Portsmouth Commute Time Map & Patterns

Help

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

You 9/24/26, 4:09 PM

How long is the round-trip commute in Portsmouth?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:09 PM

Commute Time Burden in Portsmouth: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Portsmouth spend about 36 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 148 hours, about 6.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 21% less time on the road than the New Hampshire average of 22.5 minutes each way, a difference of 4.7 minutes.

Portsmouth holds about 1.5% of New Hampshire's population but accounts for roughly 1.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Portsmouth would save about 59 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,839 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)
Portsmouth	17.8 min	35.6 min	148 hrs/yr	$4,596	2,365
New Hampshire	22.5 min	45.0 min	188 hrs/yr	$5,813	1,232
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.

Portsmouth Commute Map

On average, it takes 17.8 minutes to get to work in Portsmouth. That's 21% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 21.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Portsmouth

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Portsmouth: 3.5 times more than the New Hampshire average (0.4% vs 0.1%).

Biking is unusually common in Portsmouth: 3.5 times more than the New Hampshire average (0.7% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Portsmouth, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Portsmouth 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	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Motorcycle	Other	Taxi
2009	87.5%	4.9%	5.1%	1.2%	1.0%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	86.2%	5.3%	5.2%	1.5%	1.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2011	83.6%	6.6%	5.8%	1.7%	1.6%	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%
2012	82.9%	7.2%	5.7%	1.8%	1.5%	0.3%	0.5%	0.0%
2013	81.8%	7.5%	6.7%	1.7%	2.0%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2014	81.9%	8.4%	6.5%	1.5%	1.3%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2015	82.5%	9.2%	5.5%	1.5%	0.8%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%
2016	82.8%	8.5%	5.4%	1.4%	1.0%	0.1%	0.7%	0.0%
2017	83.0%	7.9%	6.0%	1.5%	0.7%	0.1%	0.8%	0.0%
2018	81.2%	8.4%	7.2%	1.7%	0.7%	0.1%	0.8%	0.0%
2019	80.5%	9.5%	6.9%	1.4%	0.5%	0.1%	1.1%	0.0%
2020	80.7%	10.6%	5.4%	1.2%	0.7%	0.2%	1.1%	0.0%
2021	78.3%	14.1%	4.4%	1.3%	0.6%	0.3%	1.1%	0.0%
2022	74.8%	17.3%	4.7%	1.6%	0.8%	0.3%	0.7%	0.0%
2023	71.7%	20.1%	5.2%	1.2%	0.6%	0.5%	0.7%	0.0%
2024	71.7%	21.4%	4.3%	1.0%	0.7%	0.4%	0.4%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 87.5% in 2009 to 71.7% in 2024, down 15.8 percentage points.

Working from home gained the most ground in Portsmouth: its share of workers rose from 4.9% in 2009 to 21.4% in 2024, up 16.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 11.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 5.1% to 4.3% of workers (down 0.8 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2010 release and has stayed ahead since.

Biking peaked at 2.0% in 2013 and has since fallen back to 0.7%.

Commute Start Times in Portsmouth

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Portsmouth?

The bars show when commuters in Portsmouth 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 New Hampshire for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		2.7%
5:00-5:29 AM		1.2%
5:30-5:59 AM		3.6%
6:00-6:29 AM		6.2%
6:30-6:59 AM		10.6%
7:00-7:29 AM		11.2%
7:30-7:59 AM		13.2%
8:00-8:29 AM		20.5%
8:30-8:59 AM		7.3%
9:00-9:59 AM		7.6%
10:00-10:59 AM		4.6%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.9%
12:00-3:59 PM		5.6%
4:00-11:59 PM		3.8%

Portsmouth New Hampshire Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Portsmouth is 8:00-8:29 AM, when 20.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 10.7% across New Hampshire. Early starts are less common than in New Hampshire: 7.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.3% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in New Hampshire: 55.5% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 50.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (23.5%) 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 Portsmouth, 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 Portsmouth 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 Portsmouth next to New Hampshire 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	Portsmouth	New Hampshire	United States
2009	7:58 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:58 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:56 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2012	8:01 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:57 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:59 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:58 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	8:00 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2017	8:00 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2018	8:02 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2019	8:02 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	8:03 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2021	8:00 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:59 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:58 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2024	8:02 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Portsmouth were on the road by 8:02 AM, 4 minutes later than in 2009 (7:58 AM). That goes against the trend across New Hampshire, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Portsmouth now leave 24 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Portsmouth's commute time compare?

Metric	Portsmouth	New Hampshire	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.8 min	22.5 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	21.4%	16.8%	15.0%
Walked	4.3%	2.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.0%	0.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Portsmouth is 17.8 minutes, shorter than the 22.5 minutes in New Hampshire.

1.0% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.5% in New Hampshire. 4.3% commute by walking, higher than the 2.3% in New Hampshire.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Is living in Portsmouth, New Hampshire good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 148 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,596 at a typical national wage. That's 21% less than the typical New Hampshire commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Portsmouth, New Hampshire?

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