Surfside Beach, SC population, income and ZIP codes

Surfside Beach town is a small town in South Carolina, with 4,217 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #111 of 475 ranked by population — larger than 76% of them. The median age here is 55.4 years against 39.1 nationally, a markedly older profile that usually tracks retirees staying put and younger households leaving for work. At this population the ACS sample is small, so the margin of error around every dollar figure below is wide — treat the numbers as a band, not a point, and expect them to move between annual releases without the place itself changing.

Households in Surfside Beach town earn a median of $74,202 a year, 5.5% below the national figure of $78,538 and 40% above the $53,071 median for the 263 South Carolina 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 9.7% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Surfside Beach town is valued at $412,100, 35.8% above the national figure and 133% above the $177,100 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,274 a month, 9.4% below the national figure, or roughly $15,288 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 20.6% 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 5.6×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 65% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. 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.

A median age of 55.4 puts Surfside Beach town well into retirement-weighted territory, which pulls median household income down even where household wealth is high, because retirement draws are counted differently from wages.

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.