Bells, TN population, income and ZIP codes

Bells city is a small town in Tennessee, with 2,531 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #182 of 504 ranked by population — larger than 64% of them. The median age here is 33.1 years against 39.1 nationally, a distinctly younger profile, typical of places with students, military posts or a fast-growing family population. 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 Bells city earn a median of $54,132 a year, 31.1% below the national figure of $78,538 and 3% below the $55,988 median for the 307 Tennessee 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 21.9% 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 Bells city is valued at $164,000, 45.9% below the national figure and 14% below the $191,100 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,014 a month, 27.9% below the national figure, or roughly $12,168 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 22.5% 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 3×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 51% 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.

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.