72703Fayetteville, Arkansas

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 72703.

72out of 100
Area Score
Top 13% of 5,298 profiles measured

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 15% of 6,210 ZIP areas measured74
GrowthTop 3% of 5,428 ZIP areas measured82
Housing affordability4763rd of 6,685 ZIP areas measured65
ClimateTop 39% of 6,789 ZIP areas measured73
Physical resilienceTop 44% of 6,709 ZIP areas measured63
Access3714th of 6,791 ZIP areas measured91
Economic stability3885th of 6,742 ZIP areas measured56
The quick read

72703 ranks in the top 15% of published ZIP profiles for employment opportunity, with unemployment at 4.0% and median household income of $60,568.

2,340 housing units were authorized over the past twelve months, within 5% of the prior year — steady rather than turning.

A major airport is 19 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
35,896
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$60,568
Bottom 30% nationally
Density
893/sq mi
40.2 sq mi of land
Median age
32.5
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
Fayetteville
Arkansas
Metro area
Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, AR
Nearest major airport
XNA
19 mi · Northwest Arkansas Ntl
Median home value
$391,000
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.0% is lower than 68% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment grew 4.2% over the past year, to 57,357 employed residents.

47% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 85% of measured US ZIP areas.

MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Median household income ±$7,671$60,568Bottom 30%of 31,2952024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$3,815$46,347Top 25%of 32,8222024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate17.7%Top 23%of 32,9702024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute19.7 minBottom 12%of 32,8872024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher46.9%Top 15%of 33,1932024 ACS 5-Year
Employment57,357Top 48%of 6,544June 2026
Employment change (3 years)9.5%Top 1%of 6,542June 2026
Employment change (year over year)4.2%Top 1%of 6,544June 2026
Labor force59,769Top 48%of 6,544June 2026
Labor force participation69.0%Top 18%of 33,2522024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$61,240Bottom 25%of 6,0722025 OEWS
Median annual wage$46,610Bottom 15%of 6,0722025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)0.0%Bottom 47%of 6,544June 2026
Unemployment rate4.0%Bottom 32%of 6,544June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202461k52k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $60,568 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 — Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, AR
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Fast Food and Counter Workers8,370$27,170
Retail Salespersons7,940$30,300
Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers7,500$60,480
General and Operations Managers7,010$81,800
Office Clerks, General6,110$39,660
Stockers and Order Fillers5,890$35,040

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 Fayetteville, AR, the city containing this ZIP code.

There are 17.3 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
5
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
17.3
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
WOODLAND JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLFAYETTEVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT76514.7
MCNAIR MIDDLE SCHOOLFAYETTEVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT67019.1
BUTTERFIELD ELEMENTARY SCHOOLFAYETTEVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT56720.3
HAAS HALL ACADEMY · charterHAAS HALL ACADEMY49918.5
ASBELL ELEMENTARY SCHOOLFAYETTEVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT31915.2

32.8% 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 Arkansas’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 $1,006 takes 20% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 6.5 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.

Rent as a share of income
19.9%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
6.5×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,006
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$391,000
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Home price to income6.46Top 8%of 30,4042024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate38.0%Bottom 5%of 32,9102024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±87917,396Top 6%of 33,7722024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$55$1,006Bottom 49%of 26,6182024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$24,391$391,000Top 21%of 30,9412024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income19.9%Top 35%of 26,4702024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate6.5%Bottom 30%of 33,0282024 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
82/ 100
Top 3% 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.

65% of recently permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes, so new supply is concentrated in apartments and condominiums rather than detached houses.

At 23.6 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US ZIP areas.

Units permitted
2,340
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
23.6
Top 2% nationally
Year over year
−5%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
65.4%
units in 5+ unit buildings

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

Weather & climate

7 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 89°F and January a low of 25°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 47.0 inches, including 6.5 inches of snow.

Air quality measures a median index of 41, in the Good band, and one day a year passes 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

10°30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station FAYETTEVILLE DRAKE FLD, 10.3 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.9"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index54.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation47.0"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall6.5"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low25°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high89°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months71991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10012024 calendar year
Median air quality index41.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing41°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
41
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
54
90th percentile index
Days above 100
1
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

63 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are ice storm, cold wave and wildfire.

Ice stormHigh
Winter weatherModerate
WildfireModerate
HailModerate
LandslideModerate
EarthquakeModerate
Cold waveModerate

Low or minimal exposure: heat wave, tornado, lightning, inland flooding, strong wind, hurricane.

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.

Washington County records 3.2 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, near the middle of counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 8.4 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 4.2 per 100,000 residents in Washington County.

Homicide
3.2
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
8.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
4.2
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
13.0
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 Washington County 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 72703 rather than 72703 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

3 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 19 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Northwest Arkansas NtlXNA19 mi8,801 ft
Fort Smith RgnlFSM57 mi9,318 ft
Springfield-Branson NtlSGF86 mi8,000 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
72
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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.

72703 vs Fayetteville

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

72703
Fayetteville
Median household income
$60,568
vs
$62,695
Per capita income
$46,347
vs
$39,241
Population density
893/sq mi
vs
1,814/sq mi
Median home value
$391,000
vs
$349,600
Median gross rent
$1,006
vs
$1,065
Homeownership rate
38.0%
vs
41.8%
Bachelor's degree or higher
46.9%
vs
49.0%
Poverty rate
17.7%
vs
20.6%
Median age
32.5
vs
28.8

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.