Orlando vs St. Petersburg: which should you move to?
Orlando 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, and the homestead rules are the same. Both houses are Zillow's typical home value for June 2026 at the same 6.67% rate, and they cost almost exactly the same to hold: mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,745 a month on Orlando's $375,175 and $2,742 on St. Petersburg's $355,759. The cheaper house carries the dearer bills: a tax of about 1.76% of the price against 1.61%, on 19.9197 mills against 18.0878, and insurance budgeted at $390 a month against $310, because St. Petersburg is on the bay and Orlando 42 miles inland. Against pay Orlando is ahead, about 42% of its $77,597 median household income against 45% of St. Petersburg's $73,048, and its rent is lower, $1,904 against $2,058. On the FBI's 2022 file, the last that covers both, violent crime ran 835.8 per 100,000 in Orlando against about 618 in St. Petersburg, and in 2025 each police department counted 10 homicides. The two metros are about the same size, with unemployment of 4.7% and 4.8%, and St. Petersburg is 1.6 F warmer in January and 1.2 F in July. Choose Orlando for work in tourism, defense or its two hospital systems, SunRail and Brightline, MCO, a 6.5% sales tax and an address storm surge cannot reach. Choose St. Petersburg for a waterfront downtown, more transit riders and a bus rapid transit line, Johns Hopkins All Children's and a lower uninsured rate, if you will price the flood policy before the house.
| Measure | Orlando | St. Petersburg | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| City population | 333,888 (2025) | 264,033 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
| Metro population | 2,957,672 (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. | 8.3% (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 | Orlando | 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. | $375,175 (June 2026) | $355,759 (June 2026) | St. Petersburg |
| Detached house benchmark Orlando and St. Petersburg publish a single house index rather than a composite, so the two rows repeat. | $375,175 | $355,759 | St. Petersburg |
| Apartment or condominium benchmark | Not published | Not published | Not directly comparable |
| Two-bedroom rent | $1,904/mo (median, June 2026) | $2,058/mo (median, June 2026) | Orlando |
| One-bedroom rent | $1,637/mo | $1,770/mo | Orlando |
| 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. | 29.4% of a year's income | 33.8% of a year's income | Orlando |
| Mortgage payment on the benchmark, 20% down 30-year amortization on American monthly compounding, the convention in both. | $1,931/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. | 4.8× | 4.9× | Orlando |
| 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. | $6,043/yr (1.611%, 2025) | $6,248/yr (1.756%, 2025) | Orlando |
| 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. | $2,626 (seller pays) | $2,490 (seller pays) | Even |
| 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 |
Orlando: About 1.61% of what you pay for the house, which is lower than the 18.0878 mills Orlando is taxed at, and the difference is the homestead exemption rather than any assessment lag. Florida assesses at full market value and a purchase resets the assessment to the price, so there is no gap to correct for. 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 Orange County school district, which levies 6.4490 of the 18.0878. 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. So a homesteaded buyer's first-year bill is the school millage on the price less $25,000 plus everything else on the price less $50,000, about $6,043 a year on the $375,175 typical home value here. The exemption is not automatic: you file for it with the county property appraiser by 1 March of the year after you buy, and until you do the rate is the full 1.81%. 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 | Orlando | 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 | 836 (2022) | 502 (2025) | St. Petersburg |
| Property crime per 100,000 | 4,036 (2022) | 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. | 10 (2025) | 9 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
Orlando PD reports overall crime down 18% in 2024 and another 19% in 2025, violent crime down 10% in 2024 and 9% in 2025, and shootings with victims down 41% from 2023 to 2025. Homicides fell from 31 in 2023 to 10 in 2025. The FBI's public feed has no usable Orlando data after 2022, so these are the department's own figures.
What the rates cover: FBI Crime Data Explorer, Orlando Police Department (ORI FL0480400), 2022: 2,597 violent offenses, 835.8 per 100k. 2022 is the last year with twelve complete months in the FBI feed; 2023 through 2025 show zeros for this agency, so no FBI rate exists for those years. Orlando PD's own count of violent crime incidents (a broader in-house definition) was 6,754 in 2023 and 5,928 in 2025, which would be about 1,775 per 100k on the 2025 population.
