Steamboat Springs, Colorado
Area Profile
13,433 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Steamboat Springs, in Routt County.
Missing required signal: growth. AreaProfile withholds a score rather than inferring the missing dimensions.
Unemployment is 3.5% and median household income $104,964, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published city profiles.
Buying strains local incomes far more than renting does — the median home is 9.4 times median household income, against a historic benchmark near three — while rent takes 23% of it.
Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by inland flooding, wildfire and earthquake.
At a glance
Jobs & opportunity
Unemployment of 3.5% is lower than 84% of the 3,904 measured US cities.
Employment fell 5.7% over the past year, to 12,797 employed residents.
62% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 94% of measured US cities.
| Metric | Value | Compared nationally | Source period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income ±$16,551 | $104,964 | Top 16%of 29,573 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Per capita income ±$6,276 | $74,913 | Top 5%of 31,420 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Poverty rate | 4.7% | Bottom 22%of 31,900 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Average commute | 15.5 min | Bottom 6%of 31,543 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Bachelor's degree or higher | 62.2% | Top 6%of 31,919 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Employment | 12,797 | Bottom 8%of 3,904 | June 2026 |
| Employment change (3 years) | -8.8% | Bottom 1%of 3,903 | June 2026 |
| Employment change (year over year) | -5.7% | Bottom 1%of 3,904 | June 2026 |
| Labor force | 13,257 | Bottom 8%of 3,904 | June 2026 |
| Labor force participation | 70.5% | Top 17%of 31,933 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Unemployment change (year over year) | 0.2% | Top 43%of 3,904 | June 2026 |
| Unemployment rate | 3.5% | Bottom 16%of 3,904 | June 2026 |
The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes city-level labor data only for places of 25,000 or more. This is the figure for Routt County, CO, which contains this city.
Schools
How it’s calculated →There are 13.2 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.
| School | District | Students | Per teacher | Math | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steamboat Springs High School | Steamboat Springs School District No. Re 2 | 871 | 17.1 | — | — |
| Steamboat Springs Middle School | Steamboat Springs School District No. Re 2 | 440 | 12.2 | — | — |
| Soda Creek Elementary School | Steamboat Springs School District No. Re 2 | 379 | 12.6 | — | — |
| Strawberry Park Elementary School | Steamboat Springs School District No. Re 2 | 368 | 11.9 | — | — |
| Sleeping Giant School | Steamboat Springs School District No. Re 2 | 337 | 9.9 | — | — |
| Steamboat Montessori · charter | State Charter School Institute | 140 | 14.0 | — | — |
| Yampa Valley High School | Steamboat Springs School District No. Re 2 | 32 | 16.0 | — | — |
19.4% 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 Colorado’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 $2,017 takes 23% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.
A median home costs 9.4 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.
| Metric | Value | Compared nationally | Source period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home price to income | 9.35 | Top 2%of 28,473 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Homeownership rate | 67.2% | Bottom 32%of 31,843 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Housing units ±272 | 10,942 | Top 5%of 32,330 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Median gross rent ±$230 | $2,017 | Top 8%of 23,432 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Median home value ±$122,656 | $981,800 | Top 3%of 29,342 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Rent as a share of income | 23.1% | Top 25%of 23,201 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Vacancy rate | 41.3% | Top 7%of 32,001 | 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 →Population has grown 3% since 2020, reaching 13,620 in 2024.
Population is still rising, but more slowly than in the preceding year.
No building-permit activity is published for this location by the Census Building Permits Survey.
Weather & climate
3 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 83°F and January a low of 5°F.
Normal annual precipitation is 24.7 inches, including 184.5 inches of snow.
Air quality measures a median index of 12, in the Good band, and no day in the year passed 100.
| Metric | Value | Source period |
|---|---|---|
| 90th percentile air quality index | 25.0 | 2024 calendar year |
| Annual precipitation | 24.7" | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Annual snowfall | 184.5" | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Average January low | 5°F | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Average July high | 83°F | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Comfortable months | 3 | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Days above AQI 100 | 0 | 2024 calendar year |
| Median air quality index | 12.0 | 2024 calendar year |
| Seasonal temperature swing | 48°F | 1991-2020 Normals |
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
The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are inland flooding, wildfire and earthquake.
Overall hazard risk is lower than 84% of measured US cities.
Low or minimal exposure: landslide, avalanche, winter weather, lightning, volcanic activity, drought, ice storm, cold wave, 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. 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.
Safety
How it’s measured →Below these are deaths rather than offences, published for the county. The two measure different things and are not comparable with each other.
Steamboat Springs's police department reported 255 violent offences per 100,000 residents, near the middle of places with a department reporting. Property crime runs at 1,006.
Routt County records 0.0 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 17.2 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.
Drug overdose deaths run at 14.9 per 100,000 residents in Routt County.
Firearm deaths count every intent together, and nationally the majority are suicides rather than homicides. The two columns overlap and should not be added.
Offences are reported to the FBI by Steamboat Springs’s own police department, for the population it serves, and are shown only where it reported every month of the year — a partial year is withheld rather than scaled up. Reported crime counts what was reported to and recorded by police, which is not the same as what happened, and a place that draws a large daytime workforce carries incidents its residents did not generate. Age-adjusted rates from provisional death certificate records, published by the CDC for Routt 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 Steamboat Springs rather than Steamboat Springs 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.
- Taxes
- Taxes are not published: no source covers them nationally with a method open enough to check. Cost of living now is — the index above is the Bureau of Economic Analysis price parity for this area — but it is a price level for all consumption rather than a budget for a household, its spread is driven mostly by housing, and it excludes taxes. Housing affordability is computed separately from rent, price and income, because that answers a narrower and more actionable question. Nothing here is individualised tax advice.
- Anything about a specific address
- Every figure describes an area, not a street or a house. School attendance zones, insurance pricing and the character of a neighbourhood all vary within the places measured here.
Access
7 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 21 miles away.
| Airport | Code | Distance | Longest runway |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yampa Valley | HDN | 21 mi | 10,000 ft |
| Eagle County Rgnl | EGE | 58 mi | 9,000 ft |
| Shively Fld | SAA | 67 mi | 8,801 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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Data & methodology
| Used for | Source | Source period | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Access | Federal Aviation Administration Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service | NASR current cycle | 28-day NASR cycle |
| safety | Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime Data Explorer Summarized offense counts by law enforcement agency | 2025 calendar year | Annually, with monthly revisions |
| Physical risk | Federal Emergency Management Agency National Risk Index | National Risk Index December 2025 (v1.20.0) | Periodic dataset versions (v1.20.0 current) |
| Climate | NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020 (Monthly) | 1991-2020 Normals | Every ten years (next release follows the 2001–2030 period) |
| Jobs | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Local Area Unemployment Statistics | June 2026 | Monthly |
| Demographics | U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program | July 1, 2024 estimate | Annual (vintage released each spring) |
| Demographics, Housing, Income, Jobs | U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (Table-Based Summary File) | 2024 ACS 5-Year | Annual (5-year estimates released each December) |
| safety | U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics Provisional county-level mortality by intent | April, 2025 to March, 2026 | Quarterly, with a rolling twelve-month window alongside complete calendar years |
| schools | U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics Common Core of Data and EDFacts assessments | 2024-25 school year | Directory annually; assessment results as EDFacts releases them |
| Climate | U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Air Quality System Daily Air Quality Index by county | 2024 calendar year | Annually, 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 Steamboat Springs
1 published ZIP profiles| ZIP | Population | Median household income | Area Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 80487 | 18,525 | $109,659 | — |