99703Fairbanks, Alaska

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 99703.

43out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 3% of 5,298 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 48% of 6,210 published ZIP areas56
Growth4297th of 5,428 published ZIP areas32
Housing affordability6640th of 6,685 published ZIP areas20
Climate6787th of 6,789 published ZIP areas41
Physical resilience5141st of 6,709 published ZIP areas30
Access3884th of 6,791 published ZIP areas90
Economic stabilityTop 6% of 6,742 published ZIP areas84
The quick read

Rent takes 39% of median household income here, at or above the threshold conventionally called cost-burdened.

Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by earthquake, wildfire and landslide.

A major airport is 7 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
8,304
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$68,667
Bottom 45% nationally
Density
858/sq mi
9.7 sq mi of land
Median age
22.8
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
Fairbanks
Alaska
Metro area
Fairbanks-College, AK
Nearest major airport
FAI
7 mi · Fairbanks Intl
Median home value

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.1% is lower than 65% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment fell 0.9% over the past year, to 12,645 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$11,799$68,667Bottom 45%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$3,107$27,399Bottom 19%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate3.9%Bottom 14%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute12.2 minBottom 2%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher29.2%Top 36%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment12,645Bottom 6%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)0.4%Top 44%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-0.9%Bottom 47%June 2026
Labor force13,192Bottom 6%June 2026
Labor force participation80.2%Top 3%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$73,460Top 26%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$61,810Top 10%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.6%Bottom 14%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.1%Bottom 35%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202469k61k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $68,667 in the 2024 ACS 5-Year. Consecutive releases share four years of sample, so AreaProfile shows them as a record of successive estimates and does not compute a year-over-year change from them.
Largest occupations — Fairbanks-College, AK
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Retail Salespersons1,040$37,550
Stockers and Order Fillers840$40,850
Fast Food and Counter Workers800$30,170
Cashiers670$37,340
General and Operations Managers630$114,990
Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive630$47,860

Occupational employment and wages are published for metropolitan areas rather than for individual cities or ZIP areas, so these describe the wider labor market this location sits in. 2025 OEWS, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not publish labor-force data for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Fairbanks, AK, the city containing this ZIP code.

There are 18.1 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
1
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
18.1
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Arctic Light ElementaryFairbanks North Star Borough School District36118.1

43.8% of students here are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. That describes the circumstances families arrive with rather than how the schools perform, which is why AreaProfile shows it and does not score it.

Public schools only, from the NCES Common Core of Data. Schools are placed by ZIP code, so this is which schools are in this place rather than which one a particular address is zoned for — district boundaries do not follow municipal ones, and enrollment zones change. Fully virtual schools are excluded: they enroll students from across the state while reporting one administrative address, and counting them here would describe a school population this place does not have. The assessment covers grades 3 through 8, so a high school shows no proficiency figure — a dash in those columns means the test was not given at that school, not that it performed badly. Proficiency is measured against Alaska’s own standard, so it compares cleanly within the state and only broadly against other states; AreaProfile therefore ranks it within state. The directory is current, while the proficiency figures are from the last school year with national coverage before the pandemic interrupted testing.

Housing & affordability

How it’s calculated →

Median rent of $2,239 takes 39% of median household income, above the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

Rent as a share of income
39.1%
Above the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$2,239
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Homeownership rate0.9%Bottom 1%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±3642,006Top 42%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$98$2,239Top 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income39.1%Top 1%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate7.9%Bottom 37%2024 ACS 5-Year

Both affordability measures come from the same ACS release as the income they are compared with, so the comparison is like for like. They describe housing cost against local earnings and are not a cost-of-living index — transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes are not included, and a place can look affordable here and still be expensive to live in for reasons this does not capture.

Growth & development

How it’s calculated →
Development Momentum
32/ 100
Ranks 4297 of 5,428 published city profiles

An AreaProfile calculation combining permit volume per resident, its direction over one and three years, population change and employment growth. Permit volume alone is not the measure.

New construction is predominantly single-family: only 0% of permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes.

At 0.3 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US ZIP areas.

Units permitted
10
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
0.3
Bottom 12% nationally
Year over year
+25%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings

The Building Permits Survey is not published for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Fairbanks, AK, the city containing this ZIP code.

Weather & climate

3 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 73°F and January a low of -17°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 11.7 inches, including 64.6 inches of snow.

Air quality measures a median index of 42, in the Good band, and about 25 days a year pass 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

-30°-10°10°30°50°70°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station FAIRBANKS INTL AP, 7.7 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND2.3"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index89.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation11.7"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall64.6"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low-17°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high73°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months31991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 100252024 calendar year
Median air quality index42.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing71°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
42
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
89
90th percentile index
Days above 100
25
unhealthy for sensitive groups

A comfortable median and a bad tail are different problems. Wildfire smoke and summer ozone show up in the worst tenth of days, not in the middle of the year.

Climate figures are thirty-year normals, not current conditions. They describe what a typical year looks like rather than what the weather is doing today. Air quality is measured rather than modelled, by EPA monitors, and published by county only where a monitor sits — roughly half the counties AreaProfile publishes have one, and the rest show nothing rather than an estimate. Air masses are regional, so a county reading describes the air over a place reasonably well, but it is still the county reading.

