El Portal, CA population, income and ZIP codes

El Portal CDP is a very small community in California, with 502 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #1223 of 1,618 ranked by population — larger than 24% of them. The median age here is 36.6 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly younger profile than the country as a whole. At this population the ACS sample is small, so the margin of error around every dollar figure below is wide — treat the numbers as a band, not a point, and expect them to move between annual releases without the place itself changing.

Households in El Portal CDP earn a median of $53,509 a year, 31.9% below the national figure of $78,538 and 41% below the $91,111 median for the 1,050 California cities we cover. The median is the midpoint household, not an average, so a handful of very high earners cannot drag it upward the way they distort a mean. Poverty reaches 4% of residents here, less than half the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in El Portal CDP is valued at $257,700, 15.1% below the national figure and 56% below the $589,600 peer median, while median gross rent runs $712 a month, 49.4% below the national figure, or roughly $8,544 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 16% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is cheap relative to what people here earn. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 4.8×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 55.7% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

With 502 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare El Portal CDP against its county rather than against national figures.

No figure on this page is estimated by us; each one comes straight from the published ACS tables for this area. Small-area estimates still carry wider margins of error than state or national figures, so check the linked ACS tables before relying on them for lending, appraisal or legal work.