North Carolina Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in North Carolina: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in North Carolina spend about 44 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 182 hours, about 7.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 3% less time on the road than the US average of 22.4 minutes each way, a difference of 0.6 minutes.

North Carolina holds about 3.2% of US's population but accounts for roughly 3.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in North Carolina would save about 73 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,258 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)
North Carolina	21.9 min	43.7 min	182 hrs/yr	$5,645	1,609
US	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: North Carolina Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 21.9 minutes to get to work in North Carolina. That's 3% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 16.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in North Carolina

• Car: 80.0%
• Worked at Home: 16.3%
• Walked: 1.6%
• Other: 1.0%
• Public Transportation: 0.7% unusually low
• Taxi: 0.2%
• Bicycle: 0.2%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%

Public transit is unusually rare in North Carolina: 5.0 times less than the US average (0.7% vs 3.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in North Carolina, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in North Carolina 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.

• Car
• Worked at Home
• Walked
• Other
• Public Transportation
• Taxi
• Bicycle
• Motorcycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	91.8%	4.0%	1.8%	0.8%	1.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2010	91.9%	3.9%	1.8%	0.8%	1.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2011	91.6%	4.2%	1.8%	0.8%	1.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2012	91.6%	4.3%	1.8%	0.7%	1.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2013	91.5%	4.4%	1.8%	0.7%	1.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2014	91.3%	4.5%	1.8%	0.8%	1.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2015	91.1%	4.7%	1.8%	0.8%	1.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2016	91.0%	4.8%	1.8%	0.8%	1.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2017	90.7%	5.2%	1.8%	0.8%	1.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2018	90.5%	5.4%	1.8%	0.8%	1.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2019	90.1%	5.8%	1.8%	0.9%	1.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2020	88.3%	7.7%	1.7%	0.9%	1.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2021	85.9%	10.3%	1.6%	0.9%	0.9%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2022	83.9%	12.4%	1.6%	1.0%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	81.7%	14.5%	1.6%	1.0%	0.7%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2024	80.0%	16.3%	1.6%	1.0%	0.7%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2010 at 91.9%. Overall it fell from 91.8% in 2009 to 80.0% in 2024, down 11.8 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 12 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in North Carolina: its share of workers rose from 4.0% in 2009 to 16.3% in 2024, up 12.3 percentage points. Most of that increase, 10.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in North Carolina

What Time Do People Leave for Work in North Carolina?

The bars show when commuters in North Carolina 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 the U.S. for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM North Carolina4.4% The U.S.5.5%	4.4%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM North Carolina3.5% The U.S.4.0%	3.5%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM North Carolina4.6% The U.S.4.9%	4.6%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM North Carolina9.0% The U.S.8.7%	9.0%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM North Carolina10.2% The U.S.9.4%	10.2%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM North Carolina15.3% The U.S.14.4%	15.3%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM North Carolina12.8% The U.S.11.9%	12.8%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM North Carolina11.7% The U.S.11.5%	11.7%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM North Carolina5.4% The U.S.5.5%	5.4%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM North Carolina6.4% The U.S.6.8%	6.4%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM North Carolina2.8% The U.S.3.1%	2.8%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM North Carolina1.4% The U.S.1.5%	1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM North Carolina6.3% The U.S.6.8%	6.3%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM North Carolina6.4% The U.S.6.1%	6.4%

North Carolina The U.S. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in North Carolina is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.4% across the U.S.. Early starts are less common than in the U.S.: 12.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.4% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in the U.S.: 50.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (23.2%) 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 North Carolina, 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 North Carolina 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 North Carolina next to 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.

• North Carolina
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	North Carolina	United States
2009	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in North Carolina were on the road by 7:37 AM, 1 minute later than in 2009 (7:36 AM). Commuters in North Carolina now leave at about the same time as the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does North Carolina's commute time compare?

Metric	North Carolina	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	21.9 min	22.4 min
Work From Home	16.3%	15.0%
Walked	1.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in North Carolina is about the same as in US.

0.7% commute by public transit, lower than the 3.2% in US. 1.6% commute by walking, lower than the 2.4% in US.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau