Fort Lauderdale, FL population, income and ZIP codes

Fort Lauderdale city is a mid-size city in Florida, with 183,032 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #10 of 955 ranked by population — larger than 99% of them. The median age here is 42.9 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older profile than the country as a whole. At this size the Census also publishes one-year estimates; the five-year values used here are steadier and let you compare against smaller neighbours on the same basis.

Households in Fort Lauderdale city earn a median of $79,935 a year, 1.8% above the national figure of $78,538 and 16% above the $68,617 median for the 775 Florida cities we cover. Median household income counts every pre-tax dollar arriving at an address — wages, self-employment, Social Security, pensions, interest and public assistance — for everyone living there, so multi-earner households pull the figure up even where individual pay is modest. Poverty reaches 15.2% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Fort Lauderdale city is valued at $455,600, 50.2% above the national figure and 49% above the $305,300 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,776 a month, 26.3% above the national figure, or roughly $21,312 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 26.7% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is within the standard affordability guideline. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 5.7×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 53.8% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

Median income runs above the national figure while poverty also runs above it — a split distribution, not a uniformly comfortable place. Averages hide that; the two numbers together do not.

All values below were released by the Census for this exact geography, with no gap-filling on our side. 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.