ZIP code 36855

ZIP 36855 is a small town in Chambers County, Alabama, with 1,521 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #465 of 656 ranked by population — larger than 29% of them. The median age here is 54.4 years against 39.1 nationally, a markedly older profile that usually tracks retirees staying put and younger households leaving for work. At this population the ACS sample is small, so the margin of error around every dollar figure below is wide — treat the numbers as a band, not a point, and expect them to move between annual releases without the place itself changing.

Households in ZIP 36855 earn a median of $58,230 a year, 25.9% 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 21.9% 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 ZIP 36855 is valued at $176,900, 41.7% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $925 a month, 34.2% below the national figure, or roughly $11,100 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 19.1% 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 3×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 92.6% 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 54.4 puts ZIP 36855 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.

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 36855 is tabulated inside Chambers County, Alabama, one of 6 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 656 across Alabama. Fewer than 2,500 people are counted here, so the ZIP behaves like a village delivery route rather than a neighbourhood. County assignment on this page follows the largest share of the ZIP's land area, which matters where a delivery route crosses a county line: mail addressed to 36855 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 36855 reports a median household income of $58,230, close to the $59,308 county median, and 5% above the $55,313 typical AL ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $176,900, 14% above the county figure and 19% above the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $925 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Alabama charges 4% statewide, and local governments overlapping 36855 may add county, city or special-district levies on top. We publish the state floor for this ZIP rather than guessing a combined figure, because ZIP boundaries and taxing-district boundaries were drawn for different purposes and do not line up.

Everything above comes from the Census Bureau American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates for this ZIP Code Tabulation Area, with sales tax rates traced to the state revenue agency. Five-year estimates pool sixty months of responses, so they are stable enough to compare 36855 with its neighbours but always trail the current year, and any value the Census suppressed for sample size is shown as unpublished rather than filled in with a model.