ZIP code 56686

ZIP 56686 is a very small community in Lake of the Woods County, Minnesota, with 962 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #579 of 880 ranked by population — larger than 34% of them. The median age here is 46.8 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 56686 earn a median of $70,781 a year, 9.9% 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 5.6% of residents here, less than half the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 56686 is valued at $175,300, 42.2% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs not published a month. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 2.5×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 89.5% 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. 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.

With 962 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare ZIP 56686 against its county rather than against national figures.

The Census withheld gross rent for ZIP 56686 because the sample was too thin to publish at this geography. Those values were suppressed at the source, not lost in our dataset, and we do not model a replacement. Everything else on this page comes straight from the ACS 2019-2023 ACS 5-year tables.

ZIP 56686 is tabulated inside Lake of the Woods County, Minnesota, one of 4 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 880 across Minnesota. 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 56686 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 56686 reports a median household income of $70,781, close to the $70,781 county median, and 6% below the $75,417 typical MN ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $175,300, close to the county figure and 21% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at not published 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 56686 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 56686 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.