ZIP code 20878

ZIP 20878 is a small city in Montgomery County, Maryland, with 65,236 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #2 of 477 ranked by population — larger than 99% of them. The median age here is 41.4 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older 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 ZIP 20878 earn a median of $142,062 a year, 80.9% 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 5% of residents here, less than half the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 20878 is valued at $675,200, 122.5% above the national figure, while median gross rent runs $2,188 a month, 55.6% above the national figure, or roughly $26,256 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 18.5% 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 4.8×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 69.3% 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.

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 20878 is tabulated inside Montgomery County, Maryland, one of 48 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 477 across Maryland. This is a dense urban ZIP, where a single postal boundary can hold more residents than an entire rural county. 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 20878 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 20878 reports a median household income of $142,062, 5% below the $149,055 county median, and 36% above the $104,338 typical MD ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $675,200, close to the county figure and 68% above the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $2,188 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Maryland charges 6% statewide, and no local sales tax is layered on top, so the state rate is the full amount collected in 20878.

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 20878 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.