ZIP code 37402

ZIP 37402 is a small town in Hamilton County, Tennessee, with 4,203 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #324 of 638 ranked by population — larger than 49% of them. The median age here is 39.9 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older profile than the country as a whole. 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 37402 earn a median of $28,829 a year, 63.3% below 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 36% 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 37402 is valued at $460,000, 51.6% above the national figure, while median gross rent runs $673 a month, 52.1% below the national figure, or roughly $8,076 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 28% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is within the standard affordability guideline. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 16×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is out of reach on local earnings alone and the ownership market leans on outside income, equity or dual high earners. 5.3% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, a renter-majority market, so rent figures matter more here than the home-value line. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

Home values sit at 16× median household income, far past the 3.9× national mark, so ownership costs here are set by something other than local wages — second homes, retirees with equity, or commuters earning elsewhere.

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 37402 is tabulated inside Hamilton County, Tennessee, one of 26 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 638 across Tennessee. Population sits in the small-town band, typically one main street plus the addresses that feed into it. 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 37402 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 37402 reports a median household income of $28,829, 57% below the $66,389 county median, and 51% below the $59,143 typical TN ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $460,000, 75% above the county figure and 136% above the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $673 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

A taxable purchase made inside 37402 carries 9.25% at the register, assembled from the Chattanooga jurisdiction stack: the Tennessee state rate plus every county, municipal and special district levy that reaches this address. Because those district boundaries were drawn for schools, transit and hospital funding rather than for mail delivery, two addresses inside 37402 can legitimately fall under different totals — the rate shown here is the one that applies to the dominant jurisdiction.

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 37402 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.