Miami vs St. Petersburg: which should you move to?
Miami or St. Petersburg? Housing, rent, crime, climate, income, taxes and transit, side by side, from each city's own published figures. Written for someone deciding where to live, not for a ranking.
Both cities are in Florida and price in US dollars, so neither takes income tax, a single filer on $100,000 pays the same $13,449 in federal tax in each, sales tax is 7% in both counties, and the homestead rules are the same. Both houses are Zillow's typical home value for June 2026 at the same 6.67% rate, so the figures net directly: Miami's typical home was $582,621 and St. Petersburg's $355,759, and mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $4,404 a month against $2,742. That is roughly 80% of the City of Miami's median household income of $66,337 and 45% of St. Petersburg's $73,048, and rent runs the same way, $3,004 against $2,058 on Zillow's observed rent index. The two millages are almost equal, 19.9878 and 19.9197, so the tax gap is the price gap. Crime is mixed on the FBI's 2025 counts for both: Miami's violent rate is lower, 358.6 per 100,000 against 492 on the same agency-population basis, its property rate higher, 2,240.8 against 2,020, and it had 26 homicides against 9. Miami's January is 6.4 F warmer, its metro unemployment 3.7% against 4.8%, and it has rail and a hub airport. Both coasts take hurricanes, and St. Petersburg's 2024 surge was the highest on its gauge's record. Choose Miami for a 20.3 C January, Metrorail and the Metromover, the tighter job market and MIA. Choose St. Petersburg for a house local pay can carry, rent about two-thirds of Miami's, fewer homicides and a smaller waterfront downtown, if you will drive most days and buy on elevation.
| Measure | Miami | St. Petersburg | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| City population | 489,812 (2025) | 264,033 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
| Metro population | 6,391,072 (2025) | 3,418,895 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
| Five-year growth Growth is pressure on rents and roads as much as it is opportunity, so it is reported without a winner. | 10.8% (2020-2025) | 2.2% (2020-2025) | Not directly comparable |
What a home costs in each
The figures the two cities' rent-versus-buy and mortgage calculators run on, read from the same tables.
| Measure | Miami | St. Petersburg | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Benchmark home price MLS® HPI or equivalent benchmark. Lower is treated as the advantage, which is the buyer's view rather than the owner's. | $582,621 (June 2026) | $355,759 (June 2026) | St. Petersburg |
| Detached house benchmark Miami and St. Petersburg publish a single house index rather than a composite, so the two rows repeat. | $582,621 | $355,759 | St. Petersburg |
| Apartment or condominium benchmark | Not published | Not published | Not directly comparable |
| Two-bedroom rent | $3,004/mo (median, June 2026) | $2,058/mo (median, June 2026) | St. Petersburg |
| One-bedroom rent | $2,583/mo | $1,770/mo | St. Petersburg |
| Two-bedroom rent against median income A year of two-bedroom rent as a share of the median household income below. A household paying the median rent out of the median income is a fiction, but it is the same fiction in both columns and it crosses currencies. | 54.3% of a year's income | 33.8% of a year's income | St. Petersburg |
| Mortgage payment on the benchmark, 20% down 30-year amortization on American monthly compounding, the convention in both. | $2,998/mo at 6.67% | $1,831/mo at 6.67% | St. Petersburg |
| Price to household income Benchmark price divided by the median household income below. A ratio is comparable across currencies; the dollars are not. | 8.8× | 4.9× | St. Petersburg |
| Property tax on the benchmark home The effective rate on market value, which is what the two rates have in common and what the Advantage column is decided on; the bills are in each city's own dollars. | $10,808/yr (1.855%, 2025) | $6,248/yr (1.756%, 2025) | St. Petersburg |
| Transfer tax on the benchmark home Compared as a share of the price. Where the seller pays it, it is a cost of leaving rather than arriving. | $3,496 (seller pays) | $2,490 (seller pays) | Miami |
| Rent control A cap protects a sitting tenant and does nothing for the next lease, so neither column is simply better. | Forbidden by state law | Forbidden by state law | Not directly comparable |
Miami: About 1.86% of what you pay for the house, which is lower than the 19.9878 mills charged here, and the difference is Florida's homestead exemption rather than any assessment lag. The state assesses at full market value and a purchase resets the assessment to the price. What there is instead is an exemption: $25,000 of taxable value comes off for every taxing authority and a second slice comes off for all of them except the school district, which levies 6.4990 of the 19.9878. That second slice was $25,000 through the 2024 tax roll and has been adjusted for inflation every 1 January since, under the 2024 amendment to Article VII section 6 of the state constitution, so it is now somewhat more than $25,000. The figures here use the base amount, because the Department of Revenue sends the adjusted figure to the county property appraisers rather than publishing it. The difference is worth a few dollars a year on a bill, and the county property appraiser can tell you the amount in force. A homesteaded buyer's first-year bill is therefore about $10,808 on the $582,621 typical home value here. Miami runs its own fire department, so it pays none of the county's 2.3965-mill Fire Rescue district levy. One of only five municipalities in Miami-Dade in that position, and worth more than most municipal rates on this table. The exemption is not automatic: you file for it with the Miami-Dade Property Appraiser by 1 March of the year after you buy. The seller's tax bill is not a guide to yours. Save Our Homes caps a homesteaded property's assessed value at 3% growth a year, and that cap resets to full market value the January after the sale, so a long-tenured owner can be taxed on a fraction of what you will be taxed on for the same house. Ask the property appraiser what the assessment would be at your purchase price, not what the current bill is. St. Petersburg: About 1.76% of what you pay for the house, which is lower than the 19.9197 mills St. Petersburg is charged, and the difference is Florida's homestead exemption rather than any assessment lag. The state assesses at full market value and a purchase resets the assessment to the price. What there is instead is an exemption: $25,000 of taxable value comes off for every taxing authority and a second slice comes off for all of them except the Pinellas County school board, which levies 6.2930 of the 19.9197. That second slice was $25,000 through the 2024 tax roll and has been adjusted for inflation every 1 January since, under the 2024 amendment to Article VII section 6 of the state constitution, so it is now somewhat more than $25,000. The figures here use the base amount, because the Department of Revenue sends the adjusted figure to the county property appraisers rather than publishing it. The difference is worth a few dollars a year on a bill, and the county property appraiser can tell you the amount in force. A homesteaded buyer's first-year bill is therefore about $6,248 on the $355,759 typical home value here. That 19.9197 is the figure Pinellas County publishes for this taxing district rather than a total assembled here, and St. Petersburg's own council sets 6.4525 of it. The exemption is not automatic: you file for it with the county property appraiser by 1 March of the year after you buy. The seller's tax bill is not a guide to yours. Save Our Homes caps a homesteaded property's assessed value at 3% growth a year, and that cap resets to full market value the January after the sale, so a long-tenured owner can be taxed on a fraction of what you will be taxed on for the same house. Ask the property appraiser what the assessment would be at your purchase price, not what the current bill is.
How safe each city is, by the numbers it publishes
Police-reported figures for the most recent year each force or statistics agency has released. Rates describe a whole city or metro area, and the spread between neighbourhoods inside one city is usually wider than the gap between the two cities.
| Measure | Miami | St. Petersburg | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crime Severity Index Statistics Canada's weighted index for the metropolitan area, where 100 is Canada in 2006. American cities have no equivalent series. | Not published | Not published | Not directly comparable |
| Violent crime per 100,000 | 359 (2025) | 502 (2025) | Miami |
| Property crime per 100,000 | 2,241 (2025) | 2,059 (2025) | St. Petersburg |
| Homicides Counts, not rates, and a single year in a small city moves a long way on chance alone. What each figure covers is under the table. | 26 (2025) | 9 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
FBI CDE counts for Miami PD show violent offenses falling from 2,245 in 2023 to 2,225 in 2024 and 1,787 in 2025 (a 20 percent one-year drop), property offenses from 13,928 to 11,178, and homicides from 61 in 2020 to 26 in 2025. Mid-2025 the department reported robberies down 17 percent and auto thefts down 37 percent against the first half of 2024.
