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Data on this report is based on areas within the legal city boundary, outlined in black on the map. Any additional neighborhoods shown on the map are associated with the city by name and are included for reference only.

Surprise, AZ
Real Estate & Demographic Data






Surprise profile


Living in Surprise



Surprise is a larger medium-sized city located in the state of Arizona. With a population of 154,198 people and 28 constituent neighborhoods, Surprise is the tenth largest community in Arizona. There's nothing like the smell of a brand new house, and in Surprise, you'll find that a large proportion of houses were recently built. New growth in residential real estate is an indication that people are choosing to move to Surprise, and putting down their money on brand new construction. Surprise’s real estate is, on average, some of the newest in the nation. Surprise does seem to be experiencing an influx of affluent people, because the median household income is $76,623.00.

Also of interest is that Surprise has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.

A relatively large number of people in Surprise telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 11.58% of the workforce works from home. While this may seem like a small number, as a fraction of the total workforce it ranks among the highest in the country. These workers are often telecommuters who work in knowledge-based, white-collar professions. For example, Silicon Valley has large numbers of people who telecommute. Other at-home workers may be self-employed people who operate small businesses out of their homes.

In Surprise, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 30.25 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average.

In terms of college education, Surprise is substantially better educated than the typical community in the nation, which has 21.84% of the adults holding a bachelor's degree or graduate degree: 30.65% of adults in Surprise have a college degree.

The per capita income in Surprise in 2018 was $34,097, which is upper middle income relative to Arizona and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $136,388 for a family of four. However, Surprise contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

Surprise is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Surprise home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Surprise residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Surprise also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 20.73% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Surprise include German, English, Irish, Italian, and Polish.

The most common language spoken in Surprise is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Tagalog.