Best States for Retirement 2024: New Report Reveals Top Choices

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Move over Florida, there's a new top retirement spot.

On Wednesday, Bankrate published a report that found the best states to retire in this year, with Georgia taking the top spot and Florida pushed down to second place. 

Tennessee came in third, with Missouri and Massachusetts coming in fourth and fifth place respectively. 

Meanwhile, Maryland was found to be the worst state for retirement because of high costs and "mediocre scores on culture and weather," Bankrate said in its report.

For its report, Bankrate analyzed all 50 U.S. states based on five categories: affordability, wellness, culture, weather and crime. 

Georgia took the top spot in Bankrate’s best states for retirement in 2021. Atlanta is pictured. (iStock)

To rank states based on those categories, Bankrate used data from sources including the Council for Community and Economic Research, the Sharecare Community Well-Being Index, the U.S. Census Bureau, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the FBI. 

Though Georgia took the top spot in the Bankrate report, the state’s "weak spot" was how it performed in the culture category, because it has "one of the nation’s lowest percentages of over-65 residents, and it ranks near the bottom in arts and entertainment establishments per capita," the report said. 

Other than that, Georgia has a low cost of living, a light tax burden and nice weather -- aside from hurricanes. The state also ranked "in the middle of the pack" in the wellness and crime categories, according to Bankrate. 

To see what other states made the top -- and bottom -- of the list, here are the best and worst states for retirement in 2021, according to Bankrate. 

10 Best States for Retirement in 2021

1. Georgia

2. Florida

3. Tennessee

4. Missouri

5. Massachusetts

6. Wyoming

7. Arizona

8. Ohio

9. Indiana

10. Kentucky

10 Worst States for Retirement in 2021

41. (Tie) Connecticut

41. (Tie) Idaho

43. Alabama

44. (Tie) Arkansas

44. (Tie) Maine

46. Alaska

47. Montana

48. Kansas

49. Minnesota

50. Maryland