Bemidji, Minnesota

Area Profile

15,569 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Bemidji, in Beltrami County.

50out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 14% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity3782nd of 3,904 published cities24
Schools1464th of 2,668 published cities48
GrowthTop 49% of 2,973 published cities51
Housing affordabilityTop 48% of 4,223 published cities82
Climate4211th of 4,223 published cities45
Physical resilienceTop 40% of 4,182 published cities68
Access4176th of 4,226 published cities34
Economic stability3240th of 4,226 published cities44
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published city profiles: unemployment is 6.2% and the Opportunity signal places Bemidji in the bottom 3%.

In the public schools here, 48% of students met the state standard in mathematics, with 14.2 students for every teacher.

The nearest major airport is 99 miles away, which is farther than most measured US cities.

At a glance

Population
15,569
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$55,405
Bottom 32% nationally
Density
893/sq mi
17.4 sq mi of land
Median age
30.0
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Beltrami County
Minnesota
Metro area
Bemidji, MN
Nearest major airport
FAR
99 mi · Hector Intl
Median home value
$198,300
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 6.2% is lower than 6% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 2.0% over the past year, to 21,532 employed residents.

32% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 73% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$4,666$55,405Bottom 32%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,462$31,542Bottom 42%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate21.3%Top 21%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute18.1 minBottom 12%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher32.5%Top 27%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment21,532Bottom 27%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-2.9%Bottom 12%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-2.0%Bottom 18%June 2026
Labor force22,965Bottom 28%June 2026
Labor force participation64.0%Top 38%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.8%Top 14%June 2026
Unemployment rate6.2%Top 6%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202455k42k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $55,405 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 Beltrami County, MN, which contains this city.

48% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 47% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 14.2 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
22
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
14.2
across all schools here
Math proficiency
48.1%
Top 48% in Minnesota
Reading proficiency
46.7%
Bottom 30% in Minnesota
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Bemidji Senior HighBemidji Public School District1,53720.0
Bemidji MiddleBemidji Public School District96715.941%43%
Gene Dillon Elementary SchoolBemidji Public School District66714.842%57%
Lincoln ElementaryBemidji Public School District32013.967%62%
Horace May ElementaryBemidji Public School District30012.047%32%
Northern ElementaryBemidji Public School District28214.867%42%
J.W. Smith ElementaryBemidji Public School District23811.955%35%
Schoolcraft Learning Community · charterSCHOOLCRAFT LEARNING COMMUNITY CHTR19210.150%49%
TREKNORTH HIGH SCHOOL · charterTREKNORTH HIGH SCHOOL14416.0
Aurora Waasakone Community of Learn · charterAurora Waasakone Community of Learn13310.2
Paul Bunyan CenterBemidji Public School District1187.4
Trek North Middle School · charterTREKNORTH HIGH SCHOOL10913.630%50%

44.5% 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 Minnesota’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 $1,067 takes 23% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.6 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
23.1%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.6×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,067
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$198,300
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income3.58Top 34%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate43.1%Bottom 6%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±2957,232Top 8%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$30$1,067Top 42%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$22,379$198,300Top 47%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income23.1%Top 24%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate8.2%Bottom 43%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
51/ 100
Top 49% of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing, measured from 2022 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 grown 2% since 2020, reaching 15,733 in 2024.

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

70% 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 2.8 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
43
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
2.8
Top 45% nationally
Year over year
+105%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
69.8%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202416k15k
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
20222023202420256410
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2022 (+22%).

Weather & climate

4 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 79°F and January a low of -4°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 26.5 inches, including 48.9 inches of snow.

Air quality measures a median index of 36, in the Good band, and about 4 days a year pass 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

-10°10°30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station CASS LAKE, 14.4 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.1"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index55.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation26.5"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall48.9"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low-4°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high79°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months41991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10042024 calendar year
Median air quality index36.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing61°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
36
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
55
90th percentile index
Days above 100
4
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

68 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are inland flooding, tornado and wildfire.

Winter weatherModerate
WildfireModerate
Inland floodingModerate
DroughtModerate
TornadoModerate

Low or minimal exposure: cold wave, landslide, hail, strong wind, lightning, heat wave, ice storm, earthquake.

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.

Beltrami County records 2.9 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 14.9 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 21.4 per 100,000 residents in Beltrami County.

Homicide
2.9
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
14.9
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
21.4
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 Beltrami 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 Bemidji rather than Bemidji 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 99 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Hector IntlFAR99 mi9,001 ft
Duluth IntlDLH134 mi10,591 ft
Minneapolis-St Paul Intl/Wold-ChamberlainMSP197 mi11,006 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
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)
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
2019-20 school year; 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 Bemidji

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
5660134,784$72,26251