What the rates cover: Miami Police Department (ORI FL0130600), FBI Crime Data Explorer NIBRS summarized data, 1,787 violent offenses in calendar 2025 against a CDE agency population of 498,792. 2024: 2,225 offenses, 483.1 per 100k. Miami PD moved to NIBRS mid 2022, so 2021 is blank and 2022 is a partial year in the CDE.
Homicides: Miami PD, FBI CDE: 26 murders and nonnegligent manslaughters in 2025, 5.2 per 100k. 2024: 29 (6.4 per 100k), 2023: 32 (7.1), 2020: 61 (12.8). Miami PD said in July 2025 the city might beat its record low of 24 set in 1946.
Down, and clearly so in 2025. On the FBI CDE's annual totals violent offenses were 1,622 in 2022, 1,519 in 2023, 1,642 in 2024 and 1,325 in 2025, about 618, 573, 618 and 502 per 100,000 on each year's Vintage 2025 population, so 2025 was 19% below 2024 after three flat years. Property offenses fell from 7,052 in 2023 to 6,528 in 2024 and 5,437 in 2025, down 17% in the last year, with motor vehicle theft more than halved from 917 in 2023 to 407. The department's own figures agree in direction and nearly in count: it reported overall crime down 16% in 2025, 175 robberies against a five-year average of 224, and 406 auto thefts against an average of 735 (Patch). The CDE counts were read on 1 October 2026 from a feed last refreshed on 15 September and can still be revised.
What the rates cover: Computed: 1,325 violent offenses (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) in the FBI Crime Data Explorer's summarized data for the St. Petersburg Police Department (ORI FL0521400) in calendar 2025, divided by the 264,033 Vintage 2025 city population. On the CDE's own agency population of 269,098 the rate is 492. That is close to Boston's 507 and Jacksonville's 514, above Tampa's 375.5 (on the Tampa Police Department's own counts) and Miami's 359, and almost four times Port St. Lucie's 130. The department reports to the CDE as annual totals rather than month by month, and the CDE carries a full year for each of 2022 to 2025 and nothing for 2021.
Homicides: 9 murders and nonnegligent manslaughters in 2025 in the FBI CDE, about 3.4 per 100,000 on the city population, against Tampa's 17 (4.1), Orlando's 10 (3.0) and Port St. Lucie's 4 (1.5). The department's own count, announced in January 2026, is 10 homicides, which it called the fewest since 1967, when the city had six, and 44% fewer than the 18 of 2024 (Patch, reporting the St. Petersburg Police Department). The CDE series is 16 in 2022, 13 in 2023, 18 in 2024 and 9 in 2025.
Winters, summers and what the weather can do to a house
| Measure | Miami | St. Petersburg | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| January mean | 20.3 °C | 16.8 °C | Not directly comparable |
| July mean | 28.9 °C | 28.8 °C | Not directly comparable |
| Precipitation a year | 1,712 mm | 1,185 mm | Not directly comparable |
| Snowfall a year | 0 cm | 0 cm | Not directly comparable |
| Sunshine a year | 3,154 hours | Not published | Not directly comparable |
NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 monthly normals at Miami International Airport (USW00012839): January mean 68.6 F, July 84.1 F (August is warmest at 84.2 F), annual mean 77.4 F, annual precipitation 67.41 in, snow 0. Sunshine about 3,154 hours a year comes from NOAA Comparative Climatic Data (older period), not the 1991-2020 normals. Hazards: hurricanes and storm surge, seasonal king tide and rainfall flooding, heat and humidity from May to October, frequent thunderstorms (roughly 80 thunder days a year).
Hazards: Hurricanes and storm surge every June to November, with chronic tidal and rain flooding; windstorm and separate NFIP or private flood cover are a real carrying cost and coastal home premiums commonly run $4,000 to $7,000 a year or more.
NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals for St. Petersburg Albert Whitted Airport (station USW00092806), the downtown waterfront airport about a mile east of the city's center, which is the station the brief names and has full temperature and precipitation normals: January mean 62.2F, July mean 83.8F, annual mean 74.7F, 46.65 in of precipitation. The airport's normals carry no snowfall, so the 0.0 in of snow stored here is the normal at the St. Petersburg cooperative station (USC00087886), at the same coordinates in NCEI's listing. August is the warmest month by two tenths of a degree at 84.0F, with a mean high of 89.8F; January's mean low is 55.3F. August (8.39 in) and July (7.49 in) are the wettest months, and June through September bring 29.33 in, 63% of the year; November (1.46 in) is the driest. The normals count 70.9 days a year at 90F or above, none at 100F and 0.1 nights at or below freezing. Converted here to 16.8 C, 28.8 C, 1,185 mm and 0 cm. The other stations bracket it: the cooperative station averages 62.1F in January and 83.9F in July with 52.48 in a year, and St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport (USW00012873), about 10 miles north and away from the bay, 61.6F and 83.1F with 53.62 in and 94.1 days at 90F. St. Petersburg's year is almost Tampa's (Tampa International's 62.0F and 83.8F); its January is level with Port St. Lucie's (62.3F), warmer than Orlando's (60.6F) and six degrees colder than Miami's (68.6F). Sunshine is not stored: Current Results' US city table, the source and 1961-1990 basis of the other US profiles' sunshine hours, lists Tampa (2,927 hours, at Tampa International) and no St. Petersburg station, and the 1991-2020 normals do not include sunshine; the city's nickname, the Sunshine City, rests on a Guinness record of 768 consecutive sunny days from 1967 to 1969 (Wikipedia), not on a measured annual total.
Hazards: Storm surge is the defining hazard, and 2024 showed how much of the city sits low. Hurricane Helene passed offshore on 26 September 2024 on its way to a Big Bend landfall, and the National Ocean Service tide gauge at St. Petersburg, the longest record in Tampa Bay, dating to 1947, measured 6.31 ft above mean higher high water, far above its previous record of 3.97 ft in Hurricane Elena in 1985 (National Hurricane Center). Twelve people drowned in the surge in Pinellas County, two of them in St. Petersburg and nine on the barrier islands from St. Pete Beach to Indian Rocks Beach, and Helene destroyed at least 419 homes in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties and did major damage to at least 18,512 structures (NHC). Albert Whitted recorded a gust of 82 mph that day. Two weeks later, on 9 October, Hurricane Milton came ashore at Siesta Key, about 35 miles south, as a Category 3; its track spared the bay a surge but not the rain or the wind. Albert Whitted measured 18.54 in (471 mm) on 9 October, the wettest day in its record since 2010, and the NHC gives the airport 18.88 in for the storm and a gust of 88 kt (101 mph); a volunteer gauge near the city recorded 20.40 in, the highest storm total anywhere in Milton's path. Milton tore most of the fabric roof off Tropicana Field (NHC) and toppled a construction crane onto a downtown office building that housed the Tampa Bay Times (Bay News 9). The Rays played the 2025 season at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa and returned on 6 April 2026 after repairs (Wikipedia). Wikipedia notes that neither storm made landfall in the city and that the last hurricane to strike it directly was in 1921. Heat is long rather than extreme: 70.9 days a year at 90F or above on the normals and none at 100F (37.8 C); Albert Whitted recorded 128 such days in 2024, the most in its record since 2010, and 94 in 2026 through 28 September. Frost is almost unknown on the waterfront: one night at 32F (0 C), on 18 January 2018, since 2010, and a lowest reading of 36F in 2026 on 1 February.
