Saratoga, California

Area Profile

30,319 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Saratoga, in Santa Clara County.

60out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 47% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 23% of 3,904 published cities70
Growth1794th of 2,973 published cities44
Housing affordability3326th of 4,223 published cities61
ClimateTop 8% of 4,223 published cities89
Physical resilience3339th of 4,182 published cities25
AccessTop 19% of 4,226 published cities98
Economic stabilityTop 46% of 4,226 published cities62
The quick read

Saratoga ranks in the top 23% of published city profiles for employment opportunity, with unemployment at 4.2% and median household income of $250,001.

Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by earthquake, inland flooding and heat wave.

A major airport is 8 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
30,319
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$250,000+
Top 1% nationally
Density
2,373/sq mi
12.8 sq mi of land
Median age
51.7
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Santa Clara County
California
Metro area
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA
Nearest major airport
SJC
8 mi · Norman Y Mineta San Jose Intl
Median home value
$2,000,001
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.2% is lower than 55% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 0.7% over the past year, to 13,278 employed residents.

81% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 99% of measured US cities.

Household income is higher than at least 99% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income$250,000+Top 1%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$7,676$124,686Top 1%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate3.3%Bottom 16%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute27.4 minTop 47%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher81.1%Top 1%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment13,278Bottom 9%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)0.0%Top 47%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-0.7%Top 48%June 2026
Labor force13,864Bottom 9%June 2026
Labor force participation55.2%Bottom 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$119,230Top 1%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$84,050Top 1%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.7%Bottom 11%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.2%Bottom 45%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/065.02.6
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 4.2% in June 2026. A break in the line is a month the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish for this area — it is left empty rather than estimated.
Median household income, successive ACS releases
2021202220232024250k224k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $250,000+ 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 — San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Software Developers87,350$213,110
Home Health and Personal Care Aides49,610$37,640
Fast Food and Counter Workers23,060$44,570
Registered Nurses22,930$216,740
Computer and Information Systems Managers19,070$291,660
Retail Salespersons18,340$44,220

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.

There are 21.2 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
10
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
21.2
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Prospect HighCampbell Union High1,46021.8
Saratoga HighLos Gatos-Saratoga Union High1,16119.4
Redwood MiddleSaratoga Union Elementary70920.9
Marshall Lane Elementary · charterCampbell Union42723.7
Blue Hills ElementaryCupertino Union42423.6
Argonaut ElementarySaratoga Union Elementary36722.9
Christa McAuliffeCupertino Union35819.9
Saratoga ElementarySaratoga Union Elementary29722.8
Foothill ElementarySaratoga Union Elementary27818.5
Saratoga Special Services PreschoolSaratoga Union Elementary0

17.8% 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 California’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 $3,501 takes 17% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 8.0 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.

Rent as a share of income
16.8%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
8.0×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$3,501
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$2,000,001
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income8.00Top 4%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate86.4%Top 28%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±30811,447Top 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent$3,501Top 1%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value$2,000,001Top 1%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income16.8%Bottom 37%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate5.8%Bottom 32%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
44/ 100
Ranks 1794 of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is decreasing, measured from 2020 to 2025.

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.

Population has fallen 1% since 2020, reaching 30,486 in 2024.

Permitting has turned downward after moving the other way the year before.

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

At 3.2 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
97
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
3.2
Top 41% nationally
Year over year
−2%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202431k30k
Census Population Estimates Program, July 1 of each year. These annual estimates are designed for year-over-year comparison, unlike the ACS five-year figure shown as this profile's population.
Housing units permitted per year
20202021202220232024202513250
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2020 (+92%).

Weather & climate

9 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 81°F and January a low of 42°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 13.5 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 47, in the Good band, and one day a year passes 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station SAN JOSE, 8.4 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND2.8"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index63.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation13.5"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low42°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high81°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months91991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10012024 calendar year
Median air quality index47.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing19°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
47
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
63
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

25 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are earthquake, inland flooding and heat wave.

EarthquakeHigh
Inland floodingHigh
DroughtModerate
Heat waveModerate
AvalancheModerate

Low or minimal exposure: landslide, wildfire, coastal flooding, tornado, lightning, hail, tsunami, volcanic activity, strong wind, winter weather.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA publishes at county level. City values are the population-weighted mean of the counties the city overlaps, using AreaProfile place-to-county land-area weights. 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.

Santa Clara County records 1.7 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, lower than most counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 3.6 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 14.0 per 100,000 residents in Santa Clara County.

Homicide
1.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
3.6
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
14.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
7.1
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 Santa Clara 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 Saratoga rather than Saratoga 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

4 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 8 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Norman Y Mineta San Jose IntlSJC8 mi11,000 ft
San Francisco IntlSFO31 mi11,870 ft
Oakland San Francisco BayOAK33 mi10,520 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
60
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Other cities in San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
San JoseSanta Clara County990,13861vs Saratoga
SunnyvaleSanta Clara County154,23660vs Saratoga
Santa ClaraSanta Clara County130,25664vs Saratoga
Mountain ViewSanta Clara County83,73264vs Saratoga
MilpitasSanta Clara County78,57858vs Saratoga
Palo AltoSanta Clara County67,23763vs Saratoga
GilroySanta Clara County59,00459vs Saratoga
CupertinoSanta Clara County58,56658vs Saratoga
Morgan HillSanta Clara County45,42562vs Saratoga
HollisterSan Benito County43,81155vs Saratoga
CampbellSanta Clara County42,78161vs Saratoga
Los GatosSanta Clara County32,78654vs Saratoga

Every city here is measured on the same scale from the same source releases, so the comparison is like for like. A higher Area Score reflects AreaProfile’s standardized weighting rather than a judgment about which is the better place to live.

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.

ZIP codes in Saratoga

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
9507031,417$250,000+60