ZIP code 85936

ZIP 85936 is a small town in Apache County, Arizona, with 3,966 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #250 of 417 ranked by population — larger than 40% of them. The median age here is 30.8 years against 39.1 nationally, a distinctly younger profile, typical of places with students, military posts or a fast-growing family population. 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 85936 earn a median of $127,227 a year, 62% above the national figure of $78,538. The median is the midpoint household, not an average, so a handful of very high earners cannot drag it upward the way they distort a mean. Poverty reaches 7.8% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 85936 is valued at $178,600, 41.1% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $881 a month, 37.3% below the national figure, or roughly $10,572 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 8.3% 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 1.4×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so purchase prices are unusually low against local pay, the pattern in places where supply is plentiful and wage growth has been flat. 90% 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. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

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.

ZIP 85936 is tabulated inside Apache County, Arizona, one of 29 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 417 across Arizona. Population sits in the small-town band, typically one main street plus the addresses that feed into it. 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 85936 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 85936 reports a median household income of $127,227, 303% above the $31,602 county median, and 97% above the $64,475 typical AZ ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $178,600, 261% above the county figure and 38% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $881 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Arizona charges 5.6% statewide, and local governments overlapping 85936 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 85936 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.