Physical risk

30 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are earthquake, wildfire and landslide.

LandslideModerate
WildfireHigh
EarthquakeHigh
Winter weatherModerate

Low or minimal exposure: cold wave, avalanche, lightning, volcanic activity, inland flooding, ice storm, strong wind, hail, tornado.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA publishes at county level. ZIP values are the land-area-weighted mean of the counties the ZIP Code Tabulation Area intersects. Expected annual loss is not allocated below county level. FEMA does not endorse this presentation. Higher physical resilience means lower exposure.

These are deaths, not offences. AreaProfile does not publish reported crime, and this is not a substitute for it — it says nothing about burglary, theft or assault.

Fairbanks North Star Borough records 8.9 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, higher than most counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 31.6 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 25.3 per 100,000 residents in Fairbanks North Star Borough.

Homicide
8.9
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
31.6
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
25.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
26.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths

Firearm deaths count every intent together, and nationally the majority are suicides rather than homicides. The two columns overlap and should not be added.

Age-adjusted rates from provisional death certificate records, published by the CDC for Fairbanks North Star Borough as a whole — these rates are not published below county level. A county can hold both a dense city centre and a suburb whose experience of it is nothing alike, so this describes the county around 99703 rather than 99703 itself. That is why AreaProfile shows these figures and does not put them in the Area Score. Where fewer than ten deaths were recorded the count is suppressed at source, and a rate built on single figures moves sharply between releases. What this measure has that reported crime does not: a death certificate is filed whether or not the local police agency submitted a return that year, so the figures stay comparable between places and over time.

What this profile does not cover

Three things people look for are missing from every AreaProfile page, and each is missing for a reason rather than by oversight. The Area Score is calculated without them and the weighting is documented on the methodology page.

Reported crime
The FBI’s Crime Data Explorer is the only source for reported offences with national coverage and a published method, and it requires an API key AreaProfile does not hold. Arrest counts, news volume and commercial “safety scores” are not substituted in the meantime. What is published above under Safety is a different measurement — deaths rather than offences, from death certificates rather than police returns — and it covers no property crime at all.
Taxes
No tax dataset has met the source admission test for coverage, transparent methodology and update cadence. Nothing here is individualized tax advice.
Full cost of living
No public source publishes one with national coverage and a documented method. Housing affordability above is computed from published rent, price and income, and excludes transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes — commuting cost in particular tends to offset suburban housing savings.

Access

1 major airport lies within 100 miles, the nearest 7 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Fairbanks IntlFAI7 mi11,800 ft
Ted Stevens Anchorage IntlANC264 mi10,865 ft
King SalmonAKN517 mi8,901 ft

Airport identity, position and runway data come from the FAA. “Major airport” is an AreaProfile classification — a public-use civil airport with a paved runway of at least 8,000 feet — not an FAA hub designation. Distances are straight-line, not driving distance.

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Area Score
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Data & methodology

Used forSourceSource periodUpdated
AccessFederal Aviation Administration
Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service
NASR current cycle28-day NASR cycle
Physical riskFederal Emergency Management Agency
National Risk Index
National Risk Index December 2025 (v1.20.0)Periodic dataset versions (v1.20.0 current)
ClimateNOAA National Centers for Environmental Information
U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020 (Monthly)
1991-2020 NormalsEvery ten years (next release follows the 2001–2030 period)
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Local Area Unemployment Statistics
June 2026Monthly
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
2025 OEWSAnnual (spring release)
DemographicsU.S. Census Bureau
Population Estimates Program
July 1, 2024 estimateAnnual (vintage released each spring)
DevelopmentU.S. Census Bureau
Building Permits Survey
12 months ending July 2026Monthly, roughly three weeks after the reference month
Demographics, Housing, Income, JobsU.S. Census Bureau
American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (Table-Based Summary File)
2024 ACS 5-YearAnnual (5-year estimates released each December)
safetyU.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics
Provisional county-level mortality by intent
April, 2025 to March, 2026Quarterly, with a rolling twelve-month window alongside complete calendar years
schoolsU.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
Common Core of Data and EDFacts assessments
2024-25 school yearDirectory annually; assessment results as EDFacts releases them
ClimateU.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Air Quality System
Daily Air Quality Index by county
2024 calendar yearAnnually, once a calendar year is complete

Profile recalculated August 30, 2026. Recalculation is not the same as new source data — each figure above shows the period its source actually covers. Read the full methodology or browse every source.

99703 vs Fairbanks

How this ZIP area compares with Fairbanks as a whole. Both figures come from the same ACS release, so the comparison is like for like.

99703
Fairbanks
Median household income
$68,667
vs
$73,534
Per capita income
$27,399
vs
$36,912
Population density
858/sq mi
vs
1,009/sq mi
Median gross rent
$2,239
vs
$1,496
Homeownership rate
0.9%
vs
39.8%
Bachelor's degree or higher
29.2%
vs
26.2%
Poverty rate
3.9%
vs
8.7%
Median age
22.8
vs
29.0

Some demographic statistics use Census ZIP Code Tabulation Areas, which approximate but do not exactly match USPS ZIP delivery geography. See the methodology for how AreaProfile maps between them.