San Antonio Economy

The San Antonio metro area — formally San Antonio-New Braunfels — is one of the larger and faster-growing metros in Texas. It sits at the southern end of the Texas Triangle, anchored by the country's largest concentration of military bases, a historic tourism industry, and a fast-expanding healthcare and biotech sector. San Antonio is less famous than Dallas, Houston, or Austin, but its economy is steadier than any of them.

This is a plain-English tour of how the San Antonio metro economy works. For the state-level picture, see Texas Economy. For the country-level view, see The State of the U.S. Economy and the broader Economy hub and city cluster.

How big is the San Antonio metro economy?

For example, recent metro GDP for San Antonio-New Braunfels has run around $170 billion, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Metro population is roughly 2.7 million, per the U.S. Census Bureau. That makes San Antonio the second-largest city in Texas by population, after Houston.

The biggest industries

A few sectors do most of the work in the San Antonio metro economy:

• Military and defense — San Antonio is sometimes called Military City USA, with Joint Base San Antonio (Lackland, Randolph, and Fort Sam Houston) anchoring one of the largest military footprints in the country. Defense contractors and cybersecurity firms cluster around the bases.
• Healthcare and biosciences — the South Texas Medical Center, UT Health San Antonio, Methodist Healthcare, and the Brooke Army Medical Center together employ huge numbers of workers across the metro.
• Tourism and hospitality — the River Walk, the Alamo, SeaWorld, and a year-round event calendar drive a major travel sector.
• Finance and insurance — USAA is headquartered in San Antonio and is one of the largest private employers in the metro. Frost Bank, Valero, and other financial-services firms also have major operations.
• Energy — the metro is the corporate hub for the Eagle Ford shale play to the south, with Valero and other refiners headquartered downtown.
• Manufacturing — Toyota's Tundra and Tacoma truck plant on the south side anchors a large auto-supplier cluster.
• Logistics — the metro sits on Interstate 35, the main corridor between Mexico and the U.S. Midwest, and handles a growing share of cross-border trade.

Jobs and wages

Metro labor data is published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Southwest region. For example, the San Antonio metro unemployment rate has typically run a tick below the national average, helped by the steadiness of military, healthcare, and government employment.

Texas follows the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, and San Antonio does not set its own local minimum. Many large San Antonio employers — especially hospitals and the military bases — pay well above that floor on their own.

Cost of living

San Antonio's cost of living tends to run well below the national average. For example, recent HUD Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom in the metro has run around $1,300 a month, with downtown and the Stone Oak / Alamo Heights areas higher and the south and west sides lower. Current county-level numbers are at HUD User.

The federal government tracks region-specific inflation data through the BLS Southwest region. San Antonio's CPI tends to track close to the national average month to month.

Taxes in San Antonio

Texas has no state income tax, so San Antonio residents pay no state or local tax on wages. Combined sales tax in the City of San Antonio is 8.25%, made up of the state's 6.25% base plus city and transit-district pieces. Property taxes are high — among the highest effective rates in the country — because Texas leans on property tax to fund schools and local government in place of income tax. State rules live at the Texas Comptroller, and you can read more about how sales tax works in our glossary.

How the San Antonio metro fits into the national picture

San Antonio's economy is unusually steady because of how heavily it leans on military, healthcare, and government employment — three sectors that hire through national downturns. When the broader U.S. economy slows, San Antonio softens far less than fast-growth metros like Austin or Phoenix. That steadiness is part of why the metro has grown population through every recession of the past 40 years.

Cross-border trade

San Antonio sits on Interstate 35, which carries a large share of the goods that move between the U.S. Midwest and Mexico. The Port of Laredo, two hours south, is the busiest land port in the country, and a steady share of the trucks that move through it stop, unload, or change drivers in San Antonio. Federal data on U.S.-Mexico trade is published by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

A note on the numbers

Numbers in this article change every quarter — always check the latest from BEA, BLS, and HUD User for the most current data on the San Antonio metro.