
North Carolina · FIPS 37047
Columbus ZIP codes — Columbus County, North Carolina
Quick answer
Columbus County is home to 50,453 residents with a median household income of $48,184 and a median home value of $128,300. 72.3% of households own their home and 18.8% of residents live below the poverty line. Looking for a Columbus ZIP code? 14 ZIP code areas fall inside Columbus County, North Carolina, listed in full below.
- Population
- 50,453Columbus County residents
- Median household income
- $48,184Past 12 months, inflation adjusted
- Median home value
- $128,300Owner-occupied units
- Median gross rent
- $775Rent plus utilities, monthly
- Median age
- 42.4 yrsAll residents
- Homeownership rate
- 72.3%Owner-occupied households
Columbus County, NC in context
How this area compares with national benchmarks.
Columbus County is a small city in North Carolina, with 50,453 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates. The median age here is 42.4 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older 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 Columbus County earn a median of $48,184 a year, 38.6% below the national figure of $78,538. 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 18.8% 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 Columbus County is valued at $128,300, 57.7% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $775 a month, 44.9% below the national figure, or roughly $9,300 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 19.3% 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 2.7×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 72.3% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.
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.
ZIP codes in Columbus County
ZIP code tabulation areas whose land area falls mostly in Columbus County.
How to read this page
What these estimates cover.
Figures are five-year rolling averages from the American Community Survey, not single-year counts, so they describe conditions across 2019-2023 ACS 5-year rather than a single date. Median home value covers owner-occupied units as valued by their owners, and median gross rent includes utilities the renter pays. Small counties carry wide margins of error; treat single-dollar differences between neighbouring counties as noise.
Source: US Census Bureau, ACS 2019-2023 5-year estimates · rates as published for 2019-2023 ACS 5-year
Cities and towns in North Carolina
Largest Census places in North Carolina by population.
- Charlotte city 886,283
- Raleigh city 470,763
- Greensboro city 298,564
- Durham city 288,465
- Winston-Salem city 250,887
- Fayetteville city 209,692
- Cary town 176,686
- Wilmington city 118,578
- High Point city 115,263
- Concord city 106,518
- Asheville city 94,369
- Greenville city 88,540
Nearby counties
Other counties in North Carolina.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about this area.
- What is the population of Columbus County?
- Columbus County has 50,453 residents on Census ACS 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates.
- What is the median household income in Columbus County?
- Median household income in Columbus County is $48,184 a year, 38.6% below the national figure of $78,538.
- How much does it cost to rent or buy in Columbus County?
- Median gross rent is $775 a month and the median home value is $128,300, so rent absorbs about 19.3% of median household income.
- Is Columbus County affordable compared with the rest of the US?
- Homes cost about 2.7× the local median income here versus roughly 3.9× nationally, so Columbus County is more affordable to buy in than the typical US market, and rent takes 19.3% of median income against the 30% cost-burden line.
- How current is this Columbus County data?
- All figures come from the US Census Bureau American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year five-year estimates. 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.