A commuter town is an urban community that is primarily residential, from which most of the workforce commutes out to earn their livelihood. Many commuter towns act as suburbs of a nearby metropolis that workers travel to daily, and many suburbs are commuter towns. Commuter towns belong to the metropolitan area of a city, and a ring of commuter towns around an urban area is known as a commuter belt.

A commuter town may also be known as a bedroom community or bedroom suburb (Canada and U.S. usage), a dormitory town or dormitory suburb (UK Commonwealth and Ireland usage), or less commonly a dormitory village (UK Commonwealth and Ireland). These terms suggest that residents sleep in these neighborhoods, but normally work elsewhere; they also suggest that these communities have little commercial or industrial activity beyond a small amount of retail, oriented toward serving the residents.

Suburbs and commuter towns are often the same place, but sometimes not. As with college town, resort town, and mill town, the term commuter town describes the place's predominant economic function. A suburb in contrast is a community of lesser size, density, political power and/or commerce than a nearby community. Economic function may change, for example when improved transport brings commuters to industrial suburbs or railway towns in search of suburban living. Some suburbs, for example Teterboro, New Jersey and Emeryville, California, remain industrial when they become surrounded by commuter towns. Many commuters work in such industrial suburbs, but few reside, hence they are not commuter towns.