ZIP code 26181

ZIP 26181 is a mid-size town in Wood County, West Virginia, with 5,708 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #84 of 738 ranked by population — larger than 88% of them. The median age here is 52.8 years against 39.1 nationally, a markedly older profile that usually tracks retirees staying put and younger households leaving for work. 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 26181 earn a median of $79,314 a year, 1% above 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 5.2% of residents here, less than half the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 26181 is valued at $200,200, 34% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,043 a month, 25.8% below the national figure, or roughly $12,516 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 15.8% 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 2.5×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 89% 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 52.8 puts ZIP 26181 well into retirement-weighted territory, which pulls median household income down even where household wealth is high, because retirement draws are counted differently from wages.

All values below were released by the Census for this exact geography, with no gap-filling on our side. 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 26181 is tabulated inside Wood County, West Virginia, one of 11 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 738 across West Virginia. 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 26181 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 26181 reports a median household income of $79,314, 18% above the $67,004 county median, and 46% above the $54,285 typical WV ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $200,200, 22% above the county figure and 66% above the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $1,043 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

West Virginia charges 6% statewide, and local governments overlapping 26181 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 26181 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.