What people earn and what the government takes
| Measure | Miami | St. Petersburg | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income | $66,337 USD (2024) | $73,048 USD (2024) | St. Petersburg |
| Unemployment rate | 3.0% (June 2026) | 4.8% (July 2026) | Miami |
| Sales tax | 7% | 7% | Even |
| Top marginal income tax Federal plus provincial or state. The American figure leaves out payroll taxes and the cost of health insurance, both of which a Canadian household covers through the tax it pays here. | 37% | 37% | Even |
| Income tax on $100,000, single filer Miami and St. Petersburg sit under one province's or state's income tax, so the two cells describe the same tax and any difference between them is one of method rather than of tax. Florida levies no income tax, so both cells are the federal bill on $100,000 and they agree to the dollar. The Advantage column is Even for that reason, and the essay below says the same thing. | $13,449 USD | $13,449 USD | Even |
Nonfarm employment in the Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall metropolitan division was 1,351,000 in June 2026, up 8,800 (0.7 percent) over the year, led by education and health services (+6,100) and professional and business services (+4,800); Broward shed 5,000 jobs over the same period. MIA handled nearly 3.5 million tons of cargo in 2025, the most of any US airport.
Main sectors: Trade, transportation and logistics (port and airport), Tourism and hospitality, Finance and professional services, Health care and education, Real estate and construction.
No state or local income tax. Property tax and insurance are the taxes and costs that bite in Miami: homestead exemption and the Save Our Homes 3 percent assessment cap favour long-time owners over new buyers.
BLS counted 1,559,600 nonfarm jobs in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater MSA in August 2026 (not seasonally adjusted, preliminary), up 14,200 or 0.9% on the year. Private education and health services added the most (+9,700, or 3.8%, to 264,400), then professional and business services (+6,000, or 2.1%, to 288,800) and construction (+1,600, to 99,600), while information lost 1,700 (-5.6%, to 28,600) and federal employment 1,000 (to 30,900). The city's own employment picture is a headquarters town's: the ten principal private employers in its 2025 financial report, led by Raymond James (4,800), Johns Hopkins All Children's (2,800), Power Design and Jabil (1,700 each), employ 17,837, or 12.5% of the 147,705 people working in the city, against 20,300 for the 2016 list, which then included HSN, FIS and Bayfront Medical. Much of the commercial activity is in the Gateway area in the city's north, which it shares with Pinellas Park (Wikipedia). Unlike Port St. Lucie, most residents work in their own county: 14% of the city's workers (20,739 of 144,736) worked outside Pinellas County in 2024, 21.3% worked from home, and the mean commute for the rest was 25 minutes, with 5% spending an hour or more (ACS 2024 1-year, B08007, B08013, B08301 and B08303).
Main sectors: Finance and insurance: Raymond James, headquartered in the city and its largest private employer with 4,800 staff, Franklin Templeton (1,200) and the credit union service organization PSCU (800), in a metro with 142,400 financial activities jobs in August 2026, Health care: Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital (2,800 staff), BayCare's St. Anthony's Hospital (1,437), HCA (1,350) and Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital, in a metro sector (private education and health services, 264,400 jobs) that added 9,700 jobs over the year, Manufacturing and engineering: Jabil, the electronics manufacturer headquartered in the city (1,700), Catalent Pharma Solutions (800) and Power Design, an electrical contractor (1,700), Utilities: Duke Energy Florida, headquartered in the city (1,250 staff), Tourism, arts and sports: the Dali Museum, the Pier, seven miles of public waterfront parks, the Rays at Tropicana Field and the IndyCar Grand Prix on downtown streets (leisure and hospitality, 167,300 metro jobs).
Property tax is the local levy that matters. Tax Foundation puts Florida's effective property tax rate on owner-occupied homes at 0.78%, and a homestead exemption takes as much as $50,000 off a permanent residence's taxable value, with the Save Our Homes limit on how fast its assessment can rise (Florida Department of Revenue). A St. Petersburg home paid 19.9197 mills for 2025 on the Pinellas County Tax Collector's published total, of which the city's own rate is 6.4525; a little above Tampa's 19.8428 in the same layer. On 17 September 2026 the City Council voted 6 to 2 to keep the city rate at 6.4525 mills for fiscal 2027, the rate it has levied since fiscal 2025, which is above the 6.3854-mill rolled-back rate and so needed a two-thirds vote; rising taxable values, about $39.3 billion, bring the city about $14.8 million more (St Pete Catalyst). Zillow's typical home value for the city was $355,759 in June 2026, down 3.9% on the year, and its typical rent $2,058; the bills, insurance and flood exposure that follow from them belong to the housing layer.
Whether you need a car
| Measure | Miami | St. Petersburg | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| System | Miami-Dade Transit (Metrorail, Metromover, Metrobus); Brightline and Tri-Rail regional rail | Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA), the countywide agency formed in 1984 from the St. Petersburg Municipal Transit System and the Central Pinellas Transit Authority: more than 34 bus routes including two express routes to Tampa, the Central Avenue and Suncoast Beach trolleys, and the SunRunner, Tampa Bay's first bus rapid transit line, which opened on 21 October 2022 from downtown St. Petersburg along First Avenues North and South to St. Pete Beach every 15 minutes (Wikipedia). The Cross-Bay Ferry between downtown St. Petersburg and downtown Tampa ran seasonally for eight seasons until its operator's contract ended after 2025, and PSTA bought two vessels in June 2026 to restart it (Wikipedia). There is no passenger rail: CSX's freight branch ends at a small yard northwest of downtown, the line into downtown having been abandoned in 2008. | Not directly comparable |
| Commute by public transit | 7.7% (2024) | 2.1% (2024) | Miami |
| Walk or cycle to work | 5.7% (2024) | 2.9% (2024) | Miami |
| Airport | Miami International Airport, MIA, 55.3 million passengers in 2025 (about 1 percent below 2024's record 55.9 million), per Miami-Dade Aviation Department release of May 4 2026 | St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport (PIE), owned by Pinellas County about 9 miles north of downtown, handled a record 2,794,067 passengers in 2025, 13.6% more than 2024's 2,458,674, almost all of them on Allegiant Air, which uses it as an operating base (Wikipedia). Most of the city's air travel goes through Tampa International Airport (TPA), about 16 miles to the northeast across the Howard Frankland Bridge, which handled 24,811,007 passengers in 2025 (TPA, as in Tampa's profile). Albert Whitted Airport on the downtown waterfront serves general aviation. | Not directly comparable |
Miami-Dade Transit carried 80,797,500 unlinked trips in 2025 (APTA ridership report, as cited on Wikipedia): Metrorail 14,971,300, Metromover 7,683,800, the rest on Metrobus. Q4 2025 weekday averages: Metrorail 50,300, Metromover 25,600, system 259,400.
PSTA carried 10,441,618 unlinked trips in 2025 on the National Transit Database's monthly ridership file (Federal Transit Administration), 8,888,290 of them on its buses and 769,551 on the SunRunner, with the rest on vanpools, demand-response service and a ferry. That is a little below the 11.94 million HART carried in Hillsborough (Tampa's profile, from APTA) for a county with less than two-thirds of Hillsborough's population, and well below PSTA's own peak of 14.6 million in 2014; ridership fell to 9.1 million in 2022 and has recovered to about 10.4 to 10.5 million in each of 2024 and 2025. The SunRunner carried 1,036,048 trips in 2023, its first full year, and 769,551 in 2025.
