Self-storage operators still size markets with a three-mile circle on a map. The renters do not behave that way. The Self Storage Association's 2025 Demand Study, fielded February through March 2025 across 3,456 household surveys, found that 68% of tenants travel under 20 minutes to reach their unit. Ninety-one percent describe that travel time as satisfactory. List Self Storage published the full distance breakdown on June 11, 2026, and the numbers should reset how every acquisition team, developer, and marketing manager defines a facility's real trade area.
The headline is not that convenience matters. Everyone knows that. The headline is how sharply demand falls off once you move past a 20-minute drive, and how many feasibility models still count households on the wrong side of a river or highway because they sit inside a radius circle.
How Far Do Self-Storage Customers Actually Drive?
List Self Storage distilled the SSA travel-time data into five bands that operators can use immediately:
- 33% travel 10 minutes or less
- 36% travel between 10 and 19 minutes
- 18% travel between 20 and 29 minutes
- 6% travel between 30 and 44 minutes
- 6% travel 45 minutes or more
Combined, 69% of renters sit inside the first two buckets, under 20 minutes. That aligns with the SSA's 68% figure cited across industry analysis in 2026, including swivl's April 2026 marketing playbook built directly on the demand study.
The 33% who insist on a 10-minute trip are your frequency renters: people who need regular access and will not tolerate a long haul for a marginal rate discount. The 36% in the 10-to-19-minute band are the value shoppers. They will pass a closer competitor if pricing, security, or unit mix justifies the extra minutes.
The 18% willing to drive 20 to 29 minutes are where specialized product wins. Climate control, RV and boat parking, business storage, and premium security can pull customers from a wider geography. The final 12%, beyond 30 minutes, are chasing something specific: a facility reputation, a unit size unavailable locally, or a rate advantage large enough to justify the trip.
Why Does Drive Time Beat Radius in Site Selection?
Modern Storage Media's September 2025 analysis of drive time versus radius illustrates the failure mode. A three-mile radius around a site might show 3.3 square feet of storage per capita, suggesting undersupply. Draw a 20-minute drive-time polygon instead and supply per capita jumps to 19.8 because half the radius population cannot realistically reach the facility across a river without a 20-mile detour.
The SSA's 70% within-20-minutes finding makes that error expensive. Households on the far side of a barrier are not in your trade area just because a GIS circle says they are. Underwriting them inflates demand and depresses projected occupancy.
For acquisitions, this means pulling tenant address data and mapping actual drive times before trusting broker OM trade-area claims. For development, it means entitlement fights in submarkets where the reachable population is smaller than the census tract suggests. For marketing, it means paid search geofencing should follow a drive-time isochrone, not a zip code list.
Nearly 70 percent of renters live within a 20-minute drive of their self-storage unit.
- Modern Storage Media analysis, citing the SSA 2023 Self Storage Demand Study travel-time data
The 2025 edition confirms the pattern held through the most recent survey cycle.
What Should Operators Do With the 20-Minute Boundary?
Swivl's SSA-backed marketing framework, published April 28, 2026, treats the 20-minute drive as the hard edge of a facility's marketing universe. Inside that boundary, Google Business Profile accuracy, review velocity, and mobile-friendly online rental paths matter most because 67% of prospects rent from the first facility they contact and 58% of web searchers are on mobile.
Outside the boundary, only differentiated product justifies pursuit. A standard drive-up facility competing on a $5 monthly spread will not pull the 33% ultra-local segment from three towns over. A facility with covered RV storage, flex office suites, and expansion land might.
List Self Storage's June article also flags rural and secondary locations: 12% of tenants drive more than 30 minutes when the facility offers the right mix. That is encouraging for exurban sites, but only if the operator invests in the amenities that justify the trip. A bare-bones metal building in a cornfield is not the same trade.
The Numbers Worth Writing Down
- 68% of self-storage tenants travel under 20 minutes to their unit (SSA 2025 Demand Study)
- 91% describe their travel time as satisfactory (SSA 2025 Demand Study)
- 33% travel 10 minutes or less; 36% travel 10 to 19 minutes (List Self Storage, June 11, 2026)
- 18% travel 20 to 29 minutes; 12% travel 30 minutes or more (List Self Storage, June 11, 2026)
- 3,456 household surveys in the SSA 2025 in-depth sample; margins of error +/- 2% at 95% confidence
- 12.6% U.S. household penetration rate in 2024 per the same study cycle, up from prior editions
- Drive-time analysis can flip a market from undersupplied (3.3 sq. ft./capita in a 3-mile radius) to oversupplied (19.8 sq. ft./capita in a 10-minute drive) when topography blocks access
Radius Maps Are a Lazy Shortcut
The SSA did not publish travel-time data so brokers could paste it into pitch decks. It published the data because location selection and marketing spend still run on radius assumptions that systematically overcount reachable demand.
Operators who map customer addresses, draw 10- and 20-minute drive times, and compare competitive supply inside those polygons will make better buy, build, and budget decisions than operators who trust a three-mile circle drawn from the front gate. In a year when national advertised rates are still soft and every lease-up fights for share, underwriting the wrong geography is not a rounding error. It is a failed project.
Sources
- How Far Are Customers Willing to Travel for Self-Storage?, List Self Storage
- 2025 Demand Study Report, Self Storage Association
- Self Storage Marketing Plan: 90-Day, Data-Backed Playbook From The SSA Demand Study, swivl
- Drive Time Vs. Radius, Modern Storage Media