Providence, RI population, income and ZIP codes

Providence city is a mid-size city in Rhode Island, with 190,214 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it first of 36 ranked by population. The median age here is 32.9 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 Providence city earn a median of $66,772 a year, 15% below the national figure of $78,538 and 29% below the $93,653 median for the 28 Rhode Island cities we cover. The median is the midpoint household, not an average, so a handful of very high earners cannot drag it upward the way they distort a mean. Poverty reaches 20.1% 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 Providence city is valued at $322,800, 6.4% above the national figure and 10% below the $358,200 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,333 a month, 5.2% below the national figure, or roughly $15,996 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 24% 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 4.8×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 41.2% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, a renter-majority market, so rent figures matter more here than the home-value line. Rent is reported gross — contract rent plus tenant-paid utilities — which is why it runs above the advertised price on a listing for the same unit.

No figure on this page is estimated by us; each one comes straight from the published ACS tables for this area. 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.