Data licences & terms of use

Permission to reuse our contribution

Know Your Zip grants you a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive permission to copy, share and adapt its original selection, arrangement, metric descriptions and calculations in these datasets, including for commercial purposes, provided you credit Know Your Zip, link to the ZIP page and these terms, retain source credits and identify your changes. This permission covers only rights held by Know Your Zip. It does not relicense third-party data, photographs, maps, article text, logos or trademarks.

Each source retains its own conditions below. For a combined dataset, comply with the conditions applicable to each component; our permission does not override them or grant rights a publisher has not granted. Free access to a page or JSON file is not a blanket open-data licence. We claim no exclusive rights over public-domain facts. Nothing here restricts rights you already have under law or an upstream licence.

Keep the source URL, observation period, geography, estimation notes and attribution with reused figures. ZIP areas (ZCTAs), postal ZIP codes and county estimates are different geographies. Do not imply endorsement by us or by a source, or present modified figures as the publisher's original data.

Source-specific conditions

The source link beside each metric identifies which conditions apply. The following inventory covers the national metric catalogue; additional media and place-name credits follow it.

Federal statistical sources

US Census Bureau (ACS, business patterns, population estimates, boundaries, decennial counts and LEHD LODES), IRS, CDC/ATSDR, HUD, SBA, FHFA, BEA, FEMA, NOAA, EPA, FDIC and IMLS: works created by federal employees as part of official duties are not subject to US copyright under 17 USC 105. This does not automatically cover third-party material hosted by an agency. Check the linked dataset's notices and retain the agency, dataset, vintage and our transformation notes. Government seals and endorsement rights are excluded.

Federal Election Commission

Our election figures are ZIP-level statistical aggregates, without contributor names or contact details. FEC's sale-or-use restrictions limit commercial use and solicitation using individual contributor information. Aggregation is not a licence to obtain or repurpose donor lists. These datasets grant no permission to identify or contact contributors.

OpenStreetMap

© OpenStreetMap contributors. OpenStreetMap databases are available under the Open Database License 1.0 (ODbL). Retain attribution and the licence notice. Publicly used derived databases are subject to ODbL's share-alike and access requirements; a produced work has different obligations. Our permission above does not replace ODbL. See OpenStreetMap's copyright page. Place counts are derived from volunteer mapping and are not a complete business register.

Our OSM-derived database components are offered under ODbL 1.0, without additional restrictions from our own permission above. National page figures are downloadable at /data/zip/ZIP.json, and displayed vector layers at /data/zip/ZIP.layers.json, replacing ZIP with the five-digit code. Other publishers' independent components retain their own terms. Non-monetization does not remove ODbL's attribution, share-alike or database-access obligations.

Zillow Research

Data Provided by Zillow Group. The Zillow Research Market Data page expressly describes its downloadable datasets as free for public use and links to the ZHVI and ZORI CSV library. We use those research aggregates for this free public information service, with source credits and links. They are not CC0 or CC BY. Preserve the Zillow credit on every display page, avoid logos and implied affiliation, and consult Zillow's Terms of Use. A blanket right to resell or relicense the research CSV database is not explicit; we do not grant one. API, property-listing and ZTRAX access have separate conditions and are outside this permission.

Realtor.com Economic Research

The Residential Real Estate Data Library supplies ZIP-level aggregate CSVs for analysis and requests attribution to Realtor.com® Economic Research and a link to the library on digital properties. Its Asset Sharing Guide also explains public sharing of research assets. We use selected aggregate research metrics with those credits and links. This is our reading of the research-specific invitation, not an independent open-data licence or blanket permission to mirror or sell the underlying database. The general Terms of Use contain broader restrictions; uses beyond that research context require clarification from the publisher.

New York State open data

DMV registrations, DOH SPARCS aggregates and State Liquor Authority data are governed by OPEN-NY Terms of Use and any dataset-specific notices. OPEN-NY permits lawful reuse, including private-sector projects, without a general attribution or share-alike requirement. Additional conditions attached to particular content still apply. Our source links and observation periods should accompany reused figures.

New York City open data

311 service-request and HPD housing-code-violation aggregates come from NYC Open Data. The NYC Open Data Terms of Use incorporate NYC.gov's terms and privacy policy. Retain dataset and agency credits, follow dataset-specific notices, and do not imply City endorsement. These portal terms are not a Creative Commons licence.

Place names, maps and photographs

Place names: GeoNames, under CC BY 4.0. Credit GeoNames and identify adaptations. Wikipedia text, when used, retains its applicable share-alike licence; Wikidata structured data is CC0. Neither determines a photograph's licence.

Photographs are separate from the numerical Dataset licence. Each photo's credit identifies its author, licence and source page. Follow that particular CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC0 or public-domain notice, including attribution, change notices and share-alike where applicable. Historical pilot photographs may have item-specific rights statements. Do not assume every image on a government or Wikimedia page is public domain.

Where FCC-derived data appears: This product uses FCC APIs and/or Data but is not endorsed or certified by the FCC. ZIP aggregates are derived; this permission does not include the licensed Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric.

The 11201 and 92101 pilot dossiers contain additional local sources: their metric source links and individual photo credits govern those components; this national inventory is not a blanket licence for the pilots.

Noncommercial components in the pilot dossiers

Speedtest by Ookla Global Fixed and Mobile Network Performance Maps: Ookla Open Data, under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. ZIP and county figures are our weighted adaptations for the period shown with each figure. Retain attribution, identify changes, and share adaptations under the applicable share-alike licence. Commercial reuse is not granted.

University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. County Health Rankings & Roadmaps. Its Terms of Use permit personal or non-profit educational, research and public-health uses with proprietary notices preserved; commercial uses need written consent. We use county-level statistics for public information, without claiming affiliation or endorsement.

2024 precinct data and computations: The New York Times, under its NYT Computational Use of Data Agreement v1.0 — Non-Commercial. Preserve NYT credit; comply with its noncommercial conditions and, when redistributing data, pass the agreement and credit requirements to recipients. The separate 2020 precinct dataset uses the MIT licence; retain its copyright and licence notice. Do not apply the 2020 permission to 2024 data or calculations combining the two.

Accuracy and versions

Data and calculations are provided as is, without warranties of accuracy, completeness or fitness for a particular purpose, to the extent permitted by law. They describe areas, not individual homes or people, and are not real-estate, legal or financial advice. Verify material decisions with the original publisher.

This URL identifies version 2026-10-12 of our permission. Later terms must use a new version URL. Upstream licences and terms remain independently applicable; this summary is not a substitute for them.