Health care, schools and what each city is like
Health care
Care is paid for through employer or marketplace insurance, Medicare or Medicaid, and Florida has not expanded Medicaid, so the uninsured share runs above the national rate and emergency rooms carry the gap. Jackson Memorial, the public safety-net hospital with more than 1,500 licensed beds, is the teaching hospital of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine; Baptist Health South Florida, Mount Sinai Medical Center and the Miami VA are the other large systems.
Education
Miami-Dade County Public Schools is the third largest district in the country but enrolled 313,220 students in 2025-26, down about 13,000 in a year as charters and vouchers grew, and the board approved school closures and consolidations in 2026. Florida International University enrolls roughly 50,000 students and the private University of Miami about 20,000; magnet programs such as Design and Architecture Senior High and the choice-heavy system mean school assignment is something families actively manage.
Living there
The city proper is dense, young and majority Hispanic, with Spanish as common as English in daily business, and it has grown almost 11 percent since 2020 on finance and tech arrivals who pushed rents and condo prices up fast. Summers are long, wet and hot, winters are the reason people stay, and every household budgets for hurricane season, windstorm insurance and flooded streets at king tide. Driving is the default outside the Metrorail and Metromover corridors, and traffic is the complaint residents raise most.
Health care
Care is paid for through employer or marketplace insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, and Florida is one of the ten states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (KFF). Florida's uninsured rate was 10.9% in 2024 (2,509,782 of 23,038,464), against 8.2% nationally, on the ACS 2024 1-year estimates; the City of St. Petersburg's was 7.3% (19,374 of 263,881), below Port St. Lucie's 9.9%, Pinellas County's 9.0% and the metro's 10.0%. The city is the county's hospital center. Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital, the city's oldest, on the site of a five-room hospital of 1910, is Pinellas County's only Level II trauma center and has a Level III regional perinatal intensive care center and the Bayflite helicopter program (Wikipedia). Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital, founded in 1926 and part of Johns Hopkins Medicine since 2011, has 259 beds and a Level I pediatric trauma center (Wikipedia). BayCare's St. Anthony's Hospital and HCA's hospitals are also among the city's ten largest private employers (City of St. Petersburg). This file did not verify a wait time figure for primary or specialist care.
Education
Pinellas County Schools, the countywide district, is shrinking: it reported more than 3,000 fewer students in 2025-26 than a year earlier (Bay News 9), its schools were 68% full against 87% ten years before, and in February 2026 the board voted to close two schools, Cross Bayou Elementary in Pinellas Park and Disston Academy in Gulfport, at the end of the 2025-26 year and to merge others (FOX 13). In higher education the city has the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, a downtown campus of about 6,500 students; Eckerd College, a private liberal arts college founded in 1958; St. Petersburg College, founded in 1927, a state college with four of its eleven campuses and centers in the city; and the Poynter Institute, the journalism school that owns the Tampa Bay Times (Wikipedia). Stetson University's law school is next door in Gulfport.
Living there
St. Petersburg is the smaller and older half of Tampa Bay's urban core: a city of 264,033 on the southern tip of the Pinellas peninsula, with more water than land inside its limits, connected to Tampa by the Gandy and Howard Frankland bridges and to Bradenton by the Sunshine Skyway. It was a railroad town before it was a resort (the Orange Belt Railway arrived in 1888 and the town was incorporated in 1892) and a retirement town for most of the twentieth century; its median age is still 43.0, the second-oldest of the Florida cities here after Port St. Lucie, though Wikipedia notes a younger turn since the Great Recession. Downtown is the draw, with the Dali Museum, the rebuilt Pier, seven miles of public waterfront parks, more than 600 murals and the Rays at Tropicana Field, who returned in April 2026 after Hurricane Milton tore off the roof but will leave: Hillsborough County voted 5 to 2 on 28 August 2026 to put $796 million toward a $2.3 billion stadium in Tampa for 2029 (WUSF). Its economy is a set of headquarters (Raymond James, Jabil, Duke Energy Florida) and hospitals (Johns Hopkins All Children's, Bayfront). The numbers set it apart from its Florida neighbors. It grew only 2.2% from 2020 to 2025 and lost residents in the year of the 2024 storms, in a county that is now losing people. Its median household income, $73,048, is $11,066 below Tampa's; its violent crime rate, 502 per 100,000 in 2025, is higher than Tampa's but falling, and its nine homicides were the fewest the police department has counted since 1967. It has the highest transit share of the Florida cities here outside Miami, at 2.1%. And it learned in 2024 what living in Tampa Bay costs: a record surge from Helene, which drowned twelve people in the county, and 18 inches of rain from Milton two weeks later.
Where each city wins, and where it loses
Both cities price in US dollars and both headlines are Zillow's typical home value for the city across all homes in June 2026, financed at Freddie Mac's August rate of 6.67%, so this is one of the pairs where the figures net directly with neither a measure gap nor a rate gap. Miami's typical home was $582,621, 0.7% below a year earlier, and St. Petersburg's $355,759, 3.9% below, the city's row in the Tampa Bay layer; Miami's is about 1.6 times St. Petersburg's. Against local pay the headlines are 8.8 times the City of Miami's 2024 median household income of $66,337 and 4.9 times St. Petersburg's $73,048. At 20% down, Miami's $466,097 loan costs $2,998 a month and St. Petersburg's $284,607 loan $1,831. A homesteaded buyer's first-year property tax is about $10,808 in Miami, 1.86% of the price on 19.9878 mills, against $6,248 in St. Petersburg, 1.76% on 19.9197, nearly the same millage on a smaller price, and insurance is budgeted at $505 and $390 a month, neither including flood. The three lines come to about $4,404 and $2,742, roughly 80% and 45% of local median income, and of the $1,662 gap $1,167 is the mortgage, $380 the tax and $115 the insurance. Renters see the same order: Zillow's observed rent index was $3,004 in Miami and $2,058 in St. Petersburg in June 2026, about 54% and 34% of median income. Condominium fees are estimated at $850 a month against $700, neither of them a published average.
This is one of the pairs where the definitions match, since both cities' figures are the FBI's Crime Data Explorer counts for 2025, and on them neither city is the safer on every line. Miami Police submitted 1,787 violent offenses, 358.6 per 100,000 on the FBI's agency population of 498,792, and 11,178 property offenses, 2,240.8. The St. Petersburg Police Department submitted 1,325 violent offenses, 492 per 100,000 on the FBI's agency population of 269,098 and 502 on the Census estimate of 264,033, and 5,437 property offenses, 2,020 or 2,059. So Miami's violent rate is about a quarter lower and St. Petersburg's property rate about a tenth lower. Homicide favors St. Petersburg: 9, about 3.4 per 100,000, against 26 in Miami, 5.2. St. Petersburg's department counts 10 and called it the fewest since 1967; Miami's 26 came within two of the city's record low of 24, set in 1946. Both fell at about the same pace in 2025. Miami's violent offenses dropped 20%, from 2,225, and its homicides have come down from 61 in 2020; St. Petersburg's violent offenses fell 19%, from 1,642, after three flat years, its property offenses 17%, and its motor vehicle thefts from 917 in 2023 to 407. Miami's series before 2023 is incomplete because its department moved to incident-based reporting in mid-2022, while St. Petersburg reports annual totals and has a full year for each of 2022 to 2025. The St. Petersburg counts were read on 1 October 2026, and both can still be revised.
