Miami Demographics: Population, Origins, Income and Housing

This hub is the whole Miami demographics section for now: no deeper demographics guide is live, so the population, origin, language, age, income and housing questions are answered here from the ACS 2020-2024 5-year tables.

Every figure below is for the City of Miami, Census place 1245000, unless a sentence names Miami-Dade County or the Brickell ZIP Code Tabulation Area 33131. The city is one of 34 incorporated municipalities in Miami-Dade County, and Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Hialeah and Homestead are separate cities with their own counts (Miami-Dade County municipalities list). Readers looking for home prices by neighborhood will find them in the Miami real estate section, and job and employer figures sit in the Miami economy section.

Sources for the table: DP05 for the City of Miami, DP05 for Miami-Dade County, DP05 for ZCTA 33131, city DP03, county DP03, ZCTA DP03, city DP04, county DP04 and ZCTA DP04. Last verified: October 18, 2026, by re-reading the four city, four county and three Brickell ZCTA data profile tables on the Census Bureau data API, plus the county municipalities list and the Miami DDA demographics page.

The City of Miami had an estimated 459,745 residents in the ACS 2020-2024 5-year survey, about one in six of the 2,738,356 people counted in Miami-Dade County.

The city figure comes from table DP05 for place 1245000 (ACS DP05, City of Miami) and the county figure from the same table for county 12086 (ACS DP05, Miami-Dade County). The rest of the county population lives in the other 33 municipalities or in the county's unincorporated communities and neighborhoods (Miami-Dade County).

The county list gives Miami the oldest incorporation date in Miami-Dade, July 28, 1896, ahead of Homestead on February 8, 1913 and Miami Beach on March 26, 1915 (municipalities and incorporation dates).

A Miami 5-year estimate is an average of surveys taken from 2020 through 2024, not a head count on one day. Each Miami figure carries a margin of error: plus or minus 138 for the city population, but plus or minus 1,811 for the 23,095 residents of the Brickell ZCTA, so small areas deserve more caution than citywide totals (ZCTA 33131 margins).

About 71.5 percent of City of Miami residents are Hispanic or Latino of any race, and 30.3 percent of all residents report Cuban origin.

The ACS splits the Hispanic population further: 35.8 percent of all residents fall in the other Hispanic or Latino group, the ACS group for everyone who is not Mexican, Puerto Rican or Cuban, 3.1 percent are Puerto Rican and 2.3 percent Mexican (ACS DP05, City of Miami). Among residents who are not Hispanic, 12.1 percent of the city population is White alone and 11.9 percent Black or African American alone.

Miami-Dade County as a whole is 69.3 percent Hispanic or Latino, close to the city share, but its Cuban share is higher, at 35.1 percent of all county residents (ACS DP05, Miami-Dade County).

Race and Hispanic origin are separate questions in the ACS. In Miami, 49.1 percent of the city population falls in the White and Some Other Race combination, so race counts and Hispanic origin counts overlap and should never be added together (DP05 race detail).

An estimated 57.7 percent of City of Miami residents are foreign born, and 68.8 percent of residents aged 5 and older speak Spanish at home.

Of the foreign-born population of 265,248, about 92.7 percent were born in Latin America, 3.7 percent in Europe and 2.6 percent in Asia, and 41.1 percent arrived in 2010 or later (ACS DP02, City of Miami). Half of the city foreign-born population, 49.7 percent, are naturalized U.S. citizens and 50.3 percent are not citizens.

Only 22.8 percent of Miami residents aged 5 and older speak English only at home, and 39.2 percent speak English less than very well by their own answer to the survey.

The county pattern is similar but less pronounced: 54.5 percent of Miami-Dade residents are foreign born, 59.4 percent of the county foreign-born population is naturalized, and 66.7 percent of residents aged 5 and older speak Spanish at home (ACS DP02, Miami-Dade County).

The median age in the City of Miami is 39.3, younger than the Miami-Dade County median of 40.7, and the average Miami household holds 2.32 people against 2.76 countywide.

Children under 18 make up 16.5 percent of city residents and adults 65 and older 15.9 percent (ACS DP05, City of Miami). In the county, those shares are 20.0 percent and 16.9 percent (ACS DP05, Miami-Dade County), so the city has proportionally fewer children than the county around it.

The city counts 194,821 households. About 31.1 percent are married-couple households and 33.1 percent are headed by a woman with no spouse or partner present (ACS DP02, City of Miami). Average family size is 3.10 in the city and 3.32 in the county (ACS DP02, Miami-Dade County).

Education levels split in two directions. Among Miami adults 25 and older, 37.4 percent hold a bachelor's degree or higher, above the county share of 34.4 percent, yet 10.4 percent have less than a ninth grade education, against 7.8 percent countywide (DP02 educational attainment).

Median household income in the City of Miami is $62,462, below the Miami-Dade County median of $71,753, and 19.4 percent of city residents live below the poverty level.

In Miami, the average tells a different story than the median. Mean household income in the city is $105,558 and per capita income $45,837, higher than the county per capita figure of $39,469 (ACS DP03, City of Miami, ACS DP03, Miami-Dade County).

Poverty is higher for children: 25.2 percent of Miami residents under 18 live below the poverty level, against 18.2 percent in the county, where the all-ages rate is 14.7 percent (county DP03). The city unemployment rate in the survey period was 5.2 percent of the civilian labor force, and 67.1 percent of residents 16 and older were in the labor force (city DP03).

The largest industry group for employed city residents is educational services, health care and social assistance at 17.1 percent, followed by professional, scientific and management services at 16.6 percent and arts, entertainment, accommodation and food services at 12.0 percent. These shares describe the civilian employed population living in the city, the group the table counts; the Miami economy section covers employers and payrolls.

About 69.2 percent of occupied homes in the City of Miami are rented, against 47.8 percent in Miami-Dade County, and the median gross rent in the city is $1,758 a month.

The city has 223,826 housing units, of which 29,005, or 13.0 percent, were vacant in the survey (ACS DP04, City of Miami). Nearly half of all units, 48.8 percent, are in buildings with 20 or more units, compared with 33.8 percent countywide (ACS DP04, Miami-Dade County). The renter share is a share of occupied homes, not of all units.

Miami owners report a median home value of $518,100 in the city and $463,000 in the county. Rents run the other way: the county median of $1,829 is above the city median of $1,758. In the city, 53.2 percent of renters paying rent spend 35 percent or more of household income on gross rent (DP04 gross rent as a share of income), against 55.0 percent countywide (county DP04).

Brickell shows how far one neighborhood can sit from the city average. ZIP Code Tabulation Area 33131, a postal area rather than a city boundary, has 18,783 housing units, 96.1 percent of them in buildings of 20 or more units, a 29.9 percent vacancy share and a median rent of $3,124 (ACS DP04, ZCTA 33131). Its 23,095 residents have a median age of 35.9 (ACS DP05, ZCTA 33131) and a median household income of $144,138 (ACS DP03, ZCTA 33131).

The Miami Downtown Development Authority (DDA) publishes its own Downtown Miami estimates: more than 101,000 residents, up from 41,000 in 2012, 155,000 jobs and a median household income of $119,000 (Miami DDA demographics page). The same page calls that rise nearly 68 percent growth, but 41,000 to 101,000 is an increase of about 146 percent, so the DDA percentage does not match its own counts. The DDA page ties its resident profile to its own 2025 Demographics Report, so these are DDA estimates for Downtown Miami and not comparable with ACS city figures.