United States · North America
Moving to Omaha
Omaha 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 Omaha
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 Nebraska licence in 30 days
There is no post-arrival registration in the US: your I-94 record is your status. In the first weeks you need a Social Security number if work-authorised, or an ITIN if not. Nebraska expects a new resident holding a valid out-of-state licence to obtain a Nebraska one within 30 days, and it will not issue a licence to someone who cannot document US citizenship or lawful immigration status. Two structural quirks matter here. First, the vehicle side is run by your county treasurer's motor vehicle office rather than by the DMV, so licences and plates are different buildings. Second, Omaha's metro spans a state line, and moving to the Iowa side puts you under a completely different set of licensing, tax and tenancy rules.
Read the full step-by-step guideThirty days, a $10 VIN check, and a car tax that follows the sticker price
Nebraska gives a new resident 30 days for the licence and 30 days for the title and registration, and those are two different offices. There is no safety inspection and no emissions testing anywhere in Nebraska, which makes this one of the simpler states in this app — the only inspection is a $10 sheriff's check of the vehicle identification number when you title an out-of-state car. Where Nebraska is expensive is the annual bill: motor vehicle tax is calculated from the car's original manufacturer's suggested retail price and charged every year until the vehicle is 14 years old, alongside a separate motor vehicle fee based on value, weight and use. Both taper as the car ages, so a three-year-old car costs meaningfully more to keep here than a ten-year-old one.
Read the full step-by-step guideOpening a bank account and building US credit in an insurance town
You can open a US account without a Social Security number: federal rules let a bank use your passport number and country of issuance, or an ITIN, as the identifying number. The credit problem is the standard American one — no US file scores worse than a bad one — and here it lands mainly on a car loan, because outside the Dodge Street corridor a car is close to unavoidable. The advantage of banking in a headquarters city is that decisions get made in the building more often than in a branch network run from a coast, and Omaha's credit unions are unusually willing on thin files. Budget for two utility deposits rather than one: electricity comes from OPPD and water and gas from MUD, and they are separate public bodies with separate accounts.
Read the full step-by-step guideHealthCare.gov, expanded Medicaid — and the country's first Medicaid work requirement
Coverage comes from an employer, from HealthCare.gov, or from Nebraska Medicaid if your income qualifies. Nebraska expanded Medicaid to adults aged 19 to 64 up to 138% of the federal poverty level, so there is no coverage gap below the subsidy floor of the kind Texas has. What is new, and unique to Nebraska as of 2026, is that expansion coverage now carries an 80-hour-a-month work, study, training or volunteering condition, with a long exemption list and a 30-day cure period before disenrollment. Locally, care concentrates around Nebraska Medicine and the University of Nebraska Medical Center, CHI Health, Methodist and Children's Nebraska — and UNMC's biocontainment unit is one of the very few facilities in the country built for high-consequence infectious disease.
Read the full step-by-step guideGetting a US phone number, and having a plan for tornado season
The US has no SIM registration requirement, so getting connected is trivially easy: buy a prepaid SIM or eSIM and it works immediately. The friction is postpaid contracts, which run a credit check you cannot pass on arrival. Start prepaid, switch later once you have a file, and port the number rather than cancelling. Omaha's practical notes are that home internet competition here is better than in most Midwestern cities of this size, and that tornado warnings, large-hail warnings and blizzard warnings all arrive by phone — the outdoor sirens are designed to be heard outdoors, not in bed.
Read the full step-by-step guideA falling income tax, no city income tax at all, and the property bill that pays for it
Nebraska's individual income tax is graduated and on a legislated downward path, with the top bracket at 4.55% for tax year 2026 under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 77-2715.03. Unlike Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana or Missouri, Nebraska has no municipal or county income tax, so your payslip carries federal and one state line and nothing else. The trade-off is property tax. Nebraska assesses residential property at essentially full market value and combined levies from city, county, school district, community college and special districts commonly reach around two per cent of that value in Douglas County — historically among the higher effective property tax burdens in the country. Two state credits offset part of it, and the larger one moved from your income tax return onto your property tax statement under LB 34 in 2024. Sales tax is 5.5% state plus the city's local rate, and Omaha adds occupation taxes on top of certain bills.
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
The income tax is falling and the property tax is the bill — model that trade-off, not the headline
CriticalNebraska's individual income tax is on a legislated downward schedule and the top bracket is 4.55% for tax year 2026. There is no city or county income tax anywhere in Nebraska, so your payslip is simpler here than in Ohio or Kentucky. What replaces it is property tax: Nebraska assesses residential property at essentially full market value and combined levies from the city, the county, the school district, the community college and various districts commonly total around two per cent of that value in Douglas County, and renters pay it through the rent. Two state credits offset part of it. The school district property tax credit used to be claimed on the income tax return; LB 34, passed in the 2024 special session, took it off the return and put it directly on the property tax statement from 1 January 2024. Anything written earlier tells you to claim a credit that is now applied for you.