Miami has the warmer winter and the summers are level, and both cities sit on water that hurricanes push ashore. January averages 20.3 C at Miami International against 16.8 C at Albert Whitted Airport on St. Petersburg's downtown waterfront, 68.6F against 62.2F, 6.4 F warmer; July averages 28.9 C against 28.8 C, and August is the warmest month in both, 84.2F and 84.0F. Miami gets 1,712 mm of rain a year and St. Petersburg 1,185 mm, 63% of it from June through September, and neither has snow in the normals. Miami's sunshine on the older series is about 3,154 hours; St. Petersburg has no measured figure, and its nickname, the Sunshine City, rests on a Guinness record of 768 consecutive sunny days. St. Petersburg's normals count 70.9 days a year at 90F or above, none at 100F and 0.1 freezing nights, and its waterfront station recorded 128 such hot days in 2024. Miami's hazards are hurricanes and storm surge from June to November, with chronic tidal and rain flooding between them and roughly 80 thunder days a year. St. Petersburg's 2024 showed its own. Helene passed offshore on 26 September and put 6.31 ft of water above mean higher high water on the city's tide gauge, the highest in a record that began in 1947, drowning twelve people in Pinellas County, two of them in the city. Two weeks later Milton came ashore at Siesta Key, about 35 miles south, and Albert Whitted recorded 18.54 in (471 mm) of rain on 9 October. The City assessed 13,494 parcels after Helene and recorded 5,189 with major damage and 146 destroyed. Neither storm made landfall in St. Petersburg; the last hurricane to strike it directly was in 1921.
Miami's labor market is tighter, and St. Petersburg's households earn more. On the same unadjusted basis BLS put July 2026 unemployment at 3.7% for the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro and 4.8% for Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, with the City of St. Petersburg itself at 4.2%. The Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall division alone had 1,351,000 nonfarm jobs in June, 0.7% more than a year earlier; the Tampa Bay metro had 1,559,600 in August, 0.9% more, with private education and health services adding the most. Miami's economy runs through the port, the airport, tourism, finance and health care, and MIA handled nearly 3.5 million tons of cargo in 2025, the most of any US airport. St. Petersburg is a headquarters town: Raymond James, its largest private employer with 4,800 staff, Jabil, Duke Energy Florida, Franklin Templeton and Power Design, with Johns Hopkins All Children's and Bayfront among its hospitals. Most of its residents work in their own county; 14% of its workers worked outside Pinellas in 2024 and 21.3% worked from home. Median household income was $73,048 in St. Petersburg in 2024, with a margin of error of $4,441, against $66,337 in the City of Miami, and $78,275 across Tampa Bay against $80,625 across greater Miami. St. Petersburg is the older city, with a median age of 43.0. Florida takes no income tax in either, so $100,000 pays the same $13,449 in federal tax for 2025, and sales tax is 7% in both Miami-Dade and Pinellas. Property tax and insurance come to about $16,868 a year on Miami's typical home and $10,928 on St. Petersburg's.
Miami is the one of the two where a household can reasonably drop a car, and only along its corridors; St. Petersburg has the highest transit share of the other Florida cities this site compares, at less than a third of Miami's. In 2024, 7.7% of City of Miami workers commuted by transit and 5.7% walked or cycled, against 2.1% and 2.9% in St. Petersburg, where 65.6% drove alone. Miami-Dade Transit carried 80,797,500 trips in 2025, 14,971,300 of them on Metrorail and 7,683,800 on the fare-free Metromover, and Brightline and Tri-Rail run regional trains. The Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority carried 10,441,618, about an eighth as many, on more than 34 bus routes, two downtown and beach trolleys and the SunRunner, Tampa Bay's first bus rapid transit line, which runs every 15 minutes from downtown St. Petersburg to St. Pete Beach and carried 769,551. St. Petersburg has no passenger rail; the freight line into downtown was abandoned in 2008. MIA handled 55.3 million passengers in 2025 and is the direct gateway to Latin America and the Caribbean. Most of St. Petersburg's flying goes through Tampa International, about 16 miles away across the Howard Frankland Bridge, which handled 24,811,007, and St. Pete-Clearwater International, about 9 miles north of downtown, handled a record 2,794,067, almost all of them on Allegiant.
Florida has not expanded Medicaid, so coverage in both runs through an employer or marketplace plan, Medicare or Medicaid. The state's uninsured rate was 10.9% in 2024, against 8.2% nationally; the City of St. Petersburg's was 7.3%, and Miami's profile says only that the uninsured share there runs above the national rate. Miami's public safety-net hospital is Jackson Memorial, with more than 1,500 licensed beds, the teaching hospital of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, and Baptist Health South Florida and Mount Sinai are the other large systems. St. Petersburg has Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital, Pinellas County's only Level II trauma center, with a Level III perinatal intensive care center and the Bayflite helicopters, and Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital, with 259 beds and a Level I pediatric trauma center. Neither profile verified a wait time. Both districts are shrinking. Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the third largest in the country, enrolled 313,220 in 2025-26, about 13,000 fewer as charters and vouchers grew, and approved closures in 2026. Pinellas County Schools reported more than 3,000 fewer students in 2025-26, its schools were 68% full against 87% ten years before, and in February 2026 its board voted to close two schools. Florida International University enrolls roughly 50,000 students and the University of Miami about 20,000; St. Petersburg has the University of South Florida's downtown campus of about 6,500, Eckerd College, St. Petersburg College and the Poynter Institute.
What people underestimate is how alike the two tax bills are once the price is set, and what neither carry includes. The millages are almost the same, 19.9878 in the City of Miami and 19.9197 in St. Petersburg, where the City's council sets 6.4525 and kept it for fiscal 2027 on a 6 to 2 vote, so the bill moves with the price: about $10,808 on Miami's typical home and $6,248 on St. Petersburg's. The rules are the state's in both. $25,000 of taxable value comes off every levy for a homestead and a second slice off all but the school district's, Save Our Homes caps a homestead's assessment at 3% a year and resets it on a sale, and the exemption has to be filed with the property appraiser by 1 March of the year after you buy; without it the bills are about $11,645 and $7,087. Closing costs differ by county. Miami-Dade charges the seller a documentary stamp of 60 cents per $100 on a single-family house, about $3,496 on Miami's typical home, and Pinellas the state's 70 cents, about $2,490; the buyer pays 0.55% of the loan in both, about $2,564 and $1,565. Then the water. St. Petersburg's insurance line is the Tampa Bay layer's band for a coastal address, $390 a month, inside the $3,900 to $5,500 a year its source gives for a single-family house with wind cover, and Miami's profile puts coastal premiums at $4,000 to $7,000 a year or more. Both exclude flood, a separate policy priced on the elevation certificate. In St. Petersburg the City's Helene assessments found water in thousands of homes along the bay and almost none inland, and FEMA's substantial improvement rule treats any repair costing half the structure's market value or more as new construction, which can force a full elevation. And the two are moving in different directions: Miami grew 10.8% from 2020 to 2025, while St. Petersburg grew 2.2% and lost 1,822 residents in 2024-25, the year of the storms, in a county that lost 11,834.
Better here
- January averages 20.3 C, 6.4 F warmer than St. Petersburg's 16.8 C, with no snow on the 1991-2020 normals in either.
- Metro unemployment was 3.7% in July 2026, not seasonally adjusted, against 4.8% around Tampa Bay on the same basis.
