Best PlacesFort Thomas, KY Best Neighborhoods

2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026

Every neighborhood in and around Fort Thomas, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. Local pay runs high here, and housing takes the biggest bite out of it. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.

See the map of best neighborhoods

Fort Thomas ranks 6,759th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on transit by a wide margin, and noise is the weak spot.

#6,759
of 50,333 towns
BestNeighborhood rank
Defaults weight crime safety, affordability, schools, and weather highest: the things hardest to change after a move
N/A
of 50,333 towns
Your rank
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The best neighborhoods in Fort Thomas

Map of the best neighborhoods in the Fort Thomas area, with better matches in green and worse matches in red
Click the map to explore
National median
Worse match Better match
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BestNeighborhood is the only ranking that scores 40 measures of daily life neighborhood by neighborhood and lets you re-weight every one of them yourself.

Fort Thomas' strengths and weaknesses

Top 5%Transit
Top 5%Biking
Top 5%An educated workforce
Each measure against the national median. Bars to the right beat the median; bars to the left fall short. Percentiles compare Fort Thomas with other towns.

Where Fort Thomas ranks high

  • TransitBetter than 97% of towns
  • BikingBetter than 96% of towns
  • Educational attainmentBetter than 96% of towns
  • Healthcare accessBetter than 93% of towns
  • Low vacancyBetter than 92% of towns

Where Fort Thomas ranks low

  • QuietBetter than only 4% of towns
  • Nice weatherabout 64 pleasant days a year, better than only 14% of towns
  • Cheap car insuranceBetter than only 15% of towns
  • Low property taxBetter than only 19% of towns
  • Air qualityBetter than only 27% of towns

What it costs to buy a home in Fort Thomas

A household needs to earn about $86,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Fort Thomas home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $101,085, so a typical household can afford the median home outright.

Income to buy the median home
$86,000
a year, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate
Estimated monthly payment
$2,002
principal, interest, tax, and insurance on a $310,862 home
Median rent
$1,071
a month, across all home sizes

Where the monthly payment goes

Principal & interest$1,585
Property tax$314
Homeowners insurance$104

Assumes a 20% down payment, a 6.6% 30-year fixed rate, and a 28% share of income going to the payment. The rate is the 2026-07-23 30-year fixed average, series MORTGAGE30US from the St. Louis Fed, which publishes Freddie Mac's weekly survey. Against the median home value, property tax uses Fort Thomas' effective rate of 1.21%, and insurance is estimated at 0.4% of home value a year.

Renting versus buying

At today's prices and rents, renting stays cheaper than buying across the first 10 years here, so the case for buying rests on staying much longer or on prices rising faster than assumed. The chart tracks the running cost of each.

Cumulative cost of renting versus owning the median home, first 10 years. Illustrative estimate.

Who lives in Fort Thomas

Fort Thomas's age mix sits close to the national median.

Median age
39
about the U.S. median of 41
Residents 65 and older
17%
versus 18% nationally
Average household
2.5
near the U.S. average of 2.6

Residents by age

Under 1824%
18 to 3421%
35 to 4919%
50 to 6418%
65 and older17%

Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Fort Thomas.


Who works in Fort Thomas, and how

Work in Fort Thomas centers on health care & social and professional & technical. Unemployment is close to the national rate, and jobs are growing.

Work from home
17%
above the national average
Unemployment
3.7%
below the national average
Job growth
+2.3%
/y 2019-2023, near the national pace

Largest industries

Health care & social18%
Professional & technical12%
Finance & insurance11%
Education10%
Manufacturing8%

How people get to work

  • Drive or carpool 79%
  • Work from home 17%
  • Transit, walk, or bike 3%

Life in Fort Thomas

Fort Thomas has more restaurants and bars per resident than 96% of towns and more parkland per resident than 96% of towns. Dining, parks, and nightlife concentrates in some parts of Fort Thomas and thins out in others, which the map shows.

