56303St. Cloud, Minnesota

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 56303.

50out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 16% of 5,298 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity5642nd of 6,210 published ZIP areas30
Schools3560th of 4,422 published ZIP areas27
Growth4343rd of 5,428 published ZIP areas32
Housing affordabilityTop 13% of 6,685 published ZIP areas98
Climate6702nd of 6,789 published ZIP areas51
Physical resilienceTop 39% of 6,709 published ZIP areas68
Access6481st of 6,791 published ZIP areas54
Economic stability4055th of 6,742 published ZIP areas54
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published ZIP profiles: unemployment is 5.5% and the Opportunity signal places 56303 in the bottom 9%.

Residential permitting has slowed: 70 units authorized over the past twelve months, 81% below the prior year.

Housing is more affordable relative to local incomes than in most published city profiles: rent takes 17% of median household income and the median home is 3.1 times it.

At a glance

Population
25,827
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$65,198
Bottom 39% nationally
Density
2,356/sq mi
11.0 sq mi of land
Median age
36.7
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
St. Cloud
Minnesota
Metro area
St. Cloud, MN
Nearest major airport
MSP
68 mi · Minneapolis-St Paul Intl/Wold-Chamberlain
Median home value
$205,200
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 5.5% is lower than 14% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment fell 2.0% over the past year, to 35,419 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$3,315$65,198Bottom 39%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$1,896$35,014Bottom 45%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate16.4%Top 27%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute20.9 minBottom 16%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher30.9%Top 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment35,419Bottom 36%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-1.0%Bottom 32%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-2.0%Bottom 17%June 2026
Labor force37,469Bottom 37%June 2026
Labor force participation67.2%Top 24%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$63,750Bottom 31%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$50,840Top 48%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)0.8%Top 15%June 2026
Unemployment rate5.5%Top 14%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202467k59k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $65,198 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 — St. Cloud, MN
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Home Health and Personal Care Aides3,140$37,100
Registered Nurses2,910$105,290
Retail Salespersons2,850$34,860
Cashiers2,560$32,480
General and Operations Managers2,340$89,700
Office Clerks, General2,240$46,390

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 St. Cloud, MN, the city containing this ZIP code.

26% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 34% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 14.1 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
11
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
14.1
across all schools here
Math proficiency
26.4%
Bottom 16% in Minnesota
Reading proficiency
33.7%
Bottom 18% in Minnesota
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
APOLLO SENIOR HIGHST. CLOUD PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT1,26416.9
NORTH JUNIOR HIGHST. CLOUD PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT72016.417%32%
MADISON ELEMENTARYST. CLOUD PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT70413.827%31%
WESTWOOD ELEMENTARYST. CLOUD PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT53115.245%48%
Saint Cloud Math and Science Academ · charterSaint Cloud Math and Science Academ26610.612%18%
Success Academy St. Cloud Elem · charterSuccess Academy14017.5
St. Cloud Math & Science Middle · charterSaint Cloud Math and Science Academ9113.0
Katherine Johnson Education CenterST. CLOUD PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT793.8
ST. CLOUD HOSPITAL PROGRAMS NON-RESST. CLOUD PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT1818.0
Roosevelt Education CenterST. CLOUD PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT143.5
St Cloud Hospital Progs-ResidentialST. CLOUD PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT6

69.8% 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 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 $927 takes 17% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.1 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
17.1%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.1×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$927
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$205,200
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income3.15Top 49%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate63.3%Bottom 19%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±56012,035Top 13%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$54$927Bottom 40%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$10,019$205,200Bottom 45%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income17.1%Bottom 46%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate7.1%Bottom 33%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
32/ 100
Ranks 4343 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.

At 1.0 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US ZIP areas.

Units permitted
70
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
1.0
Bottom 26% nationally
Year over year
−81%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
units in 5+ unit buildings

The Building Permits Survey is not published for ZIP areas. This is the figure for St. Cloud, MN, the city containing this ZIP code.

Weather & climate

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 82°F and January a low of 3°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 28.5 inches, including 47.9 inches of snow.

Air quality measures a median index of 39, 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 ST CLOUD RGNL AP, 8.2 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.0"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index58.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation28.5"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall47.9"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low3°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high82°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index39.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing58°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
39
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
58
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

68 / 100
Physical resilience

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

Strong windElevated
TornadoElevated
Inland floodingModerate
Heat waveModerate

Low or minimal exposure: hail, winter weather, lightning, cold wave, wildfire, ice storm, landslide, drought, earthquake.

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.

Stearns County records 2.0 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 9.3 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 10.6 per 100,000 residents in Stearns County.

Homicide
2.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
9.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
10.6
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 Stearns 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 56303 rather than 56303 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 68 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Minneapolis-St Paul Intl/Wold-ChamberlainMSP68 mi11,006 ft
Duluth IntlDLH130 mi10,591 ft
Chippewa Valley RgnlEAU142 mi8,101 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
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
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.

56303 vs St. Cloud

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

56303
St. Cloud
Median household income
$65,198
vs
$61,374
Per capita income
$35,014
vs
$32,108
Population density
2,356/sq mi
vs
1,756/sq mi
Median home value
$205,200
vs
$225,000
Median gross rent
$927
vs
$1,003
Homeownership rate
63.3%
vs
48.6%
Bachelor's degree or higher
30.9%
vs
30.4%
Poverty rate
16.4%
vs
20.2%
Median age
36.7
vs
30.6

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.