Can you afford Staten Island?
Cheapest 1-bedrooms, ferry to Manhattan, suburb-quiet.
Neighborhoods covered
2
Median 1-BR rent
$2,573
Cheapest
$2,075
Priciest
$2,573
Quick check for Staten Island
You'd take home about $5,578/month. Recommended rent range: $1,116–$1,952.
No neighborhoods in this borough fit your ceiling at this lifestyle.
Want the full breakdown (debt, household, every neighborhood)? Run the full affordability calculator →
Staten Island neighborhoods, cheapest first
Click through for income required, transit time, and a deeper explainer on each neighborhood.
About Staten Island for renters
Staten Island is the smallest borough on our affordability list — we cover St. George and New Brighton, the two ferry-adjacent neighborhoods that get most of the cross-borough interest. The Staten Island ferry runs free between St. George terminal and Whitehall in Lower Manhattan, taking about 25 minutes; from there it's another 10-20 minutes on the 1, 4/5, or R to reach Midtown.
Rents on this list are among the lowest in NYC — about $2,075 in St. George and $2,573 in New Brighton, both well below Manhattan and most of Brooklyn. The trade-off is everything else: Staten Island is the least subway-connected borough (no subway at all on the actual island; the SIR is a separate light rail), the least dense, and the most suburban in feel. Housing skews toward smaller buildings and detached houses; the urban-loft vibe that defines parts of Brooklyn and Queens isn't really present here.
St. George is the most urban neighborhood on the island. Walking distance to the ferry, the courthouses, and Snug Harbor; views of the harbor and Lower Manhattan; a small-but-real downtown commercial strip. New Brighton sits just inland and uphill — a mix of housing types, including some Victorian-era homes, with a thinner rental market that makes month-to-month listing volume sparse. Both neighborhoods have walking access to the ferry, which is the key value proposition.
Practical affordability: Both Staten Island neighborhoods on our list fit under a frugal ceiling for anyone earning above about $65k single. The more meaningful question for Staten Island is lifestyle fit: do you want a long, scenic ferry ride twice a day instead of a 25-minute subway ride, and are you willing to give up the dense walkable urbanism of the other four boroughs? For some people that's a feature; for others it's a deal-breaker.
Common questions about renting in Staten Island
What salary do I need to afford Staten Island?
It depends on the lifestyle tier you choose. The affordability calculator on this page models federal, NY State, NYC, SDI, and PFL taxes against Staten Island's 1-bedroom median asking rents (about $2,573 across our 2 curated Staten Island neighborhoods). At a frugal lifestyle (30% rent ceiling) you'll need a higher income than at moderate (35%) or comfortable (40%) to clear the same neighborhoods. Try a few income values above to see the threshold.
What's the cheapest neighborhood in Staten Island?
On our curated list, the cheapest 1-bedroom median in Staten Island runs about $2,075/month. We curate around 2 Staten Island neighborhoods with enough monthly listing volume to make medians stable. The "Neighborhoods that fit" grid above is sorted by rent ascending — start there.
Is Staten Island a good place to live in NYC?
"Good" depends on what you're optimizing for — commute, cost, food scene, schools, nightlife, green space. Staten Island has its own answer to each. The vibe one-liners on each neighborhood card are the fastest way to scan for fit; click through to a specific neighborhood for a longer explainer. None of this replaces an actual visit — pick three contenders, ride the train to each on a weekday morning, and walk the block your potential apartment sits on at night.
Are these Staten Island rents up to date?
Median 1-bedroom asking rents come from aggregated current listings (StreetEasy, RentHop, Craigslist, LeaseBreak via Leaseswap NYC), last refreshed in our data file in May 2026 and re-pulled quarterly. Full methodology lives in docs/neighborhood-sources.md in the project repo. Asking rent is what someone moving in today pays, not what existing tenants on rent-stabilized leases pay — see the FAQ on /afford for more.
How do I see the full breakdown across all boroughs?
Use the main affordability tool at /afford. This page is a focused entry point for Staten Island; the main tool lets you compare boroughs, model household size and debt, and see the full curated list of 50+ neighborhoods. Both pages share the same underlying engine.