Homicides: Orlando Police Department: 10 homicides in 2025, the lowest since 1971, down from 23 in 2024 and 31 in 2023 (OPD's 2023 figure was reported as 38 in a January 2025 release and 31 in the February 2026 release). About 3.0 per 100k on the 2025 city population. FBI CDE 2022: 32 homicides, 10.3 per 100k.
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 | Orlando | St. Petersburg | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| January mean | 15.9 °C | 16.8 °C | Not directly comparable |
| July mean | 28.1 °C | 28.8 °C | Not directly comparable |
| Precipitation a year | 1,307 mm | 1,185 mm | Not directly comparable |
| Snowfall a year | 0 cm | 0 cm | Not directly comparable |
| Sunshine a year | Not published | Not published | Not directly comparable |
NOAA 1991-2020 normals at Orlando International Airport (USW00012815): January mean 60.6F, July mean 82.6F, annual precipitation 51.45 in, annual snowfall 0.0 in, annual mean 73.0F. June through September each average 6.4 to 8.1 in of rain. Sunshine hours are not part of the NOAA normals product and were not verified.
Hazards: Hurricanes are the main hazard: Charley (2004), Irma (2017), Ian (2022, 14 in of rain and 74 mph gusts at MCO) and Milton (2024, over 15 in of rain in parts of Central Florida plus a record one-day tornado outbreak) all damaged the area. The city sits about 100 ft above sea level and 42 mi inland, so storm surge is not a concern but inland flooding, wind damage and long power outages are. Summer heat and daily thunderstorms with lightning are routine.
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 | Orlando | St. Petersburg | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income | $77,597 USD (2024) | $73,048 USD (2024) | Orlando |
| Unemployment rate | 4.6% (June 2026) | 4.8% (July 2026) | Orlando |
| Sales tax | 6.5% | 7% | Orlando |
| 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 Orlando 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 |
Leisure and hospitality employed 305,500 of 1,506,600 nonfarm jobs in the MSA in June 2026 (BLS CES, not seasonally adjusted, preliminary), about 20%, roughly double the national share, and those jobs pay below the private-sector average, which is why household income trails the US median despite fast job growth. Disney is the largest employer at about 77,000 in the region; AdventHealth employs about 37,700 and Lockheed Martin more than 14,000.
Main sectors: Tourism and hospitality (Disney, Universal, convention centre), Health care (AdventHealth, Orlando Health), Aerospace, defence and simulation (Lockheed Martin, Central Florida Research Park), Construction and real estate, Professional and business services.
No state or city income tax. Property tax runs around 1% of assessed value with a homestead exemption and the Save Our Homes 3% cap for owner-occupiers; not verified here.
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 | Orlando | St. Petersburg | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| System | LYNX (bus, Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties), SunRail (commuter rail, 16 stations DeLand to Poinciana), Brightline (intercity rail from MCO to South Florida) | 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 | 1.5% (2024) | 2.1% (2024) | St. Petersburg |
| Walk or cycle to work | 1.7% (2024) | 2.9% (2024) | St. Petersburg |
| Airport | Orlando International Airport (MCO), 57,675,573 passengers in 2025, up 0.8% on 2024, seventh busiest in the US (GOAA press release, July 28, 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 |
LYNX carried 21,476,203 passenger trips in FY2025 (October 2024 to September 2025), more than 67,000 per weekday, on 62 routes (LYNX Facts at a Glance). SunRail passed 1.2 million riders in calendar 2024, up 12% on 2023 (SunRail press release, January 2025); APTA puts 2025 at about 1.32 million. SunRail runs weekdays only.
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 and Medicaid; Florida did not expand Medicaid under the ACA, so a larger share of working adults is uninsured than in most states, and hospitality jobs often come with thin coverage. Two large non-profit systems dominate: AdventHealth Orlando (one of the biggest hospitals in the country) and Orlando Health with Orlando Regional Medical Center, the region's Level I trauma centre, plus Nemours Children's Hospital at Lake Nona and the UCF Lake Nona Hospital.
