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Place dossier plate
SheetVA-VIRGINIA-BEACH-VA · Virginia Beach, VA 457,066 pop · income 71st pct · 132 tracts
Instrument codes from this place’s ACS population and household income, BEA state COL, FBI safety, national income percentile, photo-finish peer city, home-value band, and matched Census-tract book - not a moving recommendation.
Income neighbourhood around Virginia Beach
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Virginia Beach on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Miami · lowest
59,390
Miami · lowest
59,390 median HH income
42.4% of the leader · rank #1
Midway CDP (S… · near
90,662
Midway CDP (S… · near
90,662 median HH income
64.7% of the leader · rank #2
Richmond Heig… · near
90,670
Richmond Heig… · near
90,670 median HH income
64.7% of the leader · rank #3
Bloomington · near
90,677
Bloomington · near
90,677 median HH income
64.7% of the leader · rank #4
Virginia Beach · this city
90,685
Virginia Beach · this city
90,685 median HH income
64.7% of the leader · rank #5
Gillette · near
90,699
Gillette · near
90,699 median HH income
64.7% of the leader · rank #6
Arlington · highest
140,160
Arlington · highest
140,160 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #7
What this shows Neighbourhood peers only - not a full nationwide city board. Open a near peer when the gap is small; open the poles when the spread is wide.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by population, income, and FBI crime rate
Out-of-state nearest neighbors for Virginia Beach on ACS population and median household income
, plus FBI UCR reporting rate when the extract covers this place. Link sets are deduped so each column is a distinct comparison path, not a forecast that peers share a labor market or climate.
Similar population
Nearest out-of-state cities by ACS population. This city: 457,066.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Virginia Beach - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Virginia Beach lands in the 71st percentile for household income and the 39th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
71st
percentile, household income
74th
percentile, home value
62nd
percentile, median rent
39th
percentile, safety
📝 How we sourced this
Population, income, and housing-cost figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates (B-series tables). Crime data uses FBI UCR; climate uses NOAA Climate Normals; school counts come from NCES Common Core of Data; permits use the Census Building Permits Survey (BPS). See our methodology page for the full ETL pipeline and OMB / FIPS join keys.
Data Snapshot: Virginia Beach, VA
Virginia Beach is a mid-sized U.S. city in Virginia, home to 457,066 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Households in Virginia Beach report a median income of $90,685 per year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 6.6%. Typical homes in Virginia Beach are valued around $366,300, and the median resident age is 37.4 years. 40.4% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 60.7% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 666 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 51% from five years earlier. Virginia Beach reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR figures show 1732.2 crimes per 100,000 residents, below the national average (reporting is voluntary across agencies, so treat this as reporting activity rather than a definitive danger score).
Virginia tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: the state registers 101.1 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Near Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $1,369 per month. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Virginia run around $235, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. The average commute for Virginia Beach workers runs 20.3 minutes, with 75.3% driving alone and 12.7% working from home. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 33.3 out of 100 (Very Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Virginia Beach's data
How this reading path is ordered
This is not a composite city score. It is a city-specific route through the available public records, ordered for this profile so the page starts with questions the joined data can actually answer. The route here runs from reported crime to within-city variation to schools and households to comparison shortlist to work and mobility to housing and income to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Virginia Beach, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history, local building permits, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What can the FBI record say about safety in Virginia Beach?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1732.2 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 24% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Treat this as a reporting-rate comparison, not a prediction of personal risk or a neighborhood-level safety grade. Tourism, daytime population, reporting practices, and variation inside the city are not adjusted away. The state rank and same-state peer table are the narrower comparisons available on this page.
What can 132 Census tracts reveal inside Virginia Beach?
PlainCities matches 132 Census tracts to this city.
That layer breaks the citywide income, rent, and home-value medians into smaller Census geographies, which can reveal differences that one municipal median necessarily hides. A tract is a statistical area, not a locally defined neighborhood or a promise about conditions on a particular block. Start with the city profile for the broad comparison, then use the tract layer to test whether the same housing and income pattern is consistent across the city. Large within-city spreads are a reason to avoid treating any citywide median as a universal resident experience.
What does the education layer cover for Virginia Beach?
The city has a broader matched school footprint, but count alone does not describe performance, capacity, program availability, or attendance boundaries. This profile deliberately avoids converting it into an unsupported family-friendliness score.
