Gallatin County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Gallatin County, Montana: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.

You 9/24/26, 1:13 PM

What does a typical morning commute look like in Gallatin County?

Map AI 9/24/26, 1:13 PM

Commute Time Burden in Gallatin County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Gallatin County spend about 33 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 137 hours, about 5.7 full days, spent commuting. That is 3% more time on the road than the Montana average of 16.0 minutes each way, a difference of 0.5 minutes.

Gallatin County holds about 11.1% of Montana's population but accounts for roughly 11.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Gallatin County would save about 55 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,705 at the same national wage assumption used above.

Area	One-Way Commute	Daily Round-Trip	Yearly Time Spent	Estimated Yearly Cost	Local Road Traffic (VPD)
Gallatin County	16.5 min	33.0 min	137 hrs/yr	$4,261	817
Montana	16.0 min	32.1 min	134 hrs/yr	$4,143	403
United States	22.4 min	44.8 min	187 hrs/yr	$5,790	1,355

The estimated yearly cost applies a single national rule of thumb (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics average hourly earnings), not a measurement of wages in this area - treat it as a rough estimate, not a paycheck figure. Local road traffic counts, vehicles per day on non-highway roads, come from proprietary Ticon and TrafficZoom data.

Commute Time Map: Montana Counties

Fastest commutes among counties in Montana

Treasure County (7.2 min)
Rosebud County (8.2 min)
Fallon County (8.4 min)

Slowest commutes among counties in Montana

Broadwater County (30.3 min)
Stillwater County (27.8 min)
Granite County (23.3 min)

Compare commute times among different counties

Gallatin County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 16.5 minutes to get to work in Gallatin County. That's 26% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 75% of counties in Montana

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 15.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Gallatin County

Commute Mode Trends in Gallatin County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Gallatin County get to work, as a share of all workers aged 16 and over, across 16 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) releases from 2009 to 2024. Each release is a 5-year estimate: the 2024 figures cover surveys taken from 2020 to 2024. Because neighboring releases share most of their survey years, the lines move gradually, and a sudden change such as the rise of remote work in 2020 spreads across several releases. Hover over or tap a line to highlight it, and use the legend to show or hide a mode. Driving starts hidden so the smaller modes stay readable.

Share of workers aged 16 and over, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Other	Motorcycle	Taxi
2009	83.4%	6.1%	6.0%	2.9%	0.5%	0.6%	0.3%	0.0%
2010	83.0%	6.8%	5.5%	3.1%	0.8%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%
2011	81.3%	7.4%	6.1%	3.0%	1.0%	0.5%	0.7%	0.0%
2012	81.3%	7.2%	6.3%	3.0%	1.0%	0.6%	0.7%	0.0%
2013	81.0%	7.5%	6.1%	3.1%	0.9%	0.7%	0.7%	0.0%
2014	81.7%	7.2%	6.0%	3.0%	0.9%	0.6%	0.6%	0.0%
2015	81.6%	6.8%	6.3%	3.4%	0.6%	0.6%	0.6%	0.0%
2016	82.2%	7.1%	6.0%	3.2%	0.7%	0.5%	0.4%	0.0%
2017	83.0%	7.1%	5.9%	2.7%	0.4%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%
2018	82.7%	7.5%	6.0%	2.6%	0.5%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%
2019	82.0%	8.1%	5.9%	2.6%	0.5%	0.6%	0.3%	0.0%
2020	80.3%	10.6%	5.5%	2.2%	0.5%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	78.7%	12.3%	5.5%	2.1%	0.4%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	76.4%	14.5%	5.5%	2.2%	0.5%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	76.1%	14.9%	5.4%	2.0%	0.5%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%
2024	76.0%	15.5%	5.3%	1.8%	0.5%	0.5%	0.3%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 83.4% in 2009 to 76.0% in 2024, down 7.4 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 7 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Gallatin County: its share of workers rose from 6.1% in 2009 to 15.5% in 2024, up 9.4 percentage points. Most of that increase, 7.4 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Biking lost the most ground, falling from 2.9% to 1.8% of workers (down 1.1 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Gallatin County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Gallatin County?

