Royal Oak, MI population, income and ZIP codes

Royal Oak city is a small city in Michigan, with 57,880 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #22 of 745 ranked by population — larger than 97% of them. The median age here is 36.9 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly younger 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 Royal Oak city earn a median of $95,182 a year, 21.2% above the national figure of $78,538 and 54% above the $61,715 median for the 438 Michigan 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 6% of residents here, less than half the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Royal Oak city is valued at $305,900, essentially level with the national figure and 84% above the $166,100 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,335 a month, 5% below the national figure, or roughly $16,020 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 16.8% 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 3.2×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 66.4% 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.

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.