Photo: Citycommunications at English Wikipedia · CC BY 3.0Families in Fort Collins earn more than those in 79% of U.S. towns
About half work in Fort Collins itself; outside it, Loveland draws the most (8%, 9 miles). Leaving out college students, 8.3% of residents live below the poverty line, where Colorado as a whole has 8.6%. Jobs and income earn Fort Collins A−; getting around on foot earns it A+.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Where Fort Collins stands out on work
The four measures behind Fort Collins’ grade
Family income is its strongest input ($122,533, U.S. $99,999); the poverty rate ranks lowest, though still above most U.S. towns. It also does well on the poverty rate and job access by car.
20% of Fort Collins’ residents are college students, and off-campus students count in the Census poverty figures. Where students are 15% or more of the people the Census checks for poverty (17% here), the grade uses the rate without them: 8.3%, against 15.8% for all residents. Unemployment (5.4%) is left out here: students looking for part-time work count as unemployed. Income is ranked as median family income ($122,533), since student households pull the household median down ($85,070).
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for family income and poverty, Fort Collins could be anywhere from B+ to A−.
From Fort Collins, about 20 minutes to the job
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Fort Collins workers work from home, vs 21% across Colorado. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 74,788 commuters (the 22% who work from home are left out). Across Colorado: 82% drive alone, 2% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Who leaves, who stays, who comes in
On a workday 37,217 residents head out to work, 33,248 work right here, and 49,796 people come in from elsewhere.
About as many people by day as by night: the people who leave are replaced by the people who come in.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.18 per resident).
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
The towns that employ Fort Collins’ residents
Where Fort Collins clocks in
8% of workers
6% of workers
3% of workersLines run between town centers. The top 10 towns each way; “Everywhere else” is the rest, including other states.
A thicker line means more commuters. Switch between where residents work and where the people who work here live.
Inside Fort Collins’ 83,044 jobs
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Fort Collins, 2013 → 2023: 70,865 → 83,044. Big swings can come from how a large employer reports its locations, not only from real openings or closings.
Primary jobs covered by unemployment insurance (not the self-employed). Pay is monthly earnings. LEHD 2023.
Here is what they are, next to the jobs Fort Collins’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Miles to work from Fort Collins
About 22% show a job over 50 miles away. Some of that is real, and some is employers that report every worker at a head office, so a few long commutes are on paper only.
Straight-line distance from each worker’s home block to their main job’s block. LEHD 2023.
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
Fort Collins is more walkable than 96% of U.S. towns
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 95,821 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 78% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 24% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about 10.5 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 94% of the 9,825 U.S. towns with transit data.
Transit at the evening rush trips an hour stopping within ¼ mile of the typical resident, EPA 2020
Households without a car (shown, not graded). 4.1% of Fort Collins households have no vehicle (Colorado 5.2%, U.S. 8.4%). 2% of Fort Collins’ commuters take a bus or train.
These are town averages; neighborhoods differ.
Fort Collins is 31st of 180 U.S. towns of 120,000 to 232,000 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pearland TX | 129,930 | $119K | 4.1% | 3.3% | 10% | A+ |
| 2 | Berkeley CA | 121,911 | $108K | 17.3% | 5.6% | 21% | A |
| 3 | Olathe KS | 150,025 | $114K | 5.6% | 2.7% | 26% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 10 | Arvada CO | 122,901 | $117K | 5.8% | 3.8% | 10% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 27 | Thornton CO | 147,766 | $103K | 7.0% | 4.5% | 10% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 29 | Roseville CA | 167,302 | $119K | 5.9% | 5.2% | 22% | A− |
| 30 | Orange CA | 138,365 | $117K | 9.5% | 4.9% | 13% | A− |
| 31 | Fort Collins CO | 171,500 | $85K | 15.8% | 5.4% | 47% | A− |
| 32 | Lewisville TX | 139,006 | $89K | 7.9% | 4.3% | 9% | A− |
| 33 | Torrance CA | 138,391 | $116K | 7.8% | 6.0% | 18% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 49 | Lakewood CO | 156,927 | $90K | 9.2% | 4.5% | 18% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 180 | Macon-Bibb County GA | 157,556 | $51K | 24.7% | 8.1% | 53% | D |
Census ACS 2020–24 (income, poverty, unemployment), Census LEHD (work in town), TownRatings Jobs & income grades. Each town links to its Work & commute page.
Ranked on the Jobs & income grade: the towns either side of Fort Collins, the top three, the last and three more from Colorado.
Around Fort Collins: the bordering towns
The biggest share goes to Windsor (2%).
Average commute minutes, one way
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Fort Collins workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fort Collins | – | A− | A+ | 20 min | $85,070 |
| Windsor | 2% | A− | B | 26 min | $127,028 |
| Timnath | under 1% | A+ | B | 24 min | $178,257 |
Same-state neighbors only. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Fort Collins’s workers. Tap a town to see its commute.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Two sources, two years. Trips, distances and jobs based here: Census LEHD 2023, primary jobs, where the employer reports them. Income, poverty, unemployment, commute time and how people travel: Census ACS 2020–24 averages.
- Students. 20% of residents are college students; the poverty input leaves off-campus students out (above).
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Fort Collins: questions
What is the median household income in Fort Collins?
$85,070 (±$2,468) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $95,470 across Colorado and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Fort Collins?
15.8% of residents live below the poverty line; leaving out college students, 8.3%. Colorado: 9.4%.
How long is the commute from Fort Collins?
20 minutes each way on average, against 25 across Colorado and 26 nationally. 22% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Fort Collins work?
47% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Loveland (8%, 9 mi), Denver (6%, 55 mi), Greeley (3%, 18 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Fort Collins walkable?
Fort Collins is more walkable than 96% of U.S. towns (Walkability A+): an EPA walkability index of 12.2 out of 20, and 12% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Fort Collins without a car?
2% of commuters take transit and 4% of households have no car. 24% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Fort Collins, from the people who make the trip.
More of Fort Collins
Flows, distances and jobs: U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES 8), 2023, primary jobs. Commute time, working from home and working out of state: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates. Distances are straight lines between home and work; real drives run longer. Walkability index, job access and transit service: U.S. EPA Smart Location Database. The two grades are our own summaries of these figures, not official ratings.