Gainesville, FL population, income and ZIP codes

Gainesville city is a mid-size city in Florida, with 143,611 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #13 of 955 ranked by population — larger than 98% of them. The median age here is 26.5 years against 39.1 nationally, a distinctly younger profile, typical of places with students, military posts or a fast-growing family population. 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 Gainesville city earn a median of $45,611 a year, 41.9% below the national figure of $78,538 and 34% below the $68,617 median for the 775 Florida cities we cover. This figure covers the household, not the worker: two people on ordinary wages at one address outrank a single professional in the same table. Poverty reaches 28% of residents here, well above the 12.4% national rate, which is the single clearest signal in this dataset that median income here is carried by a narrow band of households.

The typical owner-occupied home in Gainesville city is valued at $235,000, 22.5% below the national figure and 23% below the $305,300 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,214 a month, 13.7% below the national figure, or roughly $14,568 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 31.9% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is a stretch on median earnings. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 5.2×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 38.5% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, a renter-majority market, so rent figures matter more here than the home-value line. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

A median age of 26.5 means a large student or early-career population; income medians in places like this understate household resources, since many residents are supported from outside the address.

Every value on this page is published directly by the Census for this area — nothing is modelled or interpolated. 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.