ZIP code 79836

ZIP 79836 is a mid-size town in El Paso County, Texas, with 7,481 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #893 of 1,989 ranked by population — larger than 55% of them. The median age here is 29.2 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 79836 earn a median of $56,052 a year, 28.6% below the national figure of $78,538. This figure covers the household, not the worker: two people on ordinary wages at one address outrank a single professional in the same table. Poverty reaches 23.2% 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 79836 is valued at $107,500, 64.6% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $971 a month, 30.9% below the national figure, or roughly $11,652 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 20.8% 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 1.9×, 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. 84.3% 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 29.2 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.

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 79836 is tabulated inside El Paso County, Texas, one of 31 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 1,989 across Texas. 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 79836 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 79836 reports a median household income of $56,052, 4% above the $53,980 county median, and 18% below the $68,103 typical TX ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $107,500, 16% below the county figure and 45% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $971 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Texas charges 6.25% statewide, and local governments overlapping 79836 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 79836 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.