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Cities With the Most People Working From Home – 2024 Study

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Written by Jaclyn DeJohn
Edited by Arturo Conde, CEPF®
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With the most recent U.S. Census Bureau designating the average commute time to work across large cities at 25 minutes, remote workers may save four hours per week or more compared to their in-person counterparts. Some commutes average up to 40 minutes one way. In an average city, 15.7% of workers are remote. But some cities have twice the rate of remote workers – or more. 

To find the largest remote workforces, SmartAsset ranked 344 of the largest U.S. cities by the percentage of workers working from home.

Key Findings

  • Cary, NC has the largest remote workforce at 41.4%. Just shy of 41,000 people work from home in Cary, giving it the largest remote workforce. For those not working remotely, the average commute time is 22.2 minutes – roughly 3 minutes shorter than average. Besides Cary, another 11 large cities have 33% or more of their workforce operating remotely.
  • Tech hubs rank among the top 20. Bellevue, WA ranks third with 38.7% of people working from home. Seattle ranks fifth with 36.0% of people working remotely, followed closely by Fremont in seventh with 35.2%. San Francisco ranks 14th with 32.5% of the workforce remote, while Austin comes in 19th with 30.7%. 
  • One-third of the top 25 biggest remote workforces are in California. In addition to Fremont and San Francisco, Berkeley (36.3%), Carlsbad (33.8%), Oakland (30.7%), Sunnyvale (39.7%), Irvine (28.6%) and Burbank (28.6%) have some of the biggest remote workforces. At the same time, California cities also take the top three spots for longest commute times: Palmdale (45.5 minutes), Histeria (42.1 minutes) and Antioch (41.3 minutes).
  • Sixteen percent of New York City’s workforce saves time on the fourth-longest commute. Workers in NYC deal with one of the longest commutes nationwide – more than 40 minutes. But they only rank near the middle of 344 cities (128th) for the percentage of remote workers. Just over one-sixth of Empire City’s workforce (635,000 people) is working remotely.
  • These Texas cities have the lowest rate of people working from home. Less than 3.8% of workers are remote in Beaumont and Odessa, TX. Corpus Christi (4.7%) and Midland (5.5%) also rank in the bottom 10.

Top 10 Cities With the Biggest Remote Workforces

  1. Cary, North Carolina
    Cary topped the list with 41.4% of its workforce operating from home, adding up to 40,900 individuals. The average commuter in this city faced a 22.2-minute trip to work.
  1. Frisco, Texas
    In Frisco, 39.7% of the workforce chose to work remotely. This adds up to 46,381 workers. For those commuting, the average travel time was 27.6 minutes.
  1. Bellevue, Washington
    Bellevue saw 38.7% of its workforce, or 32,045 people, working from home. Commuters here typically experienced a 23.1-minute travel to their workplaces.
  1. Berkeley, California
    Berkeley had 36.4% of its workforce, totaling 21,643 people, working remotely. The average travel time for commuters in this area was 28.7 minutes.
  1. Seattle, Washington
    Seattle reported that 36.0% of its workforce, which translates to 165,175 individuals, worked from home. The average commuter travel time in Seattle was 25.8 minutes.
  1. Arlington, Virginia
    Arlington experienced a remote working rate of 35.8%, with 53,843 of its workforce opting for home offices. The average commute time was recorded at 26.6 minutes.
  1. Fremont, California
    In Fremont, 35.2% of the workforce (39,339 workers) worked from home. Commuters in Fremont faced an average travel time of 27.1 minutes.
  1. Scottsdale, Arizona
    Scottsdale had 34.0% of its workforce (43,272 individuals) working remotely. The average travel time for those commuting was 22.5 minutes.
  1. Carlsbad, California
    Carlsbad was home to a remote workforce of 18,575, which made up 33.8% of its total workforce. The city's commuters faced an average journey of 31.7 minutes to work.
  1. Washington, D.C.
    Washington D.C. rounded out the top 10 with 33.8% of its workforce working from home. The average commute time here was 30.1 minutes.

Data and Methodology

This study considered 344 of the largest U.S. cities with populations of 100,000 or more. Data comes from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 1-Year American Community Survey for 2022. Cities were ranked by the percentage of those who worked from home out of all workers aged 16 and over.

Questions about our study? Contact us at press@smartasset.com

Photo credit: ©iStock.com/Antonio_Diaz

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