Fifteen of the U.S. counties with the highest rent burden
Bronx County, NY has the highest rent burden of any county with at least 20,000 residents — its median rent equals 35.1% of its median household income. Florida claims 6 of the 15 counties on this list, and three more are New York City boroughs — Bronx, Kings, and Queens all appear.
Highest rent burden
Sorted by rent burden, highest first| County or equivalent | State | Rent burden (% of income) | Median household income |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bronx | NY | 35.1 | $49,036 |
| Miami-Dade | FL | 30.2 | $68,694 |
| Broward | FL | 29.0 | $74,534 |
| Osceola | FL | 28.8 | $68,711 |
| Monroe | FL | 28.5 | $82,430 |
| Flagler | FL | 27.8 | $72,923 |
| Kings | NY | 27.3 | $78,548 |
| Queens | NY | 27.1 | $84,961 |
| Palm Beach | FL | 26.9 | $81,115 |
| Clayton | GA | 26.8 | $58,507 |
| Hopewell † | VA | 26.8 | $48,681 |
| Petersburg | VA | 26.8 | $50,741 |
| Clarke | GA | 26.7 | $52,267 |
| Suffolk | MA | 26.7 | $92,859 |
| Lake | CA | 26.4 | $58,738 |
- †Hopewell city's income figure carries a margin of error of about 10.4% of the estimate — treat its 26.8 figure as an approximate range, not a precise point number, in any headline.
Rent burden is median gross rent as a share of median household income — this figure is from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2019–2023 American Community Survey.
Why we don't rank past the leader
Bronx County's lead is real: its 35.1% rent burden runs 4.9 points above Miami-Dade's 30.2%, comfortably outside either county's margin of error, which is why it's named. Below Miami-Dade, the list doesn't separate as cleanly — the bottom nine counties span just 26.4% to 27.3%, a 0.9-point range, with several neighbors differing by only hundredths of a point. Their margins of error dwarf those gaps: Hopewell, VA's rent-burden figure carries a margin of error of about 11.2% of the estimate, which on a figure of this size is many times the hundredths-of-a-point differences that separate these counties. A gap that small can't be meaningfully ordered against uncertainty that large, so only the leader is named: the rest are listed by their published figure but aren't ranked against each other.
This ranking is one slice of the full data. The County List with Demographics carries median income, rent, and home value for all 3,221 U.S. counties in one CSV.
- The County List with Demographics page has a free 100-row sample — download it to see the columns first.
- Get the County List with Demographics ($199) for the complete file.
More county affordability rankings
Every figure fact-checked against the Census Bureau's 2019–2023 American Community Survey.
Methodology & sources
"Rent burden" is median gross rent as a share of median household income (Census Table B25064 for rent, S1901/B19013 for income), from the 2019–2023 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates. Cite the specific data.census.gov detailed-table page (ACSST5Y2023/ACSDT5Y2023), not census.gov's QuickFacts tool — QuickFacts has since rolled forward to the newer 2020–2024 vintage and will show different numbers for the same county. Figures pulled directly from the U.S. Census Bureau's own ACS 2019–2023 5-Year detailed tables (B19013 household income, B25064 median gross rent, B25077 median home value), each carrying its own published margin of error. Faithfully reproduced from the Bureau's release, not independently re-measured.
Prepared from our data team's 2026-08-07 delivery.
This list includes counties and, in Virginia, independent cities — a separate legal category from counties there, included here as their county-equivalent.
How precise are these figures? Each value is a Census survey estimate with its own margin of error; the widest published here is 11.2% of the rent-burden estimate, for Hopewell, VA. The table is ordered by the published figure, and where two counties differ by less than their margins — the bottom nine span just 0.9 points — that order reflects the figure, not a demonstrated difference.