Fairmont, WV population, income and ZIP codes

Fairmont city is a mid-size town in West Virginia, with 18,303 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #8 of 439 ranked by population — larger than 98% of them. The median age here is 34.5 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly younger profile than the country as a whole. 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 Fairmont city earn a median of $60,791 a year, 22.6% below the national figure of $78,538 and 15% above the $52,974 median for the 148 West Virginia 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 17% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Fairmont city is valued at $159,100, 47.6% below the national figure and 25% above the $127,200 peer median, while median gross rent runs $902 a month, 35.8% below the national figure, or roughly $10,824 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 17.8% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is cheap relative to what people here earn. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 2.6×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 61.5% 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.