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WalletHub: Best Cities for New Year's Eve Celebrations

WalletHub

Times Square might be the most famous destination in the U.S. for ringing in the new year, but it's also extremely expensive. Local businesses in NYC – and many other famous locales across the U.S. – are notorious for hiking up their prices when big crowds are in town for a major event.

That’s especially true for hotels, which can experience price increases of several hundred percent over the rest of the year. The last thing you want to do in the final hours of 2025 is wreck your finances over one night of festivities.

Fortunately, you have plenty of fun yet affordable options for celebrating New Year’s Eve. To help you decide where to count down to the new year, WalletHub compared the 100 biggest cities based on 26 key indicators of an epic New Year’s Eve celebration. Our data set ranges from the legality of fireworks and the nightlife options per capita to food affordability and forecasted precipitation for Dec. 31.

Top 5 Cities for New Year’s Eve

1. Orlando
2. Las Vegas
3. New York
4. Seattle
5. Los Angeles

Read more.