Fairfax, Virginia

Unemployment of 3.1%, lower than in 91% of the 4,226 measured US cities.

Employment fell 2.4% over the past year, to 13,987 employed residents.

62% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 94% of measured US cities.

Median household income of $132,348 is higher than in 93% of measured US cities.

Prices for everything a household buys run about 10% above the national average — the Bureau of Economic Analysis index reads 109.5, against 100 for the nation. Nationally, housing drives most of the spread between places in this index; other goods vary far less.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s house price index for the Arlington-Alexandria-Reston, VA-WV Metropolitan Division is up 34% over five years, and up 2.6% over the last year. It follows repeat sales of the same homes, so it measures price change rather than which homes happened to sell.

Homeowners here who pay a tax bill pay a median of $6,515 a year in real estate taxes, about 0.90% of the median home value.

HUD’s Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom, set near the 40th percentile of recent new leases, is $2,590, some 15% above the $2,245 tenants already here pay.

At HUD’s Fair Market Rent of $2,590 a month for a two-bedroom, keeping rent to 30% of income takes a household income of about $103,600 a year, about 78% of the median household income here of $132,348.

The typical renter household here spends 31% of its income on rent, above the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened. Median gross rent runs $2,245 a month.

A median home at $722,600 costs 3.9 times the median income of its owner-occupied households, $184,861, above the historic benchmark of about 3 times income.

These measures come from the same ACS release as the income they are compared with. They compare housing cost with local earnings only: transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes are not in them. How to read affordability, the two rent figures and the cost-of-living index.

7 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 88°F and January a low of 25°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 43.2 inches, including 21.0 inches of snow.

Climate figures are thirty-year normals, not current conditions. How to read climate and air quality.

Each of these is absent for a reason, not by oversight. The Area Score is calculated without them; the weighting is on the methodology page.

Reported crime

Offenses reported to police are published by department rather than by town, so AreaProfile shows a rate only on city profiles, and only where that city’s department submitted every month of a year. Either no municipal department reports for this place — many smaller communities are policed by the county — or its department did not report every month of the year. Either way there is no figure to show. A partial year is never scaled up to look complete, and arrest counts or news volume are never substituted for it.

Air quality

The EPA publishes an air-quality index only where a monitor sits. There is none in this county, and a modeled value would be a different kind of number from the measured ones everywhere else on this page.

Taxes

Income and sales taxes are not published: no source covers them nationally with a method open enough to check. Property taxes are shown in the housing section but are not part of the score. The cost-of-living index above is a price level for all consumption, not a household budget, and it excludes taxes. Nothing here is individualized tax advice.

Anything about a specific address

Every figure describes an area, not a street or a house.

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.

Put Fairfax side by side with a similar place.

Profile recalculated October 8, 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 every source with how often each updates.