ZIP code 02536

ZIP 02536 is a mid-size town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, with 21,100 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #120 of 539 ranked by population — larger than 77% of them. The median age here is 54.7 years against 39.1 nationally, a markedly older profile that usually tracks retirees staying put and younger households leaving for work. Places under 65,000 residents only appear in the five-year release, never the one-year file, so these values pool sixty months of responses and lag the current year by design.

Households in ZIP 02536 earn a median of $95,295 a year, 21.3% above the national figure of $78,538. Median household income counts every pre-tax dollar arriving at an address — wages, self-employment, Social Security, pensions, interest and public assistance — for everyone living there, so multi-earner households pull the figure up even where individual pay is modest. Poverty reaches 7.3% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 02536 is valued at $496,500, 63.6% above the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,473 a month, 4.8% above the national figure, or roughly $17,676 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 5.2×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 89.6% 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. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

A median age of 54.7 puts ZIP 02536 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.

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 02536 is tabulated inside Barnstable County, Massachusetts, one of 47 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 539 across Massachusetts. This is a mid-sized suburban ZIP inside a county that is split across many delivery areas. 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 02536 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 02536 reports a median household income of $95,295, 4% below the $98,798 county median, and 11% below the $107,198 typical MA ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $496,500, 22% below the county figure and 3% above the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $1,473 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Massachusetts charges 6.25% statewide, and no local sales tax is layered on top, so the state rate is the full amount collected in 02536.

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 02536 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.