Hilo, HI population, income and ZIP codes

Hilo CDP is a small city in Hawaii, with 48,223 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #3 of 163 ranked by population — larger than 98% of them. The median age here is 42.6 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older profile than the country as a whole. Places under 65,000 residents only appear in the five-year release, never the one-year file, so these values pool sixty months of responses and lag the current year by design.

Households in Hilo CDP earn a median of $78,713 a year, essentially level with the national figure of $78,538 and 15% below the $92,062 median for the 124 Hawaii 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 14.1% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Hilo CDP is valued at $455,100, 50% above the national figure and 41% below the $768,200 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,347 a month, 4.2% below the national figure, or roughly $16,164 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 20.5% 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 5.8×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 65.5% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

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.

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.