Places to eat and drink
386
restaurants, bars, and fast food, about 231.6 per 10,000 residents, more than 96% of towns
Coffee shops
46
about 27.6 per 10,000 residents, more than 96% of towns
Parkland
234 acres
about 14.0 acres per 1,000 residents, more than 96% of towns

What the weather is like in Fort Thomas, month by month

Fort Thomas sees roughly 64 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 89 degrees. January highs sit near 44, with lows near 23. The comfortable stretch runs May, June, and August through October.

Average daily high, mean, and low in degrees Fahrenheit, NOAA station data 2016 to 2025.
Show the monthly temperatures
MonthAvg highAvgAvg low
January44°33°23°
April69°54°41°
July89°76°65°
October72°57°45°

Flying in and out of Fort Thomas

Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International sits about 12 miles away. It is a medium hub and boarded 4.4 million passengers in 2025, with 99 nonstop destinations.

Nearest airport
CVG
Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International, about 12 miles
Airport size
Medium hub
50th-busiest in the US, 99 nonstop destinations
Average drive
17 min
from the area, with no traffic

The best schools in and around Fort Thomas

Schools across Fort Thomas average a B+, better than 78% of towns.

Top elementary schools

Top middle schools

Top high schools

Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Fort Thomas school and its grade on SchoolGrade.


Fort Thomas measure by measure

Cards are ordered by how much each measure matters to you, so the ones you weighted highest come first. Expand to see every measure. Percentages compare Fort Thomas against the other 50,332 towns.


Common questions about living in Fort Thomas

Is Fort Thomas a good place to live?

Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Fort Thomas ranks 6,759th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on transit, biking, and an educated workforce, and lowest on noise and the weather. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.

Is Fort Thomas expensive to live in?

The median home is worth $310,862. The overall cost of living runs about 5% below the national average. Set against a $101,085 median income, cost of living beats 86% of towns.

Is Fort Thomas safe?

Fort Thomas is safer than 29% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $347 per resident a year.


Compare Fort Thomas with other towns


Sources and methodology

Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Fort Thomas. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Fort Thomas represents the same real quantity as a 60 anywhere else, and the ranking is a weighted average of those absolutes. The map colors come from a national scale calibrated against a population weighted random sample of 5,000 neighborhoods. That absolute scoring is what no other places-to-live ranking does: it puts a single neighborhood, a town, a metro, and a state on one scale, so the same 40 measures answer both which metro to move to and which street inside it to buy on. Read the full methodology.

Fort Thomas detail on BestNeighborhood maps:

  1. Walk Grade for Fort Thomas: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
  2. Noise in Fort Thomas: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
  3. Conservative vs liberal map of Fort Thomas: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
  4. Mobile and cell coverage in Fort Thomas: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.

Fort Thomas detail on related sites:

  1. CrimeGrade: neighborhood crime rates behind the crime safety score.
  2. ISPreports.org: provider by provider internet availability and advertised speeds.
  3. CoverageWatch: the car insurance premiums behind the cheap car insurance score.

Federal and public data:

  1. U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey: income, home value, rent, vacancy, commute time and mode, educational attainment, home age, age structure, household type, industry, and race.
  2. NOAA Global Surface Summary of the Day: the daily station record behind the monthly temperatures and the pleasant-day count.
  3. FAA Passenger Boarding Data: airport size and annual passenger counts.
  4. Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey: the 30-year fixed rate used in the cost-to-buy estimate.
  5. FBI Crime Data Explorer: reported offenses behind the tangible crime cost estimate.
  6. U.S. EPA Air Quality System: five year average air quality index.
  7. FEMA National Risk Index: expected annual loss from natural hazards.
  8. CDC PLACES: disease burden, preventable risk, and barriers to care.
  9. National Center for Education Statistics: school enrollment and assessment inputs behind the school grade.
  10. FCC National Broadband Map: internet and wireless availability.
  11. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: employment and job growth behind the local economy score.
  12. Religious activity uses a proprietary religious signal measurement.