Española, New Mexico

Area Profile

10,473 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Española, in Santa Fe 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
Opportunity3617th of 3,904 published cities31
Housing affordability2333rd of 4,223 published cities77
Climate3903rd of 4,223 published cities56
Physical resilience3040th of 4,182 published cities35
Access2597th of 4,226 published cities89
Economic stability3887th of 4,226 published cities31
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published city profiles: unemployment is 4.3% and the Opportunity signal places Española in the bottom 7%.

Rent takes 21% of median household income here, below the 30% threshold conventionally called cost-burdened, and the median home is 4.4 times that income.

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

At a glance

Population
10,473
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$47,667
Bottom 19% nationally
Density
1,274/sq mi
8.2 sq mi of land
Median age
35.7
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Santa Fe County
New Mexico
Metro area
Santa Fe, NM
Nearest major airport
SAF
27 mi · Santa Fe Rgnl
Median home value
$210,800
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.3% is lower than 51% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 2.1% over the past year, to 69,827 employed residents.

Median household income of $47,667 is below 81% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$6,887$47,667Bottom 19%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$1,754$27,745Bottom 29%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate20.4%Top 23%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute33.5 minTop 21%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher18.3%Bottom 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment69,827Top 44%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-2.6%Bottom 14%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-2.1%Bottom 17%June 2026
Labor force72,951Top 44%June 2026
Labor force participation56.6%Bottom 37%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$62,760Bottom 25%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$48,710Bottom 30%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)0.3%Top 40%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.3%Bottom 49%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202448k43k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $47,667 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 — Santa Fe, NM
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive2,410$50,170
Retail Salespersons2,320$35,960
Fast Food and Counter Workers1,950$30,810
Waiters and Waitresses1,680$46,640
General and Operations Managers1,630$106,770
Home Health and Personal Care Aides1,470$31,540

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 publishes city-level labor data only for places of 25,000 or more. This is the figure for Santa Fe County, NM, which contains this city.

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

Public schools
8
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
13.2
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
MCCURDY CHARTER SCHOOL · charterMCCURDY CHARTER SCHOOL55713.9
CARLOS F. VIGIL MIDDLEESPANOLA37914.6
EUTIMIO SALAZAR ELEMENTARYESPANOLA33913.0
JAMES RODRIGUEZ ELEMENTARYESPANOLA23313.7
TONY QUINTANA ELEMENTARYESPANOLA20812.2
HERNANDEZ ELEMENTARYESPANOLA859.4
LOS NINOS ELEMENTARYESPANOLA7110.1
ESPANOLA VALLEY HIGHESPANOLA0

95.9% 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 New Mexico’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 $829 takes 21% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 4.4 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
20.9%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
4.4×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$829
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$210,800
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income4.42Top 21%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate65.2%Bottom 29%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±2584,823Top 12%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$88$829Bottom 32%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$9,912$210,800Top 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income20.9%Top 36%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate14.3%Top 36%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 been broadly flat since 2020, at 10,475 in 2024.

Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202411k10k
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

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 91°F and January a low of 16°F.

Air quality measures a median index of 45, in the Good band, and one day a year passes 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

0°20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station ESPANOLA, 0.7 miles from this location.
Precipitation
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index71.02024 calendar year
Average January low16°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high91°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10012024 calendar year
Median air quality index45.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing43°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
45
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
71
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

35 / 100
Physical resilience

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

WildfireHigh
Inland floodingModerate
EarthquakeElevated
DroughtModerate
LandslideModerate

Low or minimal exposure: lightning, winter weather, hail, heat wave, cold wave, avalanche, strong wind, tornado, ice storm.

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 Fe County records 4.7 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 10.9 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 65.4 per 100,000 residents in Santa Fe County.

Homicide
4.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
10.9
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
65.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
16.0
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 Santa Fe 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 Española rather than Española 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

6 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 27 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Santa Fe RgnlSAF27 mi8,366 ft
Taos RgnlSKX38 mi8,600 ft
Angel FireAXX52 mi8,900 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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Other cities in Santa Fe, NM

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
Santa FeSanta Fe County89,01958vs Española

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)
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 Española

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
8753218,948$58,448