Arecibo, Puerto Rico

Area Profile

40,831 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Arecibo, in Arecibo Municipio.

Area Score unavailable

Missing required signals: opportunity, growth. AreaProfile withholds a score rather than inferring the missing dimensions.

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Housing affordability3431st of 4,223 published cities59
ClimateTop 4% of 4,223 published cities100
Physical resilience3260th of 4,182 published cities28
Access3291st of 4,226 published cities80
Economic stability4217th of 4,226 published cities11
The quick read

Housing sits below most published city profiles for affordability: rent takes 26% of median household income and the median home is 5.0 times it — each just short of the thresholds that would count as strained, but both toward the costly end.

Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by hurricane, earthquake and landslide.

A typical July reaches 87°F and a typical January falls to 61°F, on thirty-year normals.

At a glance

Population
40,831
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$22,968
Bottom 2% nationally
Density
2,631/sq mi
15.5 sq mi of land
Median age
45.6
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Arecibo Municipio
Puerto Rico
Metro area
Nearest major airport
PSE
33 mi · Mercedita
Median home value
$114,000
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Median household income of $22,968 is below 98% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$1,651$22,968Bottom 2%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$1,074$15,906Bottom 4%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate40.7%Top 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute25.4 minBottom 43%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher30.4%Top 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Labor force participation44.0%Bottom 13%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202423k19k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $22,968 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.

Housing & affordability

How it’s calculated →

Median rent of $505 takes 26% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 5.0 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
26.4%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
5.0×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$505
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$114,000
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income4.96Top 16%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate59.5%Bottom 20%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±75821,388Top 3%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$49$505Bottom 4%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$4,796$114,000Bottom 25%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income26.4%Top 13%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate23.1%Top 19%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 →

No building-permit activity is published for this location by the Census Building Permits Survey.

Weather & climate

12 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 87°F and January a low of 61°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 84.6 inches.

50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station ARECIBO OBSY, 7.4 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND10.4"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation84.6"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall0.0"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low61°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high87°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months121991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing6°F1991-2020 Normals

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.

Physical risk

28 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are hurricane, earthquake and landslide.

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.

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

2 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 33 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
MerceditaPSE33 mi8,002 ft
Luis Munoz Marin IntlSJU48 mi10,400 ft
Henry E RohlsenSTX137 mi10,002 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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Put Arecibo side by side with a similar place.

Arecibo vs Vega BajaArecibo vs DoradoArecibo vs IsabelaArecibo vs Cayey

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)
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)

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 Arecibo

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
0061262,908$24,488