Side-by-side metrics and state or size-class ranks use the same Census and FBI fields shown on this profile. Results stay in the URL so you can bookmark or share them.
Place dossier plate
SheetND-GRAND-FORKS-ND · Grand Forks, ND 58,882 pop · income 41st pct · 22 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 Grand Forks
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Grand Forks on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Burlington · lowest
54,941
Burlington · lowest
54,941 median HH income
23.8% of the leader · rank #1
James · near
63,835
James · near
63,835 median HH income
27.6% of the leader · rank #2
Eugene · near
63,836
Eugene · near
63,836 median HH income
27.6% of the leader · rank #3
Grand Forks · this city
63,838
Grand Forks · this city
63,838 median HH income
27.6% of the leader · rank #4
Speculator · near
63,839
Speculator · near
63,839 median HH income
27.6% of the leader · rank #5
Westhaven-Moo… · near
63,843
Westhaven-Moo… · near
63,843 median HH income
27.6% of the leader · rank #6
Cupertino · highest
231,139
Cupertino · highest
231,139 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 Grand Forks 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: 58,882.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Grand Forks - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Grand Forks lands in the 41st percentile for household income and the 20th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
41st
percentile, household income
54th
percentile, home value
7th
percentile, median rent
20th
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: Grand Forks, ND
North Dakota's Grand Forks is a small city, with 58,882 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Households in Grand Forks report a median income of $63,838 per year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 8.6%. Grand Forks's housing stock carries a median value of $243,300, and the median resident age is 29.4 years. About 39.2% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 67.8% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 107 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Slowing), down 25% from five years earlier. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: FBI UCR figures show 2640.7 crimes per 100,000 residents, near the national average (reporting is voluntary across agencies, so treat this as reporting activity rather than a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Grand Forks's yearly average temperature at 39.8°F with 21.7 inches of precipitation per year and 48.4 inches of snowfall.
Living costs in North Dakota run below the national norm: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, North Dakota scores 89.0 (Well Below Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $965 monthly. Monthly utility costs average around $200 across North Dakota, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Workers in Grand Forks report an average commute of 13.9 minutes, with 80.3% driving alone and 5.6% working from home. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 22.2 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Very Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Grand Forks'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 schools and households to within-city variation to work and mobility to reported crime to housing and income to comparison shortlist to climate and hazard context to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Grand Forks, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares, local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, within-city Census tract profiles.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Grand Forks?
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 16 public schools within the city match. 39.2% 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.
What can 22 Census tracts reveal inside Grand Forks?
PlainCities matches 22 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 journey to work look like in Grand Forks?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 80.3%. The reported mean trip to work is 13.9 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Grand Forks?
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 North Dakota, the closest population matches are Minot (47,922 residents, $77,431 income); Bismarck (74,146 residents, $77,608 income); West Fargo (39,325 residents, $96,877 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Cupertino, CA (58,886 residents); Wylie, TX (58,991 residents); Taylorsville, UT (59,010 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.
Reported crime
What can the FBI record say about safety in Grand Forks?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 2640.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 16% higher 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.
Total reported rate
2640.7
Violent rate
358.6
Property rate
2282.2
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
How far does income reach against housing in Grand Forks?
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. Income and home value move within the same broad scale here. The useful next check is not a generic affordability label, but whether similar-size cities offer a materially different income, housing, or commute trade-off.
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.8 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 8.6%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
3.8×
Home value
$243,300
Household income
$63,838
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
What physical conditions frame life in Grand Forks?
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 39.8°F, with 21.7 inches of precipitation and 48.4 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for North Dakota is 22.2 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)
22.2
Annual precipitation
21.7 in
Mean temperature
39.8°F
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
Is Grand Forks growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +1,210 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +2.0% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 107 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
59,155
2025 estimate
60,365
Period change
+2.0%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Below median income · poverty 8.6% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
89.0 (US=100)
Affordable · BEA RPP 2024, North Dakota average
C-
City profile score · Grand Forks, ND
53/100
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.
