Wasatch County, UT

County Profile

36,642 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Wasatch County, UT.

Several figures AreaProfile publishes are measured by county and nowhere finer — death rates by intent among them. On this page those describe the geography they are printed on, which is not true of the city and ZIP pages that inherit them.

Area Score unavailable

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

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 6% of 1,255 counties82
SchoolsTop 17% of 973 counties77
GrowthTop 3% of 1,226 counties82
Housing affordability1149th of 1,255 counties62
Physical resilience773rd of 1,255 counties52
AccessTop 40% of 1,255 counties86
Economic stabilityTop 24% of 1,255 counties79
The quick read

Wasatch County ranks in the top 6% of published profiles for employment opportunity, with unemployment at 3.4% and median household income of $117,608.

Development activity is both elevated and accelerating — 1,046 housing units permitted over the past twelve months, up 21% on the prior year.

Buying strains local incomes far more than renting does — the median home is 6.7 times median household income, against a historic benchmark near three — while rent takes 20% of it.

At a glance

Population
36,642
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$117,608
Top 2% nationally
Density
31/sq mi
1177.0 sq mi of land
Median age
36.8
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Wasatch County
Utah
Metro area
Heber, UT
Nearest major airport
PVU
31 mi · Provo Muni
Median home value
$787,300
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.4% is lower than 83% of the 1,255 measured US locations.

Employment held steady over the past year, at 20,115 employed residents.

51% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 97% of measured US locations.

Household income is higher than at least 98% of measured US locations.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$8,505$117,608Top 2%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$4,018$58,251Top 3%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate4.7%Bottom 1%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute23.7 minBottom 35%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher51.3%Top 3%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment20,115Bottom 24%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)1.5%Top 34%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)0.0%Top 32%June 2026
Labor force20,821Bottom 23%June 2026
Labor force participation69.1%Top 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.1%Top 46%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.4%Bottom 17%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/063.41.8
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 3.4% in June 2026. A break in the line is a month the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish for this area — it is left empty rather than estimated.
Median household income, successive ACS releases
2021202220232024118k94k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $117,608 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.

50% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 51% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 20.0 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
9
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
20.0
across all schools here
Math proficiency
50.4%
Top 9% in Utah
Reading proficiency
50.9%
Top 1% in Utah
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Wasatch HighWasatch District2,60423.0
Timpanogos Middle SchoolWasatch District1,03322.550%53%
Old Mill SchoolWasatch District76921.480%70%
Rocky Mountain MiddleWasatch District67316.437%42%
Midway SchoolWasatch District65217.262%65%
J.R. Smith SchoolWasatch District63319.250%43%
Daniels Canyon SchoolWasatch District62318.946%41%
Heber Valley SchoolWasatch District56116.019%30%
Soldier Hollow Charter School · charterSoldier Hollow Charter School32818.251%59%

21.4% 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 Utah’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 $2,000 takes 20% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 6.7 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.

Rent as a share of income
20.4%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
6.7×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$2,000
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$787,300
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income6.69Top 2%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate80.3%Top 18%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±6416,228Top 42%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$244$2,000Top 1%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$26,979$787,300Top 1%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income20.4%Top 19%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate20.6%Top 25%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
82/ 100
Top 3% of 1,226 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing — 2 consecutive years, 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 8% since 2020, reaching 37,858 in 2024.

Population is still rising, but more slowly than in the preceding year.

At 28.5 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US locations.

Units permitted
1,046
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
28.5
Top 1% nationally
Year over year
+21%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
25.8%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202438k35k
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
20222023202420251k706
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2022 (+12%).

Physical risk

52 / 100
Physical resilience

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

WildfireHigh
AvalancheModerate
EarthquakeElevated
Inland floodingModerate

Low or minimal exposure: landslide, winter weather, lightning, volcanic activity, strong wind, drought, heat wave, tornado, ice storm, cold wave, hail.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA National Risk Index county record. 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.

Wasatch 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 13.2 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 15.5 per 100,000 residents in Wasatch County.

Homicide
0.0
per 100,000 residents
Firearm deaths, all intents
13.2
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
15.5
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
19.7
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.

Age-adjusted rates from provisional death certificate records, published by the CDC for Wasatch 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 Wasatch County rather than Wasatch County 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

5 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 31 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Provo MuniPVU31 mi8,603 ft
Salt Lake City IntlSLC53 mi12,002 ft
Carbon County Rgnl/Buck Davis FldPUC54 mi8,316 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)
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)
DevelopmentU.S. Census Bureau
Building Permits Survey
12 months ending July 2026Monthly, roughly three weeks after the reference month
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

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.

Cities in Wasatch County, UT