tour for a few dollars; the 1873 yellow fever section explains more about why Memphis is shaped the way it is than anything else in the city.
Emergency numbers in Memphis
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