ZIP code 21539

ZIP 21539 is a small town in Garrett County, Maryland, with 1,846 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #316 of 477 ranked by population — larger than 33% of them. The median age here is 47.5 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 21539 earn a median of $51,667 a year, 34.2% below the national figure of $78,538. Household income here is measured before tax and pooled across everyone at the address, which is why it reads higher than typical individual earnings in the same area. Poverty reaches 20.4% 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 21539 is valued at $108,700, 64.2% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $822 a month, 41.5% below the national figure, or roughly $9,864 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 2.1×, 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. 69.4% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

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 21539 is tabulated inside Garrett County, Maryland, one of 11 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 477 across Maryland. 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 21539 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 21539 reports a median household income of $51,667, 21% below the $65,347 county median, and 50% below the $104,338 typical MD ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $108,700, 42% below the county figure and 73% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $822 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 21539.

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 21539 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.