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Place dossier plate
SheetSC-TEGA-CAY-SC · Tega Cay, SC 13,267 pop · income 93rd 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 Tega Cay
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Tega Cay on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Orangeburg · lowest
33,066
Orangeburg · lowest
33,066 median HH income
20.4% of the leader · rank #1
Rio Verde · near
141,020
Rio Verde · near
141,020 median HH income
87.0% of the leader · rank #2
Tega Cay · this city
141,037
Tega Cay · this city
141,037 median HH income
87.1% of the leader · rank #3
East Douglas · near
141,042
East Douglas · near
141,042 median HH income
87.1% of the leader · rank #4
Lovettsville · near
141,042
Lovettsville · near
141,042 median HH income
87.1% of the leader · rank #5
Sierra Madre · near
141,094
Sierra Madre · near
141,094 median HH income
87.1% of the leader · rank #6
Kings Park We… · highest
162,007
Kings Park We… · highest
162,007 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 Tega Cay 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: 13,267.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Tega Cay - the verdict
Nationally, Tega Cay sits in the 93rd percentile for household income and the 92nd percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
93rd
percentile, household income
85th
percentile, home value
46th
percentile, median rent
92nd
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: Tega Cay, SC
13,267 people live in Tega Cay, South Carolina - a small town by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Households in Tega Cay report a median income of $141,037 per year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 0.7%. Home values in Tega Cay run a median of $494,500, and the median resident age is 41.5 years. 65.7% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 63.6% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 110 residential building permits were authorized in Tega Cay (Stable), up 0% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Tega Cay reports a comparatively low crime rate: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 325.1 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, below the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Living costs in South Carolina run below the national norm: the state registers 93.7 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Below Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $1,155 per month. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in South Carolina run around $224, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 70.7 out of 100 (High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Tega Cay'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 housing and income to comparison shortlist to work and mobility to reported crime to population change to schools and households; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Tega Cay, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares, local building permits, matched public-school count.
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
How far does income reach against housing in Tega Cay?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.5 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 0.7%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Tega Cay?
Within South Carolina, the closest population matches are Orangeburg (13,189 residents, $33,066 income); Beaufort (13,660 residents, $59,454 income); Cayce (13,718 residents, $58,095 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Clayton, OH (13,269 residents); Sterling, CO (13,273 residents); Hawaiian Paradise Park, HI (13,273 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.
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.
What does the journey to work look like in Tega Cay?
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.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 64.9%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Tega Cay?
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.
The joined FBI UCR record reports 325.1 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 86% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
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.
Population change
Is Tega Cay growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
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.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +1,590 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +12.4% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 110 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Period change
+12.4%
2025 estimate
14,457
2020 estimate
12,867
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
The NCES join finds 3 public schools within the city match. 65.7% 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.
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.
Matched public schools
3
Bachelor's degree+
65.7%
Poverty estimate
0.7%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
Top-decile income · poverty 0.7% (Very low poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
93.7 (US=100)
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, South Carolina average
A
City profile score · Tega Cay, SC
89/100
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.
Poverty rate A+
0.7%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share A+
65.7%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income A+
$141,037
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime A+
28 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Cost of living B
93.7 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Tega Cay profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Poverty rate: 95/100 (A+) · 0.7%
Bachelor's+ share: 95/100 (A+) · 65.7%
Household income: 93/100 (A+) · $141,037
Violent crime: 90/100 (A+) · 28 /100k
Cost of living: 70/100 (B) · 93.7 index
Where Tega Cay sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Tega Cay'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 - Tega Cay highlighted among 8 peers.Read the chart values
Tega Cay, SC (this city): home $494,500, crime 325/100k
Clayton, OH : home $189,100, crime 1,243/100k
Sterling, CO : home $205,200, crime 3,319/100k
Loveland, OH : home $305,200, crime 504/100k
Orangeburg, SC : home $145,000, crime 7,455/100k
Beaufort, SC : home $310,400, crime 4,269/100k
Cayce, SC : home $158,900, crime 3,515/100k
Gaffney, SC : home $141,100, crime 4,404/100k
How does Tega Cay compare to other US cities?
Where Tega Cay sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income93% higher than other cities
Home value85% pricier than other cities
Median rent46% pricier than other cities
Safety92% 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 South Carolina alone, Tega Cay ranks #2 of 127 South Carolina 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 Tega Cay against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to South Carolina only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
South Carolina-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Tega Cay near the bottom of South Carolina's cities
Among the 441 South Carolina cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Tega Cay ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Tega Cay only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#8 of 403
98th percentile in South Carolina
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 441
0th percentile in South Carolina
Median Home Value
#18 of 404
96th percentile in South Carolina
Poverty Rate
#398 of 439
9th percentile in South Carolina
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#14 of 441
97th percentile in South Carolina
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 South Carolina only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
93rd percentile nationally for median household income · 92nd percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Tega Cay's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Tega Cay'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 Tega Cay's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$494,50015th percentilemore affordable than 15% 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
Tega Cay's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.5×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#8,984 of 15,516
More affordable than 42% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,491 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.5×, Tega Cay sits in the moderate band:
national rank #8,984 of 15,516 and #1,491 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
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
$141,037Tega Cay, SC median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Tega Cay, SC median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Tega Cay, SC.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)65.7%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)0.7%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)63.6%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
13,267
Median Income
$141,037
Median Home Value
$494,500
Median Age
41.5
Poverty Rate
0.7%
Labor force participation
63.6%
Bachelor's Degree+
65.7%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
325.1
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
27.7
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
297.5
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
3
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Tega Cay's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
12,867 residents
2021
13,210 residents
2022
13,601 residents
2023
13,976 residents
2024
14,259 residents
2025
14,457 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Stable
Total Permits (2024)
110
housing units authorized
Single-Family
110
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
8.3
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
110
110
0
$35.0M
2020
150
150
0
$54.7M
2021
205
205
0
$68.3M
2022
183
183
0
$58.9M
2023
118
118
0
$38.1M
2024
110
110
0
$48.3M
Permit volume increased 0% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
64.9%
Carpool
8.4%
Public Transit
0.2%
Walk
0.2%
Work from Home
25.8%
Based on 6,321 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
South Carolina statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $224
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across South Carolina at $224 (electricity about $130 , water and sewer about $42 ).
These are South Carolina statewide averages, not a meter reading for Tega Cay. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
South Carolina's BEA cost-of-living index is 93.7 (Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Tega Cay is $1,155/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to South Carolina statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 70.7 / 100 (High).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a South Carolina statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Tega Cay sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Tega Cay compares to similar-size South Carolina 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.