Sussex ZIP codes — Sussex County, Delaware

Sussex County is a mid-size city in Delaware, with 247,799 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates. The median age here is 51.4 years against 39.1 nationally, a markedly older profile that usually tracks retirees staying put and younger households leaving for work. 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 Sussex County earn a median of $78,162 a year, essentially level with the national figure of $78,538. Household income here is measured before tax and pooled across everyone at the address, which is why it reads higher than typical individual earnings in the same area. Poverty reaches 11.5% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Sussex County is valued at $353,300, 16.4% above the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,221 a month, 13.2% below the national figure, or roughly $14,652 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 18.7% 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 4.5×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 81.3% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, an owner-dominated market where rental listings are scarce and rent medians rest on a thin sample. 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 51.4 puts Sussex County 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.

All values below were released by the Census for this exact geography, with no gap-filling on our side. 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.