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.

Area Score unavailable

Missing required signal: growth. AreaProfile withholds a score rather than inferring the missing dimensions.

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 50% of 3,904 cities measured56
Housing affordability3963rd of 4,223 cities measured43
Climate4215th of 4,223 cities measured45
Physical resilience3134th of 4,182 cities measured32
AccessTop 47% of 4,226 cities measured93
Economic stabilityTop 47% of 4,226 cities measured62
The quick read

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

Population
13,433
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$104,964
Top 16% nationally
Density
1,358/sq mi
9.9 sq mi of land
Median age
43.9
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Routt County
Colorado
Metro area
Steamboat Springs, CO
Nearest major airport
HDN
21 mi · Yampa Valley
Median home value
$981,800
2024 ACS 5-Year

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.

MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Median household income ±$16,551$104,964Top 16%of 29,5732024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$6,276$74,913Top 5%of 31,4202024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate4.7%Bottom 22%of 31,9002024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute15.5 minBottom 6%of 31,5432024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher62.2%Top 6%of 31,9192024 ACS 5-Year
Employment12,797Bottom 8%of 3,904June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-8.8%Bottom 1%of 3,903June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-5.7%Bottom 1%of 3,904June 2026
Labor force13,257Bottom 8%of 3,904June 2026
Labor force participation70.5%Top 17%of 31,9332024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.2%Top 43%of 3,904June 2026
Unemployment rate3.5%Bottom 16%of 3,904June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
2021202220232024105k81k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $104,964 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.

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.

There are 13.2 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
7
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
13.2
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Steamboat Springs High SchoolSteamboat Springs School District No. Re 287117.1
Steamboat Springs Middle SchoolSteamboat Springs School District No. Re 244012.2
Soda Creek Elementary SchoolSteamboat Springs School District No. Re 237912.6
Strawberry Park Elementary SchoolSteamboat Springs School District No. Re 236811.9
Sleeping Giant SchoolSteamboat Springs School District No. Re 23379.9
Steamboat Montessori · charterState Charter School Institute14014.0
Yampa Valley High SchoolSteamboat Springs School District No. Re 23216.0

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.

Rent as a share of income
23.1%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
9.4×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$2,017
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$981,800
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Home price to income9.35Top 2%of 28,4732024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate67.2%Bottom 32%of 31,8432024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±27210,942Top 5%of 32,3302024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$230$2,017Top 8%of 23,4322024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$122,656$981,800Top 3%of 29,3422024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income23.1%Top 25%of 23,2012024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate41.3%Top 7%of 32,0012024 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.

Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202414k13k
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.

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.

-10°10°30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, 0.9 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND2.6"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index25.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation24.7"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall184.5"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low5°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high83°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months31991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index12.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing48°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
12
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
25
90th percentile index
Days above 100
0
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

32 / 100
Physical resilience

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.

WildfireElevated
Inland floodingHigh
EarthquakeModerate

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.

Violent crime
255
per 100,000 residents · 2025 calendar year
Property crime
1,006
per 100,000 residents · 2025 calendar year

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.

Homicide
0.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
17.2
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
14.9
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
24.7
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.

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.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Yampa ValleyHDN21 mi10,000 ft
Eagle County RgnlEGE58 mi9,000 ft
Shively FldSAA67 mi8,801 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 forSourceSource periodUpdated
AccessFederal Aviation Administration
Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service
NASR current cycle28-day NASR cycle
safetyFederal Bureau of Investigation, Crime Data Explorer
Summarized offense counts by law enforcement agency
2025 calendar yearAnnually, with monthly revisions
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
DemographicsU.S. Census Bureau
Population Estimates Program
July 1, 2024 estimateAnnual (vintage released each spring)
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 Steamboat Springs

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
8048718,525$109,659