Nebraska is the first state in the country with Medicaid work requirements — from 1 May 2026
CriticalNebraska expanded Medicaid by ballot initiative and the expansion population is covered under Heritage Health Adult for adults aged 19 to 64 up to 138% of the federal poverty level. From 1 May 2026 that coverage carries a community engagement condition: 80 hours a month of work, an approved work programme, school, an apprenticeship or volunteering, verified at renewal for existing members and up front for new applicants. Exemptions are substantial — disability, pregnancy, a parent or guardian of a child up to age 13, caregivers, tribal members, people in substance use treatment, people released from incarceration within 90 days — and non-compliance triggers a 30-day notice before disenrollment. If your first months here involve unpaid study, a spouse not yet working or a gap between contracts, read the exemption list before you assume you are covered.
Thirty days for both the licence and the vehicle — and the inspection is a VIN check, not a smog test
CriticalNebraska gives a new resident 30 days to get a Nebraska driver licence and 30 days to title and register a vehicle. The titling step includes a sheriff's inspection at the county motor vehicle office, which is a $10 verification of the vehicle identification number, not a safety or emissions test — Nebraska runs neither. The recurring cost is instead the motor vehicle tax, calculated from the vehicle's original MSRP and charged annually until the car is 14 years old, plus a separate value- and weight-based motor vehicle fee. A newer car is materially more expensive to keep on the road here than an older one, which is a real budgeting fact rather than a rounding error.
The metro crosses into Iowa, and Nebraska and Iowa are not reciprocal
ImportantCouncil Bluffs is across the Missouri River and part of the same labour market — people cross it in both directions every day for work. Nebraska and Iowa have no reciprocal income tax agreement, so if you live in one and work in the other you file a resident return in the state you live in and a non-resident return in the state you work in, and claim a credit for tax paid to the other. It is administratively normal and entirely survivable, but it is two returns and two withholding forms rather than one, and it also changes which state's landlord-tenant law, vehicle rules and unemployment insurance you are under. Decide which side of the river you are on deliberately.
You cannot shop for an electricity provider here, and that is a feature
ImportantNebraska is the only state in the United States served entirely by consumer-owned power entities — public power districts, municipal utilities and cooperatives, with no investor-owned utility anywhere in the state. In Omaha that means Omaha Public Power District supplies electricity and the Metropolitan Utilities District supplies water and natural gas, both as public bodies with elected or appointed boards rather than shareholders. There is no retail choice to make, no introductory rate to be switched off, and rates are set in public meetings you can attend. It also means Nebraska has no state utility regulator setting those rates the way Texas or California does — the accountability route is the board, not a commission.
Apply for your Social Security number about ten days after arriving
CriticalThe Social Security Administration verifies your status against DHS records that lag entry by one to two weeks, so going in on day two usually wastes the trip. Only work-authorised people qualify; everyone else files IRS Form W-7 for an ITIN. The card is free. Nebraska's driver licensing also asks for a Social Security number, or documentation that you are exempt, so this step gates the next one.
Severe weather here is a plan, not a mood — and the minimum wage is now $15
ImportantOmaha sits where Great Plains and Midwestern weather meet: tornado and large-hail season from April to June, blizzards and dangerous wind chill in winter, and a metro that took serious river and creek flooding in March 2019. Wireless emergency alerts and a battery-powered plan are ordinary preparedness here rather than anxiety, and covered parking has real financial value against hail. On the other side of the ledger, Nebraska's voter-approved Initiative 433 took the state minimum wage to $15.00 an hour on 1 January 2026 — more than double Texas's floor — with future rises capped by LB 258 at the lesser of 1.5% or the cost-of-living increase.
Top industries & employers
Insurance & financial services
Berkshire Hathaway, Mutual of Omaha, Physicians Mutual, Woodmen Life, First National Bank of Omaha, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska, Pacific Life's Omaha operations
Omaha's insurance depth is real and old — the city grew a cluster of fraternal and mutual insurers from the late nineteenth century and never lost it. Berkshire Hathaway is headquartered in an unremarkable office block on Farnam Street, and Mutual of Omaha's tower is the tallest building in the state. This is a back-office, actuarial and underwriting economy rather than a trading one, which means steady hiring and unglamorous stability.
Railroads, trucking & logistics
Union Pacific, Werner Enterprises, Crete Carrier, BNSF's Council Bluffs yard, the Omaha intermodal terminals
Union Pacific has been headquartered here since 1862 and is the largest railroad in the United States by route mileage; its downtown headquarters and the Bailey Yard system make Omaha a genuine rail town rather than a city that happens to have trains. Werner and Crete put a deep trucking layer alongside it. If you are in supply chain, this is one of the best small markets in the country.
