United States · North America
Moving to Long Beach
Long Beach quick facts
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North America
Economy
World Bank · 2025Religion
% of populationCIA World Factbook / national censuses
Cost of living in Long Beach
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 California ID
There is no post-arrival registration step in the US: your I-94 record is your status, and the 'admit until' date on it governs your stay rather than the expiry printed in the visa. The first weeks are about a Social Security number if you are work-authorised, or an ITIN if not, then California's ten-day driver licence deadline and its far tighter twenty-day vehicle registration deadline — which is the single most missed rule in the state.
Read the full step-by-step guideTen days for the licence, twenty for the car, and a city you can mostly ride
California gives no test exemptions to any country: every foreign licence holder sits the written knowledge test, and the DMV may require a road test as well. The licence deadline is ten days from establishing residency and the vehicle registration deadline is twenty. Locally, Long Beach is unusually forgiving to the car-free — it is flat, it has an unbroken separated beachfront path, a city-run bus network and a light rail line running to downtown Los Angeles in about an hour — and unusually hostile to the careless parker, because most of the dense central districts are permit-controlled.
Read the full step-by-step guideOpening an account, and a credit file the rental market will actually accept
Federal rules let a bank identify a non-US person by passport number and country of issuance, so you do not have to wait for a Social Security number to open an account. The credit problem is the standard American one — no file scores worse than a bad file — and in coastal Los Angeles County it bites hardest at the letting agent's screening portal, because there are more applicants than flats and the software has no way to read a foreign record.
Read the full step-by-step guideCovered California, Medi-Cal, and a health department that belongs to the city
Coverage comes from an employer, from Medi-Cal if your income qualifies, or from Covered California. Three things differ from the federal default and all three cost people money: California's open enrolment runs on its own calendar rather than HealthCare.gov's, California has a state individual mandate with a penalty on your state tax return, and Medi-Cal covers all income-eligible adults regardless of immigration status. Locally, the fourth: public health services that everywhere else in the county come from LA County come from the City of Long Beach instead.
Read the full step-by-step guideA US number with no credit history, and an earthquake alert you should not silence
The US has no SIM registration requirement at all: numbers are not tied to identity documents, so a prepaid SIM or eSIM works the moment you insert it. The only friction is postpaid contracts, which run a credit check you cannot pass on arrival. Locally, turn on Wireless Emergency Alerts and leave them on — California's ShakeAlert system pushes earthquake warnings through them, and Long Beach's own 1933 earthquake is the reason every school building in the state is engineered the way it is.
Read the full step-by-step guide13.3% at the top, uncapped SDI, and a 10.5% sales tax above the state's own cap
California's personal income tax runs to 13.3% at the top, the highest state rate in the country, and since 2024 State Disability Insurance is withheld on every dollar of wages with no ceiling at all — a change that raised the effective marginal rate on high earners well beyond the headline. That layer is identical in Los Angeles, Anaheim and San José. What is specific to Long Beach sits on consumption and property: a combined sales tax of 10.5%, among the highest in the state and legislatively exempted from California's own 10.25% cap, against a property tax still anchored to Proposition 13's 1% of assessed value with acquisition-value assessment.
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.
Essential English phrases
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What to know before you go
Long Beach has its own just-cause eviction ordinance, and most California cities do not
CriticalLBMC Chapter 8.99, adopted in March 2020 and strengthened in March 2022, requires a landlord to name a specific at-fault or no-fault reason to end a tenancy of twelve months or more, and it goes further than California's statewide Tenant Protection Act on coverage, notice and payments. A no-fault termination for demolition or substantial remodel entitles the tenant to USD 4,500 or two months' rent, whichever is greater; other no-fault terminations carry one month's rent. Neighbouring Anaheim has nothing of its own at all. Ask which ordinance covers the unit before you sign, and get the answer in writing.
Your birth certificate, restaurant grade and food-poisoning complaint all come from the city, not the county
ImportantLong Beach runs one of only three city-operated health departments in California — Berkeley and Pasadena are the others. Everywhere else in Los Angeles County, public health is the county's job. Here the city issues birth and death records, inspects restaurants, runs the public health laboratory, does communicable disease control, runs WIC, and handles lead poisoning prevention and mosquito control. Practical consequence: when a form or a website tells you to contact LA County Public Health, in Long Beach that is usually the wrong office and will cost you a week.
The sales tax is 10.5% — at the top of the range in California, and above the state's own cap
ImportantThe combined rate in Long Beach is 10.5%, one of the highest in California and shared with only a few dozen other cities. California nominally caps combined district taxes so a city's total cannot exceed 10.25%, but the legislature specifically exempted Long Beach's measure from that ceiling. For comparison, Anaheim twenty minutes away is 7.75%. On a car, a laptop or a sofa the difference is real money, and plenty of people cross a city line to buy. Check the exact rate for an address on CDTFA's lookup rather than assuming a neighbouring city matches.
One school district covers the whole city — a genuine rarity in Southern California
ImportantLong Beach Unified is California's third-largest district, teaching roughly 64,000 pupils across about 84 schools, and it covers essentially all of Long Beach plus all of Signal Hill, Avalon on Catalina Island and part of Lakewood. Compare Anaheim, where the city is carved between several separate elementary, high school and unified districts and the boundary can run down the middle of a street. You still need to check which school serves the address, but you do not have to work out which government does.