The bars show when commuters in Gallatin County leave home for work, as a share of everyone who commutes (people who work from home are not counted), from the 2024 ACS 5-year estimates. The thin violet marks show Montana for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		2.2%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.5%
5:30-5:59 AM		3.5%
6:00-6:29 AM		6.3%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.9%
7:00-7:29 AM		11.8%
7:30-7:59 AM		20.6%
8:00-8:29 AM		12.8%
8:30-8:59 AM		7.5%
9:00-9:59 AM		7.0%
10:00-10:59 AM		5.0%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.0%
12:00-3:59 PM		6.1%
4:00-11:59 PM		4.0%

Gallatin County Montana Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Gallatin County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 20.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 19.2% across Montana. Early starts are less common than in Montana: 8.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.7% there. The morning rush looks much like Montana's: 55.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 55.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (23.0%) leave at 9 AM or later, which usually points to shift work, flexible hours or part-time jobs.

When people leave matters as much as how far they go. Rush-hour traffic shrinks how much ground a 20-minute trip covers, so a trade area drawn as a simple circle often takes in neighborhoods that customers or staff would never drive from and misses others that are an easy trip. A drive-time zone, also called an isochrone, outlines every place within a set number of minutes of an address, which makes it the more honest way to size a store's catchment, a hiring area or the commute from a new home.

See it for yourself on the interactive map: click any spot in Gallatin County, pick a 5, 10, 15 or 30-minute drive and see the local demographics of the people who live within that exact drive time.

Is Gallatin County Waking Up Earlier? Typical Departure Time, 2009-2024

Each line follows the typical (median) departure time: the moment by which half of commuters have already left home. Higher on the chart means a later start. Setting Gallatin County next to Montana and the U.S. shows whether local mornings are drifting earlier or later than everyone else's. The figures span 16 ACS 5-year releases, so changes build up gradually rather than jumping from one year to the next.

Median time commuters leave home, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Gallatin County	Montana	United States
2009	7:49 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:49 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:51 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:53 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:55 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:54 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:54 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:54 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:53 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:52 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:53 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:53 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:53 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:52 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:52 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:50 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Gallatin County were on the road by 7:50 AM, 1 minute later than in 2009 (7:49 AM). That goes against the trend across Montana, where the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Gallatin County now leave 12 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Gallatin County has moved 3 minutes earlier.

How does Gallatin County's commute time compare?

Metric	Gallatin County	Montana	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	16.5 min	16.0 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	15.5%	12.5%	15.0%
Walked	5.3%	3.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.5%	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Gallatin County is about the same as in Montana.

0.5% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.6% in Montana. 5.3% commute by walking, higher than the 3.9% in Montana.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Gallatin County, MT Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Gallatin County, MT is the largest of the 6 counties compared here, 124,072 residents against a local median of 9,223. Nothing separates Gallatin County, MT sharply from the counties around it. Each measure below lands within 15% of the local median, close enough that the differences are within what survey sampling alone would produce.

The largest of those small differences is one-way commute, 7% below the local median at 16.5 min against 17.8 min. Gallatin County, MT has the 2nd lowest one-way commute of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Gallatin County, MT	124,072	16.5 min #2/6	15.5% #4/6	7:50 AM #6/6
Park County, MT	17,710	17.2 min	17.0%	7:44 AM
Madison County, MT	9,223	17.8 min	20.5%	7:44 AM
Broadwater County, MT	7,668	30.3 min	10.5%	7:30 AM
Meagher County, MT	2,007	12.5 min	15.7%	7:36 AM
Jefferson County, MT	12,778	18.7 min	12.7%	7:41 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Gallatin County, Montana.

What is the financial impact of commuting in Gallatin County, Montana?

Commuters here spend an estimated 137 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,261 at a typical national wage. That's 3% more than the typical Montana commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in Gallatin County, Montana?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Gallatin County, Montana. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.

How do commute times compare across counties in Montana?

Among counties in Montana, the shortest average commutes are in Treasure County (7.2 min), Rosebud County (8.2 min), Fallon County (8.4 min). The longest are in Broadwater County (30.3 min), Stillwater County (27.8 min), Granite County (23.3 min).