The NCES join finds 82 public schools within the city match. 40.4% of adults age 25+ hold a bachelor's degree or higher in the ACS estimate. These measures answer different questions: the school count describes local institutions, while adult attainment describes residents and cannot be used as a school-quality rating.
Which cities make useful reference points for Virginia Beach?
Use the in-state set to hold state policy and broad price conditions more nearly constant. Use the nationwide size set to ask whether cities with a similar resident count produce different housing, income, or commute outcomes. The income set is a third lens, deliberately separate from population matching. The nationwide peer panel below adds a fourth FBI UCR reporting-rate lens, not personal risk.
Within Virginia, the closest population matches are Chesapeake (251,153 residents, $94,189 income); Arlington (235,463 residents, $140,160 income); Norfolk (235,037 residents, $64,017 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Long Beach, CA (458,491 residents); Miami, FL (446,663 residents); Raleigh, NC (470,763 residents). A third, income-matched reference set of 6 out-of-state cities sits in the income neighbourhood chart near the Place Dossier plate. These are mechanical peer sets, not claims that the places share a labor market, climate, culture, or metro context.
These joined records add useful context, but they do not need another full-size panel. Each remains a separate measure with its own geography and source boundary.
Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Virginia Beach?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 75.3%. The reported mean trip to work is 20.3 minutes.
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. No single mode completely explains the work trip here. The mix is more useful than a one-number commute grade, especially when comparing places where transit, walking, and remote work divide the non-driving share differently.
Drive alone
75.3%
Work from home
12.7%
Public transit
0.8%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 241,914 workers age 16+.
How far does income reach against housing in Virginia Beach?
This is a citywide price-to-income reference, not a mortgage-affordability test; it does not include interest rates, taxes, insurance, household size, or an individual buyer's down payment. Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median. That flags a question for comparison, not a verdict: tenure, household composition, financing costs, and the age of the ACS estimate can all change what a resident actually pays.
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 4.0 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 6.6%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
4.0×
Home value
$366,300
Household income
$90,685
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Is Virginia Beach growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -5,889 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -1.3% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 666 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Recent estimates point downward. A falling count can reflect migration, household size, annexation boundaries, or estimation noise, so it is a prompt to inspect the full series rather than a claim about local economic health.
2020 estimate
459,626
2025 estimate
453,737
Period change
-1.3%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Above median income · poverty 6.6% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
101.1 (US=100)
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Virginia average
C+
City profile score · Virginia Beach, VA
61/100
5 published dimensions · ACS/FBI 2023
Comparative score against U.S. cities with population of 1,000 or more on Census ACS medians
(income, poverty, bachelor's share, cost of living) and FBI UCR violent-crime rates when
published. Higher means a stronger standing on those published figures, not a livability
rating, not a recommendation to move, buy, or pick a "best" city. Missing inputs drop out
and redistribute weight.
How it is calculated.
Bachelor's+ share B+
40.4%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime B
92 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Household income B
$90,685
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate C
6.6%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Cost of living F
101.1 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Virginia Beach profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 75/100 (B+) · 40.4%
Violent crime: 73/100 (B) · 92 /100k
Household income: 70/100 (B) · $90,685
Poverty rate: 55/100 (C) · 6.6%
Cost of living: 35/100 (F) · 101.1 index
Where Virginia Beach sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Virginia Beach's median home value and FBI crime rate plotted with similar-size and
same-state peers (padded with large cities when the peer set is thin). The second
read: pricey does not always mean safer, check which quadrant this city lands in.
Census ACS median home value vs FBI UCR crime rate - Virginia Beach highlighted among 12 peers.Read the chart values
Virginia Beach, VA (this city): home $366,300, crime 1,732/100k
Long Beach, CA : home $762,200, crime 4,155/100k
Miami, FL : home $475,200, crime 3,468/100k
Raleigh, NC : home $377,800, crime 3,308/100k
Oakland, CA : home $924,700, crime 9,156/100k
Colorado Springs, CO : home $420,700, crime 4,164/100k
Minneapolis, MN : home $345,600, crime 6,303/100k
Chesapeake, VA : home $359,100, crime 2,084/100k
Norfolk, VA : home $271,900, crime 4,242/100k
Richmond, VA : home $328,100, crime 3,516/100k
Newport News, VA : home $243,300, crime 3,152/100k
Alexandria, VA : home $696,800, crime 2,859/100k
How does Virginia Beach compare to other US cities?
