- About 10.7 million U.S. households (8.4%) own no vehicle at all, according to the 2022 National Household Travel Survey.
- The zero-vehicle rate is more than 3.5 times higher in urban areas (10.1%) than in rural areas (2.8%).
- Income matters even more: 41.6% of households earning under $15,000/year own no vehicle, compared with just 2.4% of households earning $75,000–$149,999.
- The rate ticks back up slightly, to 3.0%, for households earning $150,000 or more—a small but real group going car-free by choice rather than necessity.
01 Introduction
About 10.7 million U.S. households (8.4%) own no vehicle at all, according to the 2022 National Household Travel Survey. Car ownership is close to universal in the United States, but not quite. The survey, weighted to represent all U.S. households, shows that this share varies enormously depending on where a household lives and how much it earns. This article uses that survey to answer, with real data rather than assumption, how common car-free households actually are.
FHWA/BTS, 2022 National Household Travel Survey, public-use household file (hhv2pub.csv)02 How Many Vehicles Does the Average Household Own?
Across all U.S. households, the average is 1.83 vehicles per household. But the average hides a wide distribution: about 1 in 12 households has none, while roughly 1 in 5 has three or more.
FHWA/BTS, 2022 National Household Travel Survey, public-use household file, variable HHVEHCNT, weighted by WTHHFIN| Vehicles Owned | Share of Households |
|---|---|
| 0 | 8.4% |
| 1 | 33.1% |
| 2 | 37.9% |
| 3 | 13.2% |
| 4 | 4.9% |
| 5+ | 2.4% |
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Use the Calculator03 Where Car-Free Households Live: Urban vs. Rural
NHTS classifies every household's location as being in an urban area, an urban cluster, or not in an urban area at all (rural). The zero-vehicle rate differs sharply across these three categories.
FHWA/BTS, 2022 National Household Travel Survey, public-use household file, variable URBAN, weighted by WTHHFIN| Location Type | Zero-Vehicle Rate |
|---|---|
| Urban area | 10.1% |
| Urban cluster | 7.0% |
| Rural (not in urban area) | 2.8% |
A household in an urban area is more than 3.5 times as likely to own no vehicle as a rural household—consistent with the practical reality that public transit, walkability, and density make car-free living far more feasible in cities than in rural areas, where a car is often the only realistic way to reach work, groceries, or medical care.
Calculated: 10.1% / 2.8% = 3.604 Car-Free Households by Income
Income shows an even starker pattern than location. Grouping households into five income bands, the zero-vehicle rate falls steadily as income rises—up to a point.
FHWA/BTS, 2022 National Household Travel Survey, public-use household file, variable HHFAMINC, weighted by WTHHFIN| Household Income | Zero-Vehicle Rate | Survey Households (n) |
|---|---|---|
| Under $15,000 | 41.6% | 542 |
| $15,000–$34,999 | 12.1% | 1,019 |
| $35,000–$74,999 | 4.9% | 2,216 |
| $75,000–$149,999 | 2.4% | 2,621 |
| $150,000+ | 3.0% | 1,399 |
05 Two Different Kinds of "No Car"
The uptick at the top of the income table—from 2.4% in the $75,000–$149,999 band to 3.0% in the $150,000+ band—is small, but it points to something real: not every car-free household is car-free out of necessity.
FHWA/BTS, 2022 National Household Travel Survey, public-use household file- Necessity-driven car-free households dominate numerically. The overwhelming majority of zero-vehicle households are low-income, and the data above shows this pattern clearly: the zero-vehicle rate falls in almost a straight line from the lowest income band to the upper-middle band.
- Choice-driven car-free households are a smaller group, concentrated among higher earners, and are more plausible in dense urban areas where the urban zero-vehicle rate is already elevated for everyone, car ownership adds real cost without much practical benefit, and alternatives like transit, ride-hailing, and walking are all realistic.
06 Methodology and Caveats
All figures in this article are drawn directly from the 2022 National Household Travel Survey's public-use household file, weighted using the survey's household weight (WTHHFIN) to produce nationally representative estimates.
FHWA/BTS, 2022 National Household Travel Survey, public-use household file- Income bands are grouped from 11 original NHTS categories into 5 broader bands for readability. The full underlying categories (verified against the official NHTS 2022 codebook) are: Less than $10,000; $10,000–$14,999; $15,000–$24,999; $25,000–$34,999; $35,000–$49,999; $50,000–$74,999; $75,000–$99,999; $100,000–$124,999; $125,000–$149,999; $150,000–$199,999; $200,000 or more.
- Sample sizes are smaller at the extremes. The under-$15,000 band is based on 542 surveyed households; larger than it might appear, but smaller than the 2,000+ household samples in the middle-income bands, so its exact rate carries somewhat wider uncertainty.
- This measures vehicle ownership, not vehicle access. A household with no vehicle of its own may still have regular access to a vehicle through a relative, employer, or car-sharing service; NHTS measures household-owned vehicle counts, not all possible access to a car.
07 Data Sources
Every figure in this article comes from a U.S. government source. No proprietary, estimated, or third-party data was used.
- Federal Highway Administration / Bureau of Transportation Statistics. 2022 National Household Travel Survey, public-use household file (hhv2pub.csv). nhts.ornl.gov
- Federal Highway Administration. 2022 NextGen National Household Travel Survey Household File, Public Use Codebook, Version 2.0.1 (December 2024). Used to verify HHFAMINC and URBAN variable code definitions.