Defence & national security
Offutt Air Force Base, US Strategic Command, 55th Wing, a large cleared-contractor layer around Bellevue and Papillion
US Strategic Command — the combatant command responsible for America's nuclear deterrent — is headquartered at Offutt, south of the city. Direct roles almost always require US citizenship and usually a security clearance, so treat this as context for the local economy rather than an accessible job market on arrival; the contractor tier around it is large but gated the same way.
Health care & biocontainment research
Nebraska Medicine and the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Children's Nebraska, CHI Health, Methodist Health System, Boys Town National Research Hospital
UNMC's Nebraska Biocontainment Unit is one of a very small number of facilities in the country able to treat high-consequence infectious disease, and it treated Ebola patients in 2014; the federal quarantine facility built alongside it is the only one of its kind. Health care is the sector most likely to be hiring here regardless of what the rest of the economy is doing.
Construction, engineering & architecture
Kiewit, HDR, Lund-Ross, Leo A Daly, Olsson
Kiewit is one of the largest construction and engineering firms in North America and is headquartered here; HDR and Leo A Daly are large employee-owned engineering and architecture practices in the same city. For civil engineers, project managers and construction professionals, Omaha punches far above a metro of this size — these firms staff national work from Nebraska.
Data centres, food & agribusiness
Google, Meta and Microsoft campuses in Sarpy County, Greater Omaha Packing, Omaha Steaks, Green Plains, Scoular, Valmont Industries
Sarpy County south of the city has become one of the larger hyperscale data-centre clusters in the country, drawn by cheap public power, cheap land and a low natural-disaster profile for the buildings themselves. Alongside it sits the older economy: beef processing, grain trading, ethanol and irrigation equipment, all of which are national businesses run from here.
Where to go in Omaha
The Old Market
Neighborhood · Downtown, between 10th and 13th
Six blocks of nineteenth-century brick warehouses with iron loading canopies still over the pavements, cobbled streets, and a hidden interior courtyard called the Passageway reached through an unmarked arch.
Local tip: Come on a weekday evening rather than a Saturday, when the suburbs arrive. The Saturday farmers market runs May to October and is the easiest place in the city to fall into conversation with strangers. Park once in the 10th Street garage and walk — the cobbles are unkind to everything.
Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium
Nature · South of downtown, off 10th Street
One of the largest zoos in the world by land area, with an indoor desert under a geodesic dome, an indoor rainforest, and a nocturnal exhibit built into a former quarry.
Local tip: Buy the annual membership on your first visit — it pays for itself in three trips and it is the standard Omaha household purchase. Go on a weekday morning; the Desert Dome is best in January when it is minus ten outside and eighty degrees under the glass.
The RiverFront and the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge
Landmark · Downtown, on the Missouri River
Three connected downtown parks rebuilt and reopened in 2023, running to a curving pedestrian bridge across the Missouri where you can stand with one foot in Nebraska and one in Iowa.
Local tip: The state line is marked in the middle of the bridge deck and everyone photographs it once. More usefully, the bridge connects into the Iowa trail network — you can ride from downtown Omaha into Council Bluffs and out along the Wabash Trace without touching a road.
Benson
Hidden gemNightlife · Maple Street, north-west of midtown
A short, scrappy strip of independent bars, music rooms and record shops in an old streetcar suburb — the place the city's music scene actually lives rather than the place it is marketed from.
Local tip: Benson First Friday is the monthly art and music walk and is the single best way to meet people in your first month. The strip is walkable end to end in ten minutes, which is the point; nowhere else in Omaha is.
The Blackstone District and Joslyn Art Museum
Culture · Midtown, along Farnam Street
A revived stretch of Farnam around the old Blackstone Hotel — where the Reuben sandwich is claimed to have been invented — a short walk from the Joslyn, an Art Deco marble museum that reopened in 2024 after a major expansion and charges no general admission.
Local tip: The Joslyn's free general admission is unusual for a museum of that quality and locals use it as a wet-Sunday habit rather than an event. Eat in Blackstone before or after; it is midtown's densest restaurant block and it is not the Old Market.
Charles Schwab Field and the College World Series
Landmark · North downtown
The purpose-built home of the NCAA Division I baseball championship, which Omaha has hosted every June since 1950 — an event the city treats as its own rather than as a visiting tournament.
Local tip: If you are arriving in June, book accommodation before you book anything else. If you are staying, the free outdoor festival next to the ballpark is where most locals actually watch it, and the north downtown bars during the series are the best two weeks of the year.
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