Buffalo, NY population, income and ZIP codes

Buffalo city is a mid-size city in New York, with 276,397 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #2 of 1,292 ranked by population — larger than 99% of them. The median age here is 34.3 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly younger 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 Buffalo city earn a median of $48,050 a year, 38.8% below the national figure of $78,538 and 48% below the $91,806 median for the 847 New York 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 27.4% 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 Buffalo city is valued at $152,300, 49.8% below the national figure and 52% below the $315,800 peer median, while median gross rent runs $989 a month, 29.7% below the national figure, or roughly $11,868 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 24.7% 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 3.2×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 42.7% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, a renter-majority market, so rent figures matter more here than the home-value line. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

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.