Most homes that still have lead paint look fine. Yours has a number.

Lead paint was banned in 1978, but the year your home was built says how likely it is to still be there. Type your ZIP code and we will show you the picture for your area, from public records covering 52 million American homes. Free, instant, no email.

Housing ages from U.S. Census records for 33,772 ZIP codes. Nothing you type here is stored.

What the year built means

These are the chances a U.S. home contains lead-based paint, by the era it was built, from the federal government's national housing survey (HUD American Healthy Homes Survey).

Built Chance of lead-based paint
Before 1940 87 in 100
1940 to 1959 69 in 100
1960 to 1977 24 in 100
1978 or later 3 in 100

A high chance does not mean your home is poisoning anyone today. Intact, painted-over lead paint can sit quietly for decades. It becomes a hazard when it chips, peels, or turns to dust, which is why the next step is to look, not to panic.

Your number is a starting point. Here is the path.

1
Take the 60-second screener
Eight questions about your home and habits. It turns your home's age into a personal exposure picture for your family, including the routes people miss: dust, soil, dishes, water. Free.
2
Test the actual surfaces
Records tell you the odds. A test tells you the answer. You spray a small amount of a reagent (methylammonium bromide) on a surface, and under a UV flashlight it glows bright green wherever there is lead paint or lead dust. The Full Test Kit is $75.
3
Renting, or in assisted housing?
If you live in public housing, use a voucher, or rent a pre-1978 home, you have specific rights, and we keep a separate page for that, including the age of 283,269 federally connected buildings.

This is not a guess

The method behind these numbers is published, public, and checked against real children's blood-lead results in eleven states. The housing ages come from county assessor and U.S. Census records. You can read the whole thing.

Read the white paper Open the national map

Ritter EC. Childhood Lead-Exposure Prevention Through Predictive Mapping of At-Risk Housing Nationwide. 2026. Code and derived data archived at DOI 10.5281/zenodo.20531598. Era probabilities from HUD's American Healthy Homes Survey. A lookup on this page is a screening estimate from public records, not an inspection, and the only way to know for certain is to test.

Fluoro-Spec Inc. 9 Technology Dr, East Setauket NY 11733 · eric@fluorospect.com · 631-461-1838. It is a violation of Federal law to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling and intended use. See Safety & Compliance.