Where Virginia Beach sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income71% higher than other cities
Home value74% pricier than other cities
Median rent62% pricier than other cities
Safety39% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
A national percentile can hide a lot of local variation: narrowed to Virginia alone, Virginia Beach ranks #55 of 117 Virginia cities by lowest crime rate - a different, more locally useful comparison than stacking it against the entire country.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Virginia Beach against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Virginia only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Virginia-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Virginia Beach near the bottom of Virginia's cities
Among the 619 Virginia cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Virginia Beach ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Virginia Beach only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#210 of 558
62nd percentile in Virginia
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 619
0th percentile in Virginia
Median Home Value
#180 of 567
68th percentile in Virginia
Poverty Rate
#270 of 616
56th percentile in Virginia
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#192 of 618
69th percentile in Virginia
How in-state ranks are ordered
Ranked by raw value (highest first); a higher rank is not automatically "better" for every measure, see each metric's own context above. This is a comparison within Virginia only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
71st percentile nationally for median household income · 39th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Virginia Beach's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Virginia Beach's percentile rank on 3 favorable-direction measures (income, affordability, safety) vs. every tracked US city -- higher on every axis is more favorable. Not a composite quality score, just the arithmetic mean of the axes shown.
How Virginia Beach's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$366,30026th percentilemore affordable than 26% of 15,600 US cities
Show national distribution
Each bar is a $25K-wide band; taller bars hold more US cities. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year Estimates · 2023
Virginia Beach's home-value-to-income ratio: 4.0×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#10,819 of 15,516
More affordable than 30% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#44 of 117
Large cities (200,000–999,999)
At 4.0×, Virginia Beach sits in the moderate band:
national rank #10,819 of 15,516 and #44 of 117large cities (200,000–999,999).
Income and home value move in the same broad scale; check same-state peers before treating the multiple as an advantage or a warning.
How this ratio is calculated
Ratio = Census ACS 2023 median home value ÷ median household income for cities with both fields and population ≥ 1,000.
Rank 1 = lowest ratio (most compact). Bands match the fleet affordability thresholds used on guides (<3.0 / 3.0–5.0 / >5.0).
This is not a mortgage payment estimate and does not include rates, taxes, insurance, or down payment.
Income distribution context
$90,685Virginia Beach, VA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Virginia Beach, VA median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Virginia Beach, VA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)40.4%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)6.6%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)60.7%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
457,066
Median Income
$90,685
Median Home Value
$366,300
Median Age
37.4
Poverty Rate
6.6%
Labor force participation
60.7%
Bachelor's Degree+
40.4%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1732.2
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
92.3
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1639.9
per 100,000 residents
Crime reporting caveat
Reflects incidents reported to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program — agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies by jurisdiction and year, so this reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score. Not adjusted for tourism, commuter, or daytime population.
Schools
Total Schools
82
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Virginia Beach's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
459,626 residents
2021
458,644 residents
2022
454,721 residents
2023
453,402 residents
2024
453,763 residents
2025
453,737 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
666
housing units authorized
Single-Family
319
detached homes
Multifamily
347
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.5
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
1,350
667
683
$153.8M
2020
938
493
445
$147.9M
2021
463
335
128
$137.5M
2022
1,197
231
966
$157.2M
2023
542
201
341
$106.9M
2024
666
319
347
$142.4M
Permit volume decreased 51% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
20.3 minutes
Drive Alone
75.3%
Carpool
7.5%
Public Transit
0.8%
Walk
1.8%
Work from Home
12.7%
Other
1.9%
Based on 241,914 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Virginia statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $235
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Virginia at $235 (electricity about $115 , water and sewer about $50 ).
These are Virginia statewide averages, not a meter reading for Virginia Beach. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Virginia's BEA cost-of-living index is 101.1 (Near Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Virginia Beach is $1,369/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Virginia statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 33.3 / 100 (Very Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Virginia statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Virginia Beach sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Virginia Beach compares to similar-size Virginia cities
Same-state peer method
Closest same-state population matches, not geographic neighbors. Population + median household income come from Census Bureau ACS 5-year B01001 and B19013.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year 2023, FBI UCR, NCES CCD, Census BPS 2024, Census ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.