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Place dossier plate
SheetMT-WHITEFISH-MT · Whitefish, MT 8,422 pop · income 51st pct
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 Whitefish
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Whitefish on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Havre · lowest
58,000
Havre · lowest
58,000 median HH income
50.8% of the leader · rank #1
Fargo · near
71,105
Fargo · near
71,105 median HH income
62.3% of the leader · rank #2
Whitefish · this city
71,110
Whitefish · this city
71,110 median HH income
62.3% of the leader · rank #3
Guyton · near
71,115
Guyton · near
71,115 median HH income
62.3% of the leader · rank #4
Lloydsville · near
71,118
Lloydsville · near
71,118 median HH income
62.3% of the leader · rank #5
Tullytown · near
71,118
Tullytown · near
71,118 median HH income
62.3% of the leader · rank #6
Plumas Lake · highest
114,083
Plumas Lake · highest
114,083 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 Whitefish 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: 8,422.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Whitefish - the verdict
Nationally, Whitefish sits in the 51st percentile for household income and the 55th percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
51st
percentile, household income
91st
percentile, home value
61st
percentile, median rent
55th
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: Whitefish, MT
8,422 people live in Whitefish, Montana - a small town by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Whitefish households earn a median of $71,110 annually, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 6.6%. Typical homes in Whitefish are valued around $648,200, and the median resident age is 43.4 years. Educational attainment runs 56.5% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 65.9% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 42 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 80% from five years earlier. Whitefish reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 1212.7 incidents per 100,000 residents, below the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Whitefish's yearly average temperature at 42.5°F with 19.9 inches of precipitation per year and 63.1 inches of snowfall.
Living costs in Montana run below the national norm: the state registers 94.6 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Below Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $1,336 monthly. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Montana's average monthly utility costs around $175 (state average). Natural-hazard exposure scores 33.3 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Very Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Whitefish'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 housing and income to schools and households to work and mobility to climate and hazard context to population change to comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Whitefish, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count, local building permits, annual population history.
No matched row is reported here for within-city Census tract profiles; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
Question 1
What can the FBI record say about safety in Whitefish?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1212.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 47% 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Whitefish?
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 9.1 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 6.6%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
What does the education layer cover for Whitefish?
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 5 public schools within the city match. 56.5% 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 Whitefish?
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 Montana, the closest population matches are Miles City (8,412 residents, $60,732 income); Helena Valley West Central (8,224 residents, $89,040 income); Livingston (8,635 residents, $65,187 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Guadalupe, CA (8,422 residents); Grandview Heights, OH (8,422 residents); Plumas Lake, CA (8,424 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 Whitefish?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 66.0%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. Remote work has a visible role in the local pattern. That can reduce commute exposure for some workers, but it says nothing about job availability or broadband quality; read it alongside income and housing rather than as a stand-alone lifestyle score.
Drive alone
66.0%
Work from home
22.0%
Public transit
0.2%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 4,600 workers age 16+.
The two sources should not be blended into one comfort or safety score. Use the climate values for baseline conditions and the risk index as a prompt to inspect specific hazards, insurance, and local emergency guidance for a particular address.
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 42.5°F, with 19.9 inches of precipitation and 63.1 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Montana is 33.3 out of 100. Climate normals describe long-run weather; the FEMA score on PlainCities is a state average of county NRI inputs and combines hazards, exposure, vulnerability, and resilience.
FEMA risk index (state avg)
33.3
Annual precipitation
19.9 in
Mean temperature
42.5°F
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
Is Whitefish growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +1,472 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +18.7% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 42 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 upward. Growth can increase housing demand and service needs, but the permit record must move in the same direction before calling it a supply response; the two series measure different things.
2020 estimate
7,886
2025 estimate
9,358
Period change
+18.7%
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)
94.6 (US=100)
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Montana average
C+
City profile score · Whitefish, MT
63/100
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 A
56.5%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Cost of living B-
94.6 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Violent crime B-
124 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate C
6.6%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income C-
$71,110
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Whitefish profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 89/100 (A) · 56.5%
Cost of living: 66/100 (B-) · 94.6 index
Violent crime: 65/100 (B-) · 124 /100k
Poverty rate: 55/100 (C) · 6.6%
Household income: 51/100 (C-) · $71,110
Where Whitefish sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Whitefish'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 - Whitefish highlighted among 9 peers.Read the chart values
Whitefish, MT (this city): home $648,200, crime 1,213/100k
Guadalupe, CA : home $452,100, crime 582/100k
Grandview Heights, OH : home $548,100, crime 2,144/100k
Kronenwetter, WI : home $240,700, crime 314/100k
Pleasant Hills, PA : home $235,500, crime 1,197/100k
Northfield, NJ : home $275,900, crime 1,080/100k
Miles City, MT : home $182,700, crime 1,052/100k
Livingston, MT : home $348,700, crime 1,921/100k
Havre, MT : home $197,600, crime 3,870/100k
How does Whitefish compare to other US cities?
Here's how Whitefish stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income51% higher than other cities
Home value91% pricier than other cities
Median rent61% pricier than other cities
Safety55% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Montana and the picture shifts: Whitefish ranks #18 of 39 Montana cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Whitefish against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Montana only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Montana-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Whitefish near the bottom of Montana's cities
Among the 317 Montana cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Whitefish ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Whitefish only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#95 of 282
66th percentile in Montana
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 317
0th percentile in Montana
Median Home Value
#13 of 279
95th percentile in Montana
Poverty Rate
#155 of 315
50th percentile in Montana
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#15 of 317
95th percentile in Montana
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 Montana only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
51st percentile nationally for median household income · 55th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Whitefish's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Whitefish'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 Whitefish's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$648,2009th percentilemore affordable than 9% 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
Whitefish's home-value-to-income ratio: 9.1×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#15,260 of 15,516
More affordable than 2% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#11,166 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 9.1×, Whitefish sits in the pressured band:
national rank #15,260 of 15,516 and #11,166 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median, a comparison flag, not a verdict on any household.
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
$71,110Whitefish, MT median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Whitefish, MT median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Whitefish, MT.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)56.5%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)6.6%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)65.9%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
8,422
Median Income
$71,110
Median Home Value
$648,200
Median Age
43.4
Poverty Rate
6.6%
Labor force participation
65.9%
Bachelor's Degree+
56.5%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1212.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
124.4
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1088.3
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.
Climate
Avg Temperature
42.5°F
Annual Precipitation
19.9"
Annual Snowfall
63.1"
Schools
Total Schools
5
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Whitefish's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
7,886 residents
2021
8,542 residents
2022
8,938 residents
2023
9,168 residents
2024
9,254 residents
2025
9,358 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
42
housing units authorized
Single-Family
38
detached homes
Multifamily
4
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
5
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
208
169
39
$76.7M
2020
295
148
147
$73.2M
2021
213
174
39
$125.6M
2022
128
68
60
$87.3M
2023
70
60
10
$52.7M
2024
42
38
4
$49.7M
Permit volume decreased 80% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
66.0%
Carpool
2.0%
Public Transit
0.2%
Walk
7.0%
Work from Home
22.0%
Other
2.8%
Based on 4,600 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Montana statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $175
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Montana at $175 (electricity about $80 , water and sewer about $40 ).
These are Montana statewide averages, not a meter reading for Whitefish. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Montana's BEA cost-of-living index is 94.6 (Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Whitefish is $1,336/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Montana statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 33.3 / 100 (Very Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Montana statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Whitefish sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Whitefish compares to similar-size Montana 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, NOAA Climate Normals, 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.