There is an oil field under the city and the city operates it
Good to knowThe Wilmington field is one of the largest urban oil fields in the country, still producing close to eight million barrels a year, and the City of Long Beach is the state's trustee for it — the four landscaped 'islands' in the harbour are working platforms. It is not a curiosity: extraction from the 1930s to the 1950s sank the ground by as much as 29 feet in the port and 19 feet at Naples before water injection stopped it in the late 1950s. It funds a large slice of the city's tidelands spending, and it is why you will occasionally see a well head behind a wall on an ordinary residential street.
The airport has one of the strictest noise ordinances in the country, which is why it is pleasant and small
Good to knowLBMC 16.43, passed in 1995 and grandfathered under the federal Airport Noise and Capacity Act of 1990, limits commercial carriers to a fixed number of daily flight slots — currently 41 commercial and 25 commuter — and bars them from scheduling anything between 10pm and 7am. No airport operator in the United States has managed to enact a comparable ordinance since 1991. It means Long Beach Airport is a genuinely quick, quiet alternative to LAX, and also that the route map is small and fares can be poor. Check LAX before assuming.
Top industries & employers
Port, shipping & logistics
Port of Long Beach, SSA Marine, Total Terminals, Matson, drayage and customs brokerage firms
The city owns the second-busiest container port in the United States, which moved a record 9.88 million TEUs in 2025 and forms half of the San Pedro Bay complex with the Port of Los Angeles. Trade, warehousing and customs work radiate from it across the whole south-east county.
Space & aerospace
Rocket Lab, Relativity Space, Vast, SpinLaunch, Wisk Aero, Virgin Galactic operations
'Space Beach' — a cluster of launch and space-hardware companies that took over the old Douglas and Boeing plants north of the airport. It is where most of the city's new engineering hiring is, and Cal State Long Beach's aerospace programme feeds it directly.
Healthcare
MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center, Miller Children's & Women's Hospital, Dignity Health St. Mary, VA Long Beach, City of Long Beach Health Department
MemorialCare's Long Beach campus and the adjoining children's hospital are the region's referral centre, and the VA hospital is one of the larger federal employers in the city. The city health department itself employs over 500 people.
Education & public sector
Cal State Long Beach, Long Beach City College, Long Beach Unified School District, City of Long Beach
CSULB is one of the largest campuses in the California State University system and, with the school district and the city itself, makes the public sector the biggest single block of stable employment here.
Oil & energy
City of Long Beach Energy & Environmental Services, California Resources Corporation, THUMS
The Wilmington field under the city and harbour still produces close to eight million barrels a year, operated under a trusteeship the state granted the city in the early 1900s. It is a shrinking but still significant employer and a large contributor to city revenue.
Creative, film & events
Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, Long Beach Convention Center, film and television location work, Queen Mary
Long Beach is inside the studio zone, so location shooting is constant, and the convention centre and the April street-circuit Grand Prix drive a substantial hospitality and events economy.
Where to go in Long Beach
Naples & the canals
Neighborhood · South-east Long Beach, in Alamitos Bay
Three small islands laid out around Venetian-style canals in 1905, with houses packed onto pedestrian lanes and gondolas that genuinely operate.
Local tip: Walk the canal paths rather than driving the loop — most of Naples is only accessible on foot and that is the point. December's Naples Boat Parade is the local institution. Parking is close to impossible; take the bus to Second Street and walk in.
Cambodia Town
Food · Anaheim Street between Atlantic and Junipero
The officially designated heart of the largest Cambodian community outside Cambodia, a mile of restaurants, groceries, bakeries and jewellers along a wide working street.
Local tip: Come hungry and come at lunch. Order num pang sandwiches, kuy teav noodle soup and a Cambodian iced coffee, and go to the small family places rather than the big signposted ones. Cambodian New Year in April fills the street and is the best free day out in the city.
El Dorado Nature Center
Nature · East Long Beach, off Spring Street
A 105-acre nature reserve of lakes, streams and cottonwood woodland inside a much larger regional park, with two miles of dirt trail and a real sense of being nowhere near a city.
Local tip: Closed on Mondays and it catches people out. Go on a weekday morning for the birdlife — this is one of the better urban birding spots in the county. The surrounding El Dorado Park has the archery range, the model-boat lake and the space to actually lose a football.
The Queen Mary & the harbour
Landmark · Queensway Bay, across the water from downtown
A 1936 Cunard liner permanently moored in the harbour, owned by the city, with the oil islands, the container cranes and the Vincent Thomas Bridge behind her.
Local tip: The ship is worth an hour and the view back at the skyline is worth more. Take the free AquaLink or AquaBus water shuttle across from Rainbow Harbour or Alamitos Bay rather than driving round — it is one of the nicer things you can do here for very little money.
Bluff Park & the shoreline path
Nature · Ocean Boulevard between downtown and Belmont Shore
A long grass bluff above the beach with 1920s Craftsman and Spanish Colonial houses behind it, and a flat beachfront cycle path running for miles below.
Local tip: The bike path runs from Shoreline Village to the peninsula almost entirely separated from traffic — it is the single best reason to own a bicycle here. Sunset from the bluff looks across the water to Palos Verdes and the oil islands lighting up.
Rancho Los Alamitos
Hidden gemCulture · Bixby Hill, east Long Beach
An adobe ranch house begun around 1800 on a Tongva village site occupied for thousands of years, with four acres of 1920s gardens, working barns and free admission.
Local tip: Almost no newcomer finds this and it is the best history in the city — you drive through the gates of a private housing estate to reach it, which puts people off. Free, docent-led, and quiet. Rancho Los Cerritos on the north side is its sibling and worth pairing.
Emergency numbers in Long Beach
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