Charlottesville, VA population, income and ZIP codes

Charlottesville city is a small city in Virginia, with 45,863 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #20 of 688 ranked by population — larger than 97% of them. 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. 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 Charlottesville city earn a median of $69,829 a year, 11.1% below the national figure of $78,538 and 16% below the $82,986 median for the 383 Virginia 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 22.6% 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 Charlottesville city is valued at $448,400, 47.8% above the national figure and 54% above the $291,300 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,453 a month, 3.3% above the national figure, or roughly $17,436 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 25% 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 6.4×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is out of reach on local earnings alone and the ownership market leans on outside income, equity or dual high earners. 43.7% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, a renter-majority market, so rent figures matter more here than the home-value line. 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.

Home values sit at 6.4× median household income, far past the 3.9× national mark, so ownership costs here are set by something other than local wages — second homes, retirees with equity, or commuters earning elsewhere.

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.