Your monthly budget in Billings.

Billings had 121,478 residents in 2024, a median household income of $69,112 and a median gross rent of $1,182 a month, according to the Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey. It is Montana’s largest city, so the usual comparison with a bigger, pricier metro does not apply. The useful comparison is west: Missoula had a similar median income, $69,832, but a median rent of $1,331, and its median home was valued at $562,000 against $360,900 in Billings.

Billings works as the commercial center for a huge territory. Its trade area covers more than 125,000 square miles across eastern Montana, northern Wyoming and parts of the Dakotas, according to the Billings Chamber of Commerce, and the city accounts for about 20% of Montana’s GDP, Big Sky Economic Development reported in 2024. Health care is the largest piece: Billings Clinic has more than 4,600 employees and in 2023 combined with Kalispell’s Logan Health to form the state’s largest independent health system, Montana Free Press reported, while Intermountain Health St. Vincent Regional Hospital is the other major hospital. Refining is the other anchor. Par Pacific bought ExxonMobil’s Billings refinery in 2023, a plant with more than 300 employees; Phillips 66 runs another in the city, and CHS operates one in nearby Laurel.

This page is for the refinery operator whose year includes a long turnaround, the sonographer or nurse at a Billings hospital, and the couple deciding whether a first home is within reach. By the end you will know what Montana takes, how to plan around overtime that comes in bursts and what a down payment here requires.

Turnarounds and the refinery calendar

Refineries shut down units for scheduled maintenance, called turnarounds, every few years. For operators and contractors, those weeks often mean long shifts and large overtime checks. For the household, they mean an income spike that is real but temporary. The safest plan assumes base pay and treats turnaround pay as money for goals. Contractors who travel in for turnarounds face the reverse problem: very high weeks followed by a gap until the next job, so their base is the slowest month, not the busiest.

What Montana takes in 2026

Under HB 337, the top income tax rate fell from 5.9% to 5.65% in 2026 and will fall to 5.4% in 2027. Single filers pay 4.7% on the first $47,500 of taxable income, joint filers on the first $95,000, Montana Free Press reported. There is no general sales tax and no city income tax.

Property taxes after 2025

The 2025 Legislature shifted property taxes away from modest primary homes. Yellowstone County homeowners saved about $757 on average, roughly 30% of their unadjusted bills, according to a Montana Free Press analysis of state estimates, and a Billings city staff memo in May 2025 projected that the median home would see a reduction. From 2026, the lower homestead rate requires an application to the Department of Revenue.

Fixed costs in a Billings month

• Rent or mortgage with escrow, plus insurance; hail is a real risk for roofs and cars.
• Electricity and natural gas, with winter heating the biggest swing.
• A truck or car, insurance and gas; MET Transit covers the main routes.
• Phone, internet and childcare.
• Student loans and card payments.

Example one: a refinery operator and a part-time dental assistant

The figures in both examples are illustrative. Travis is an operator at a Billings refinery and takes home $5,400 a month on his normal schedule. During a turnaround, overtime adds about $3,000 a month for two or three months. His wife, Jess, works part time at a dental office and takes home $1,600.

Planned income: $5,400 plus $1,600, or $7,000.

Fixed costs: mortgage with escrow on a house in the Heights $2,350, utilities $260, truck payment and insurance $680, second car with insurance $350, gas $200, phone and internet $160, groceries for a family of four $800, kids’ sports $150, credit card payment $200. Total: $5,150. Weekend reserve: $300.

$7,000 minus $5,150 minus $300 leaves $1,550 of real free money.

Before the next turnaround, they split the expected overtime in Monthly: half to the credit card until it is paid, a third to an Emergency fund goal and the rest to a family trip. When the turnaround ends, their plan is exactly where it was.

Enter your base pay in Monthly and plan your next overtime burst before it arrives →

Example two: a hospital sonographer saving for a first home

Nicole is a sonographer at a Billings hospital and takes home $3,800 a month. She had an offer in Missoula and stayed after comparing both months.

Fixed costs: rent for a one-bedroom on the West End $1,100, renters insurance $14, utilities $150, car payment and insurance $450, gas $90, phone and internet $110, student loan $320, groceries $330, dog care $50. Total: $2,614. Weekend reserve: $180.

$3,800 minus $2,614 minus $180 leaves $1,006.

At the Billings median of $360,900, a 5% down payment is about $18,045. Putting $700 a month into a Down payment goal, she reaches it in about 26 months and keeps $306 free. At Missoula’s median of $562,000, the same 5% would be $28,100, more than a year longer at her pace.

Monthly in a Billings household

Monthly is a free, manual budgeting app for the web and Android. It does not connect to your bank, move money or give financial advice. You enter base pay, overtime, fixed costs and debts, and it shows your real free money. Goals under Patrimonio, such as an emergency fund or a down payment, keep a target, a date and logged contributions. Our guide to planning your month in five minutes is a quick start, and our page on budgeting in Helena shows how the capital’s state-government paychecks compare.

Real free money and your next step

Billings combines a regional medical economy, refineries that pay in bursts and housing that costs far less than western Montana’s. Real free money is what your base pay leaves after fixed costs and a weekend reserve, with turnaround overtime and bonuses assigned to goals before they arrive.

Set up your Billings month in Monthly and give your down payment a date →