ZIP code 18640

ZIP 18640 is a mid-size town in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, with 16,418 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #260 of 1,833 ranked by population — larger than 85% of them. The median age here is 41.1 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older profile than the country as a whole. 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 18640 earn a median of $57,358 a year, 27% 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 14.7% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 18640 is valued at $135,200, 55.4% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $890 a month, 36.7% below the national figure, or roughly $10,680 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 18.6% 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 2.4×, 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. 57.6% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

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 18640 is tabulated inside Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, one of 41 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 1,833 across Pennsylvania. 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 18640 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 18640 reports a median household income of $57,358, 15% below the $67,810 county median, and 18% below the $70,000 typical PA ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $135,200, 19% below the county figure and 28% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $890 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Pennsylvania charges 6% statewide, and local governments overlapping 18640 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 18640 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.