ZIP code 56301

ZIP 56301 is a small city in Stearns County, Minnesota, with 34,883 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #28 of 880 ranked by population — larger than 96% of them. The median age here is 27.2 years against 39.1 nationally, a distinctly younger profile, typical of places with students, military posts or a fast-growing family population. 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 56301 earn a median of $69,725 a year, 11.2% below 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 20% 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 56301 is valued at $262,500, 13.5% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,103 a month, 21.6% below the national figure, or roughly $13,236 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 19% 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 3.8×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 50.6% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. 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 27.2 means a large student or early-career population; income medians in places like this understate household resources, since many residents are supported from outside the address.

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 56301 is tabulated inside Stearns County, Minnesota, one of 26 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 880 across Minnesota. 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 56301 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 56301 reports a median household income of $69,725, 16% below the $82,583 county median, and 8% below the $75,417 typical MN ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $262,500, 8% above the county figure and 18% above the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $1,103 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Minnesota charges 6.875% statewide, and local governments overlapping 56301 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 56301 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.