
North Carolina · FIPS 37183
Wake ZIP codes — Wake County, North Carolina
Quick answer
Wake County is home to 1,151,009 residents with a median household income of $101,763 and a median home value of $422,800. 64.4% of households own their home and 7.9% of residents live below the poverty line. Looking for a Wake ZIP code? 32 ZIP code areas fall inside Wake County, North Carolina, listed in full below.
- Population
- 1,151,009Wake County residents
- Median household income
- $101,763Past 12 months, inflation adjusted
- Median home value
- $422,800Owner-occupied units
- Median gross rent
- $1,508Rent plus utilities, monthly
- Median age
- 37.2 yrsAll residents
- Homeownership rate
- 64.4%Owner-occupied households
Wake County, NC in context
How this area compares with national benchmarks.
Wake County is a major city in North Carolina, with 1,151,009 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates. The median age here is 37.2 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly younger profile than the country as a whole. 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 Wake County earn a median of $101,763 a year, 29.6% above 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 7.9% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.
The typical owner-occupied home in Wake County is valued at $422,800, 39.4% above the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,508 a month, 7.3% above the national figure, or roughly $18,096 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 4.2×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 64.4% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.
No figure on this page is estimated by us; each one comes straight from the published ACS tables for this area. 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 Wake County
ZIP code tabulation areas whose land area falls mostly in Wake 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 Wake County?
- Wake County has 1,151,009 residents on Census ACS 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates.
- What is the median household income in Wake County?
- Median household income in Wake County is $101,763 a year, 29.6% above the national figure of $78,538.
- How much does it cost to rent or buy in Wake County?
- Median gross rent is $1,508 a month and the median home value is $422,800, so rent absorbs about 17.8% of median household income.
- Is Wake County affordable compared with the rest of the US?
- Homes cost about 4.2× the local median income here versus roughly 3.9× nationally, so Wake County is less affordable to buy in than the typical US market, and rent takes 17.8% of median income against the 30% cost-burden line.
- How current is this Wake County data?
- All figures come from the US Census Bureau American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year five-year estimates. 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.