The 10 Richest Zip Codes in North Carolina for 2024

In this article, we'll look at the top 10 richest zip codes in North Carolina and explore some of the demographic statistics of each to see if we can find out why they are the richest.

Before we get started, let's talk about how we determine "the richest zip codes" by explaining how we calculate it.

We use the mean household income for each zip code, which can be found on the latest American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates. The ACS is an ongoing survey conducted by the US Census Bureau and, because it's updated yearly, is more up-to-date that the Decennial Survey.

The latest year we have ACS data for is 2022.

Using the mean (or average) household income, we only really have two criteria to determine the richest zip codes:

  1. The zip code must have a population of at least 500 people.
  2. The margin of error provided by the Census Bureau for the zip code must be less than 50% of the mean household income estimate.

Richest Zip Codes in North Carolina

If you're in a rush and just want to see the top 10 zip codes in North Carolina, here they are, sorted by highest average household income.

The list is long, so you might have to scroll the table to see all of the zip codes. You can click the links in the table to view more demographic statistics about the zip code.

Rank Zip Code County Mean Income
1 28207 Mecklenburg County $389,928.00
2 27608 Wake County $213,819.00
3 28211 Mecklenburg County $211,706.00
4 28480 New Hanover County $185,809.00
5 28173 Union County $184,488.00
6 28036 Cabarrus County, Iredell County, Mecklenburg County $184,234.00
7 28226 Mecklenburg County $184,053.00
8 27519 Chatham County, Wake County $181,530.00
9 27310 Guilford County $176,544.00
10 28031 Mecklenburg County $175,817.00

Demographic Statistics for the 10 Richest Zip Codes in North Carolina

Now that we've seen the top 10 zip codes in North Carolina, let's take a look at some of the demographic statistics for each zip code.

We'll focus on the top 10 richest zip codes in North Carolina to see if there any similarities or differences between them.

Household Income by Age

In the table below, we can compare the household income by age for each of the zip codes.

Zip Code Under 25 25 to 44 45 to 64 65 and Over
28207 $0.00 $215,089.00 $250,001.00 $123,843.00
27608 $33,813.00 $205,109.00 $159,125.00 $91,537.00
28211 $44,875.00 $122,024.00 $166,250.00 $74,397.00
28480 $0.00 $149,306.00 $215,250.00 $75,057.00
28173 $0.00 $153,792.00 $170,473.00 $70,764.00
28036 $2,499.00 $136,219.00 $188,654.00 $100,080.00
28226 $44,363.00 $123,603.00 $163,333.00 $77,083.00
27519 $62,762.00 $156,016.00 $177,272.00 $72,232.00
27310 $0.00 $250,001.00 $162,755.00 $78,173.00
28031 $67,167.00 $113,370.00 $151,721.00 $76,442.00

Note than any fields showing as $0 are because the data was not available from the latest ACS.

We can see from the data above that the most common age bracket for the richest zip codes in North Carolina is 45 to 64, with 80.00% of the top earners falling into this age bracket.

The list below shows all of the top age brackets for the richest zip codes in North Carolina.

  • 80.00% of the richest zip codes in North Carolina were aged 45 to 64
  • 20.00% of the richest zip codes in North Carolina were aged 25 to 44

Race and Ethnicity

We can also look at the race and ethnicity for the richest zip codes in North Carolina. To do that, we created averages for each race reported for the zip code by the ACS survey.

The chart below shows the most common races living in the richest zip codes in North Carolina:

  • 94.40% Black/African American
  • 78.51% Native
  • 7.08% Other
  • 5.67% Asian
  • 4.05% Hispanic
  • 2.52% White
  • 0.07% Hawaiian/Pacific Islander
  • 0.04% Two or more races

This shows that the most common race across the richest zip codes in North Carolina is "Black/African American".

Education Levels

Another interesting demographic to look at would be the education levels of the people living in the richest zip codes in North Carolina.

Just like we did with the race and ethnicity numbers, we can create averages for each of the education levels the Census Bureau tracks for each zip code, by summing them and dividing by the number of zip codes we're comparing.

The chart below shows the most common education level of people living in the richest zip codes in North Carolina:

  • Bachelor's degree
    54.81%
  • Master's degree or higher
    27.79%
  • High school diploma or equivalent
    12.10%
  • Some college or associate's degree
    4.45%
  • Less than high school diploma
    0.85%

The data shows that 82.60% of people living in the richest zip codes in North Carolina have a bachelor's degree or higher.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this article has given you some interesting insights into why the richest zip codes in North Carolina are so wealthy based on the common demographics between them.

In the future, we will try to add more data to this article and pull out more interesting insights from the information.

Link To or Reference This Page

We spent a lot of time downloading, cleaning, merging, and formatting the data that is shown on the site.

If you found the data or information on this page useful in your research, please use the tool below to properly cite or reference Name Census as the source. We appreciate your support!

  • "The 10 Richest Zip Codes in North Carolina for 2024". NameCensus.com. Accessed on March 28, 2024. https://namecensus.com/demographics/north-carolina/richest-zip-codes/.

  • "The 10 Richest Zip Codes in North Carolina for 2024". NameCensus.com, https://namecensus.com/demographics/north-carolina/richest-zip-codes/. Accessed 28 March, 2024

  • The 10 Richest Zip Codes in North Carolina for 2024. NameCensus.com. Retrieved from https://namecensus.com/demographics/north-carolina/richest-zip-codes/.