- In 2024, 7.7% of city workers commuted by transit and 5.7% walked or cycled, against 2.1% and 2.9% in St. Petersburg.
- Miami-Dade Transit carried 80,797,500 trips in 2025 on Metrorail, the fare-free Metromover and buses, about eight times PSTA's 10,441,618.
- MIA handled 55.3 million passengers in 2025 and is the direct gateway to Latin America; St. Petersburg's nearest hub, Tampa International, is about 16 miles away.
- Violent crime was 358.6 per 100,000 on the FBI's 2025 counts, against 492 in St. Petersburg on the same agency-population basis.
Worse here
- Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $4,404 a month on the June 2026 typical home, roughly 80% of the city's 2024 median household income, against $2,742 and 45% in St. Petersburg at the same rate.
- On the same Zillow index the typical home is about 1.6 times St. Petersburg's, and 8.8 times the city's median household income against 4.9.
- City median household income was $66,337 in 2024, against $73,048 in St. Petersburg.
- There were 26 homicides in 2025, 5.2 per 100,000, against 9 and about 3.4 in St. Petersburg, and property crime ran 2,240.8 per 100,000 against 2,020.
- Zillow's observed rent index was $3,004 in June 2026, about 54% of the city's median household income, against $2,058 and 34% in St. Petersburg.
- Property tax is about $10,808 a year with a homestead against $6,248, and insurance is budgeted at $505 a month against $390, before flood.
Choose Miami if
- you want a January at 20.3 C and will pay windstorm and flood premiums to get it
- you can live along Metrorail or the Metromover and run the household on one car or none
- your work is in finance, trade with Latin America, the port, the airport or tourism
- you want a hub airport in the city rather than across a bridge
The Miami guide · Neighborhoods · Miami rent vs buy · Miami mortgage calculator
Better here
- Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,742 a month on the June 2026 typical home, roughly 45% of the city's median household income, against about $4,404 and 80% in Miami at the same rate.
- City median household income was $73,048 in 2024, against $66,337 in Miami.
- There were 9 homicides in 2025 on the FBI's count, about 3.4 per 100,000, and 10 on the department's, its fewest since 1967, against 26 and 5.2 in Miami.
- Zillow's observed rent index was $2,058 in June 2026 against $3,004 in Miami.
- Johns Hopkins All Children's has a Level I pediatric trauma center, and the city's uninsured rate was 7.3% in 2024 against Florida's 10.9%.
- Most workers stay in the county: 14% worked outside Pinellas in 2024, and 21.3% worked from home.
Worse here
- Violent crime was 492 per 100,000 on the FBI's 2025 counts and agency population, against 358.6 in Miami on the same basis.
- Metro unemployment was 4.8% in July 2026, not seasonally adjusted, against 3.7% around Miami.
- January averages 16.8 C, 6.4 F cooler than Miami's 20.3 C.
- Helene put a record 6.31 ft of surge on the city's tide gauge in 2024, and the City recorded 5,189 of the 13,494 parcels it assessed with major damage.
- Only 2.1% of workers commuted by transit in 2024, against 7.7% in Miami, and there is no passenger rail.
- The population fell by 1,822 in 2024-25, while Miami grew 10.8% from 2020 to 2025.
Choose St. Petersburg if
- you want a house that costs under half of local median income to hold rather than four-fifths
- you work in finance, utilities or health care at Raymond James, Duke Energy Florida, All Children's or Bayfront, or from home
- you want a smaller waterfront downtown, with the Dali Museum, the Pier and seven miles of public parks
- you would trade a 20.3 C January for 16.8 C and will buy on elevation first
The St. Petersburg guide · Neighborhoods · St. Petersburg rent vs buy · St. Petersburg mortgage calculator
Miami or St. Petersburg, in short
Is Miami or St. Petersburg cheaper to live in?
St. Petersburg, on the house, the rent and the tax, and by a wide margin. Both headlines are Zillow's typical home value for June 2026, priced at the same 6.67% rate, so the figures net directly: $582,621 in Miami and $355,759 in St. Petersburg. The mortgage at 20% down is $2,998 against $1,831, property tax about $10,808 a year against $6,248, and insurance $505 a month against $390, so the three lines come to about $4,404 and $2,742, roughly 80% and 45% of each city's median household income, $66,337 and $73,048. Neither includes flood cover. Zillow's observed rent index was $3,004 in Miami and $2,058 in St. Petersburg. Neither city levies income tax, and sales tax is 7% in both.
Is Miami or St. Petersburg safer?
Neither on every line, on the FBI's own 2025 counts for both. On the FBI's agency populations Miami recorded 358.6 violent offenses per 100,000 and St. Petersburg 492, while property crime ran 2,240.8 against 2,020. Homicide favors St. Petersburg: 9 against 26, about 3.4 per 100,000 against 5.2, and its department counts 10, the fewest since 1967. Both fell at about the same pace in 2025, Miami's violent offenses by 20% and St. Petersburg's by 19%. The St. Petersburg counts were read on 1 October 2026 and can still be revised.
Which has the better job market, Miami or St. Petersburg?
Miami's, on unemployment. On the same unadjusted basis BLS put July 2026 unemployment at 3.7% for the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro and 4.8% for Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater. The Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall division had 1,351,000 nonfarm jobs in June, and the Tampa Bay metro, which takes in Tampa as well, 1,559,600 in August, 0.9% more than a year earlier. Miami's work runs through the port, MIA, tourism, finance and health care; St. Petersburg's through headquarters such as Raymond James, Jabil and Duke Energy Florida and its hospitals, and 21.3% of its workers worked from home in 2024. Even so, St. Petersburg's median household income, $73,048, is above Miami's $66,337, and the two metros are close at $78,275 and $80,625.
Which is more exposed to hurricanes, Miami or St. Petersburg?
Both, in different ways, and neither figure here includes flood. Miami's profile names hurricanes and storm surge every June to November, with chronic tidal and rain flooding and coastal premiums commonly $4,000 to $7,000 a year or more. St. Petersburg's surge in 2024 was a record for the bay: Helene put 6.31 ft above mean higher high water on the city's tide gauge, where the previous record since 1947 was 3.97 ft, drowned twelve people in Pinellas County and left the City recording 5,189 parcels with major damage, and Milton dropped 18.54 in (471 mm) on Albert Whitted two weeks later. St. Petersburg's insurance is budgeted at $390 a month against Miami's $505. In both, the elevation certificate prices the flood policy, and FEMA's substantial improvement rule can force a full elevation on a repair costing half the structure's market value.
Where the figures come from
Housing figures are the ones behind each city's calculators, dated on those pages. The rest are listed here with the date they were retrieved. See the methodology for how facts, estimates and opinion are kept apart.