Cost of living A
89.0 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Bachelor's+ share B
39.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate D
8.6%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income D
$63,838
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime F
359 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Grand Forks profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 89/100 (A) · 89.0 index
Bachelor's+ share: 74/100 (B) · 39.2%
Poverty rate: 45/100 (D) · 8.6%
Household income: 40/100 (D) · $63,838
Violent crime: 25/100 (F) · 359 /100k
Where Grand Forks sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Grand Forks'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 - Grand Forks highlighted among 12 peers.Read the chart values
Grand Forks, ND (this city): home $243,300, crime 2,641/100k
Cupertino, CA : home $2,000,000+, crime 1,678/100k
Wylie, TX : home $350,100, crime 926/100k
Casper, WY : home $250,700, crime 2,401/100k
Medford, MA : home $715,500, crime 1,379/100k
Burlington, NC : home $188,700, crime 4,037/100k
Minot, ND : home $254,400, crime 1,722/100k
Bismarck, ND : home $291,400, crime 2,678/100k
West Fargo, ND : home $302,200, crime 1,178/100k
Williston, ND : home $262,700, crime 2,753/100k
Dickinson, ND : home $252,400, crime 2,003/100k
Mandan, ND : home $246,300, crime 2,869/100k
How does Grand Forks compare to other US cities?
Here's how Grand Forks stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income41% higher than other cities
Home value54% pricier than other cities
Median rent7% pricier than other cities
Safety20% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
National percentiles can mask local variation. Looking only at North Dakota, Grand Forks ranks #17 of 21 North Dakota cities by lowest crime rate - a narrower, more locally useful cut than the national comparison above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Grand Forks against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to North Dakota only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
North Dakota-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Grand Forks near the bottom of North Dakota's cities
Among the 246 North Dakota cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Grand Forks ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Grand Forks only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#147 of 227
35th percentile in North Dakota
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 246
0th percentile in North Dakota
Median Home Value
#29 of 226
87th percentile in North Dakota
Poverty Rate
#79 of 246
68th percentile in North Dakota
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#17 of 246
93rd percentile in North Dakota
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 North Dakota only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
41st percentile nationally for median household income · 20th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Grand Forks's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Grand Forks'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 Grand Forks's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$243,30046th percentilemore affordable than 46% 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
Grand Forks's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.8×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#10,100 of 15,516
More affordable than 35% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#283 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 3.8×, Grand Forks sits in the moderate band:
national rank #10,100 of 15,516 and #283 of 750mid-size cities (50,000–199,999).
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
$63,838Grand Forks, ND median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Grand Forks, ND median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Grand Forks, ND.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)39.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)8.6%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)67.8%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
58,882
Median Income
$63,838
Median Home Value
$243,300
Median Age
29.4
Poverty Rate
8.6%
Labor force participation
67.8%
Bachelor's Degree+
39.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2640.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
358.6
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2282.2
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
39.8°F
Annual Precipitation
21.7"
Annual Snowfall
48.4"
Schools
Total Schools
16
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Grand Forks's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
59,155 residents
2021
58,568 residents
2022
58,272 residents
2023
59,167 residents
2024
59,760 residents
2025
60,365 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Slowing
Total Permits (2024)
107
housing units authorized
Single-Family
95
detached homes
Multifamily
12
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.8
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
143
90
53
$33.3M
2020
406
129
277
$58.5M
2021
146
146
0
$38.8M
2022
100
100
0
$27.1M
2023
92
88
4
$24.6M
2024
107
95
12
$27.6M
Permit volume decreased 25% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
13.9 minutes
Drive Alone
80.3%
Carpool
7.8%
Public Transit
0.9%
Walk
3.7%
Work from Home
5.6%
Other
1.7%
Based on 32,736 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
North Dakota statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $200
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across North Dakota at $200 (electricity about $90 , water and sewer about $40 ).
These are North Dakota statewide averages, not a meter reading for Grand Forks. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
North Dakota's BEA cost-of-living index is 89.0 (Well Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Grand Forks is $965/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to North Dakota statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 22.2 / 100 (Very Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a North Dakota statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Grand Forks sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Grand Forks compares to similar-size North Dakota 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.