- Miami, FL Population (2025) · Every City in the USA (republishing Census Bureau PEP Vintage 2025) · retrieved Supports: City population, Five-year growth
- U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Miami city, Florida · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: population.city (page returned 403 on fetch; figure confirmed via search snippet and secondary republisher)
- Largest U.S. Metro Areas by Population 2026 (Vintage 2025 estimates) · statranker.org · retrieved Supports: Metro population
- Florida MSA population estimates, April 1 2025 · Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research · retrieved Supports: population.metro (alternative state estimate)
- Miami, FL Metro Area and Miami city profiles, ACS 2024 1-year · Census Reporter · retrieved Supports: Median household income, population.metro (ACS)
- ACS 2024 1-year table B08301 Means of Transportation to Work · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau data) · retrieved Supports: Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share
- Crime Data Explorer summarized agency data, Miami Police Department (FL0130600) · FBI · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend
- Miami Police Report 20% Decrease in Homicides for 1st Half of 2025 · Officer.com · retrieved Supports: Crime trend, Homicides
- U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly and annual, station USW00012839 Miami International Airport · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Annual snowfall
- Comparative Climatic Data · NOAA NCEI · retrieved Supports: climate.sunshineHours (approximate; figure taken from search summaries of CCD, not the table itself)
- Climate of Miami · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: climate.hazards (thunderstorm days, hurricane exposure)
- Broward County June 2026 Unemployment Data · CareerSource Broward (FloridaCommerce data) · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate, Labour market
- Discretionary Sales Surtax Information (DR-15DSS) 2026 · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: Sales tax
- IRS releases tax inflation adjustments for tax year 2025 · Internal Revenue Service · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, taxes.incomeTaxAt100k (brackets)
- FAQ: The One Big Beautiful Bill Act Tax Changes · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: taxes.incomeTaxAt100k ($15,750 standard deduction)
- Miami-Dade Transit · Wikipedia (citing APTA Ridership Report) · retrieved Supports: Transit ridership
- Soaring cargo growth lifts MIA to #1 in the U.S., #3 in the world · Miami International Airport · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers, Labour market
- Miami (MIA) Airport & Passenger Statistics · RoadGenius · retrieved Supports: transit.airport (2024 comparison)
- A Guide to Florida Flood Insurance (2026) · Insurify · retrieved Supports: climate.hazards (insurance costs)
- Enrollment in Miami-Dade schools is lower at the start of this year. Why? · WLRN · retrieved Supports: Education
- FIU enrollment approaches 50,000 as fall semester nears · Miami Today · retrieved Supports: Education
- Jackson Memorial Hospital · Jackson Health System · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places of 50,000 or More (all states, SUB-EST2025) · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: City population, Five-year growth, Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend, Character, St. Petersburg city 258,358 (April 2020 base), 262,655 (2022), 264,921 (2023), 265,855 (2024) and 264,033 (2025); Pinellas County 948,563; Clearwater 114,364; national and Florida ranks and the 92 cities of 250,000 or more
- Annual Resident Population Estimates and Components of Change for Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas and Their Counties: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025 (CBSA-EST2025-ALLDATA) · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: Metro population, Five-year growth, Character, Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater MSA 3,175,282 (April 2020 base) and 3,418,895 (2025) and its components of change; Pinellas County's 2024-25 loss of 11,834, its births, deaths and migration
- 2024 Gazetteer Files: Places (national) · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: point, City population, Climate normals, Airport passengers, Character, St. Petersburg city: 61.804 sq mi of land, 73.661 sq mi of water, internal point 27.762727, -82.644131
- St. Petersburg, Florida (history, geography, economy, arts, education, transportation) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Climate normals, Climate hazards, Main sectors, Labour market, Transit system, Education, Character
- Crime Data Explorer summarized agency data, St. Petersburg Police Department (FL0521400): violent crime, property crime, homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson, 2021-2025 · FBI · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend, Character
- St. Pete Crime Rates Declined In 2025: Police · Patch · retrieved Supports: Homicides, Crime trend, Character, 10 homicides in 2025 against 18 in 2024, the fewest since 1967; overall crime down 16%; 175 robberies and 406 auto thefts against five-year averages of 224 and 735
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00092806 St. Petersburg Albert Whitted Airport (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Climate normals, Climate hazards, January 62.2F, July 83.8F and August 84.0F and the monthly highs, lows and rain from the monthly series, which carries no snowfall normal for this station, and annual mean 74.7F, precipitation 46.65 in, 70.9 days at 90F, 0.0 at 100F and 0.1 nights at freezing from dataset=normals-annualseasonal-1991-2020 for the same station
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USC00087886 St. Petersburg (cooperative station) (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Annual snowfall, Climate normals, 0.0 in of snow (monthly and annual), January 62.1F, July 83.9F, 52.48 in of precipitation
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00012873 St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate normals, January 61.6F, July 83.1F, 53.62 in of precipitation, 94.1 days at 90F
- NCEI data search, normals-monthly-1991-2020 stations within 28.0N to 27.6N and 82.85W to 82.45W · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate normals, the stations with 1991-2020 normals in and around the city, including USW00092806 and USC00087886 at 27.7628N, 82.6261W
- Global Historical Climatology Network daily summaries, St. Petersburg Albert Whitted Airport (USW00092806), 2010-2026 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, 18.54 in on 9 October 2024 and a 101.1 mph gust; an 82.1 mph gust on 26 September 2024; 128 days at or above 90F in 2024 and 94 in 2026 through 28 September; 32F on 18 January 2018, the only reading at or below freezing since 2010; 36F on 1 February 2026
- Average Annual Sunshine in US Cities · Current Results (NCDC Comparative Climatic Data, 1961-1990) · retrieved Supports: Sunshine hours, Climate normals, Tampa 2,927 hours; no St. Petersburg station
- Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Helene (AL092024) · NOAA National Hurricane Center · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Character, 6.31 ft above MHHW at the St. Petersburg tide gauge (record since 1947; previous record 3.97 ft in Elena, 1985); 12 drowned in Pinellas County, 2 in St. Petersburg; at least 419 homes destroyed and 18,512 structures with major damage in Pinellas and Hillsborough
- Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Milton (AL142024) · NOAA National Hurricane Center · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Character, Landfall at Siesta Key as a Category 3; Albert Whitted storm total 18.88 in and gust 88 kt; maximum storm total 20.40 in at a CoCoRaHS site near St. Petersburg; Tropicana Field's fabric roof ripped off
- Tropicana Field roof damaged by Hurricane Milton, downtown St. Pete crane snapped · Bay News 9 · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Tropicana Field (Milton damage, 2025 season at Steinbrenner Field, return on 6 April 2026) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Character
- A new Rays stadium in Tampa gets clinching Hillsborough County approval · WUSF · retrieved Supports: Character
- ACS 2024 1-year tables B19013, B25003 and B08301 for St. Petersburg, Tampa and Port St. Lucie cities, Pinellas County, the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater MSA, Florida and the US · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Median household income, Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share, Character
- ACS 2024 1-year tables B08007 (place of work), B08013 (aggregate travel time) and B08303 (travel time to work) for St. Petersburg city and Pinellas County · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Labour market
- ACS 2024 1-year table B01002 (median age) for St. Petersburg, Tampa, Port St. Lucie, Jacksonville, Miami and Orlando cities, the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater MSA and the US · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Median household income, Character
- ACS 2024 1-year table B27001 (health insurance coverage) for St. Petersburg city, Pinellas County, the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater MSA, Florida and the US · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Local Area Unemployment Statistics, Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL MSA (LAUMT124530000000003), St. Petersburg city (LAUCT126300000000003) and Pinellas County (LAUCN121030000000003), not seasonally adjusted · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate
- Current Employment Statistics, Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL MSA: total nonfarm (SMU12453000000000001), construction (SMU12453002000000001), supersectors (SMU1245300xx00000001), retail trade and federal government (SMU12453009091000001) · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- FY2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, Statistical Section: Principal Employers · City of St. Petersburg (filed with the Florida Auditor General) · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market, Health care, Character, Raymond James & Associates 4,800, All Children's Health 2,800, Power Design 1,700, Jabil Circuit 1,700, St. Anthony's Hospital 1,437, HCA Hospital 1,350, Duke Energy 1,250, Franklin Templeton 1,200, Catalent 800, PSCU 800; 17,837 or 12.45% of 147,705; the 2016 list of 20,300
- Penny for Pinellas: frequently asked questions · Penny for Pinellas (Pinellas County) · retrieved Supports: Sales tax, first approved in 1989 and in effect from 1990; renewed on November 7, 2017 for 2020-2029 with 83% support; tourists and seasonal visitors estimated to pay a third
- Florida Tax Rates & Rankings · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000, Tax notes
- 2025 Tax Brackets and Federal Income Tax Rates · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
- 2026 Tax Brackets and Federal Income Tax Rates · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
- Millage rates levied for 2025 taxes · Pinellas County Tax Collector · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, St Petersburg real estate total 19.9197 mills, of which the city 6.4525 (as carried in lib/metro-tampa/market.ts)
- St. Pete keeps property tax rate unchanged · St Pete Catalyst · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, 6.4525 mills for fiscal 2027 adopted 6-2 on 17 September 2026, above the 6.3854 rolled-back rate
- St. Pete holds property tax rate steady · St Pete Catalyst · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, taxable values of about $39.3 billion; ad valorem revenue up about $14.8 million; 6.4525 mills since fiscal 2025
- Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI) and Observed Rent Index (ZORI), city files, June 2026 · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, St. Petersburg $355,759, down 3.9% year over year, and rent $2,058, as carried in lib/metro-tampa/market.ts
- Monthly Module Adjusted Data Release, complete monthly ridership with adjustments and estimates (Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority, NTD 40027) · Federal Transit Administration, National Transit Database (via data.transportation.gov) · retrieved Supports: Transit ridership, Transit system
- Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (history, routes, SunRunner, Cross-Bay Ferry) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Transit system
- St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport (location, owner, airlines, annual passenger traffic 2024 and 2025) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions · KFF · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Health care, Main sectors
- Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Health care, Main sectors
- Pinellas County School Board considers closing schools due to low enrollment · Bay News 9 · retrieved Supports: Education
- Pinellas County Schools move forward with closures, consolidations as enrollment declines district wide · FOX 13 · retrieved Supports: Education
- Table 1: Comparison of Taxes Levied, county and municipal governments, fiscal years 2024-25 and 2025-26: Miami-Dade · Florida Department of Revenue, Property Tax Oversight · retrieved Supports: The adopted 2025-26 millage rate for Miami-Dade County and every municipality in it, The county's own components: countywide 4.5740, Fire/Rescue 2.3965, Library 0.2812 and the Unincorporated Municipal Service Area at 1.9090, Municipal rates from Sunny Isles Beach's 1.7000 to Biscayne Park's 9.3000
- 2025 millage rates and taxing authorities, Miami-Dade County · Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: A published combined rate for unincorporated Miami-Dade of 16.9317 mills, Its components: school district 6.4990, countywide 5.7361, regional water districts 0.3911, Fire Rescue 2.3965 and UMSA 1.9090, which this layer's stack reproduces exactly, Millage code 0100, the City of Miami, at 19.9878 mills for 2025: 7.1080 of city operating levy and 0.2536 of city debt service on the countywide 12.6262, Opa-locka's municipal operating levy of 8.9797, and a 2025 total of 24.0024 for millage code 0800, A city debt service column, which nine of the twenty-four municipalities here carry: Miami 0.2536, Miami Beach 0.2779, North Bay Village 1.1666, Golden Beach 0.6000, Miami Shores 0.1331, North Miami Beach 0.2000, Miami Gardens 0.4331, Doral 0.4810 and Homestead 0.2446, A blank library district column for Hialeah, North Miami, North Miami Beach, Homestead, Miami Shores, Bal Harbour and Surfside, which are outside the county library district, A blank Fire Rescue column for Miami, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Hialeah and Key Biscayne, which is the five this layer flags
- About Fire Rescue · Miami-Dade Fire Rescue · retrieved Supports: The Fire Rescue district covering the unincorporated county and twenty-nine municipalities, Miami, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Hialeah and Key Biscayne operating their own fire departments and lying outside the district
- Documentary stamp tax · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: A Miami-Dade deed rate of 60 cents per $100 rather than the 70 cents charged in every other county, A Miami-Dade surtax of 45 cents per $100, not due on a document transferring only a single-family dwelling, 35 cents per $100 on a promissory note, statewide
- Annual estimates of the resident population for incorporated places, 2020 to 2024 · United States Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program · retrieved Supports: 2020 census counts and 2024 estimates for each municipality, Miami at 487,014 and Hialeah at 235,388; Golden Beach at 1,034
- Average cost of home insurance in Florida, 2026 · MoneyGeek · retrieved Supports: A Miami-Dade County average of about $6,045 a year: below Palm Beach County's $6,614, A Florida average of about $3,815 and a national average of about $2,543
- Primary Mortgage Market Survey · Freddie Mac · retrieved Supports: 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaging 6.67%
- Governmental leasehold intangible personal property tax and the non-recurring intangible tax on mortgages · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: A non-recurring intangible tax of 2 mills: 0.2%, on the obligation secured by a mortgage on Florida real property
- Property tax exemptions and additional benefits · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: A $25,000 homestead exemption applying to all taxing authorities and a second slice, $25,000 in the 2024 base year and adjusted for inflation each 1 January since, applying to all but the school district, The Save Our Homes assessment limitation of 3% or the change in CPI, whichever is lower, Portability of up to $500,000 of accrued Save Our Homes benefit to a new homestead, The 1 March filing deadline
- Chapter 2023-17, Laws of Florida: preemption of rent control · The Florida Senate · retrieved Supports: The repeal of the referendum exception that had allowed a local rent control ordinance in a declared housing emergency
- Final 2025 millage rates by taxing district · Hillsborough County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: Published totals of 19.8428 for Tampa, 19.5319 for Temple Terrace, 18.2926 for Plant City and 18.2515 for the unincorporated county, Every component behind them, including the 0.5583 library services levy Temple Terrace and Plant City are outside and the 0.5000 transit authority levy Plant City is outside, A county General Purpose MSTU of 4.6163 paid in the unincorporated area in place of a municipal rate
- Hurricane Helene storm surge and Pinellas County flooding, September 2024 · Latent Insurance, on National Weather Service and Pinellas County data · retrieved Supports: The largest storm surge on record for St. Petersburg, over six feet in the city and more than seven on the barrier islands, Thousands of Pinellas homes flooded, many of which had never flooded before, St. Petersburg single-family homeowners insurance of roughly $3,900 to $5,500 a year with wind coverage, and higher on the barrier islands
- Home insurance in Tampa, Florida: 2026 rates · InsuranceQuotes · retrieved Supports: Tampa homeowners insurance averaging about $2,400 a year in 2026, A Tampa Bay range of roughly $3,285 to $5,100 across Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco
- 2025 Gazetteer files: places, Florida · United States Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: A land area of 61.806 square miles and a water area of 73.659 square miles for St. Petersburg city
- Helene_Damage_Assessment_Data, one point per parcel assessed after Hurricane Helene · City of St. Petersburg, ArcGIS Online · retrieved Supports: 13,494 parcels assessed after Hurricane Helene, 5,189 of them recorded as major damage and 146 as destroyed, A record per parcel rather than per home, with no description published for the layer
- Substantial improvement · Federal Emergency Management Agency · retrieved Supports: Substantial improvement is any reconstruction, rehabilitation, addition or other improvement whose cost equals or exceeds 50 percent of the market value of the structure before the start of construction, The category also covers structures that have sustained substantial damage, whatever repair work is actually carried out