Education
The University of Central Florida enrols about 70,000 students, among the largest campuses in the US, and anchors the Central Florida Research Park; Rollins College in Winter Park and Valencia College (a two-year college with a national Aspen Prize) are the other main institutions. Orange County Public Schools is the eighth largest district in the US with roughly 200,000 students, and Florida's universal school-choice vouchers, charter schools and magnet programmes mean many families do not attend their zoned school.
Living there
Orlando is a sprawling, car-first region of master-planned subdivisions, toll roads and strip centres, with a small walkable core around Lake Eola, Thornton Park, Mills 50 and College Park, and the theme parks 15 miles southwest in a separate world of their own. Summers are long, humid and stormy, winters mild, and the population skews young and Latino, with the largest Puerto Rican community in Florida. Housing and insurance costs have risen faster than the tourism-weighted wages, and hurricane season shapes the calendar every year.
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 the figures net directly with neither a measure gap nor a rate gap. Orlando's typical home was $375,175, 2.4% below a year earlier, and St. Petersburg's $355,759, 3.9% below, the city's row in the Tampa Bay layer; St. Petersburg's is about 5% below Orlando's. Against local pay the headlines are 4.8 times the City of Orlando's 2024 median household income of $77,597 and 4.9 times St. Petersburg's $73,048. At 20% down, Orlando's $300,140 loan costs $1,931 a month and St. Petersburg's $284,607 loan $1,831. A homesteaded buyer's first-year property tax is about $6,043 in Orlando, 1.61% of the price on 18.0878 mills, against $6,248 in St. Petersburg, 1.76% on 19.9197, and insurance is budgeted at $310 and $390 a month, neither including flood. The three lines come to about $2,745 and $2,742, roughly 42% and 45% of local median income: St. Petersburg's mortgage is $100 lower and its tax and insurance about $97 higher. Zillow's observed rent index was $1,904 in Orlando and $2,058 in St. Petersburg in June 2026, about 29% and 34% of median income, and condominium fees are estimated at $450 a month against $700, neither of them a published average.
Orlando has no current federal figures, so the comparison runs through 2022 and through homicide, and the two say different things. The FBI's feed carries no complete Orlando Police data after 2022, when it published 835.8 violent and 4,035.6 property offenses per 100,000 and 32 homicides, 10.3 per 100,000. St. Petersburg's 2022 figures are in the same FBI data: 1,622 violent offenses, about 618 per 100,000, and 16 homicides, about 6.1. Its latest are the FBI's counts for 2025, 1,325 violent offenses, 502 per 100,000 on the Census estimate of 264,033, and 5,437 property offenses, 2,059. Orlando's own 2025 tally of violent incidents, 5,928 on a broader definition, works out near 1,775 per 100,000 and cannot stand beside that. Homicide is the clean count, and in 2025 the two cities were level: Orlando recorded 10, about 3.0 per 100,000 and its fewest since 1971, and St. Petersburg 9 on the FBI's count, about 3.4, and 10 on its department's, the fewest since 1967. Both are falling fast. Orlando's department puts overall crime 19% lower in 2025 after an 18% drop in 2024, with homicides down from 31 in 2023. St. Petersburg's violent offenses fell 19% in 2025 after three flat years and its property offenses 17%, and its department put overall crime 16% lower. The St. Petersburg counts were read on 1 October 2026 and can still be revised.
St. Petersburg is a little warmer in both seasons, and the two face different storms. January averages 15.9 C at Orlando International and 16.8 C at Albert Whitted Airport on St. Petersburg's downtown waterfront, 60.6F against 62.2F; July averages 28.1 C against 28.8 C, 82.6F against 83.8F, and St. Petersburg's August is warmer still at 84.0F. Orlando gets 1,307 mm of rain a year and St. Petersburg 1,185 mm, most of it from June through September in both, and neither has snow in the normals or a measured sunshine figure. St. Petersburg's normals count 70.9 days a year at 90F or above and 0.1 freezing nights, and its waterfront station recorded 128 such hot days in 2024. Orlando sits about 100 ft above sea level and 42 mi inland, so surge is not its risk; wind, inland flooding and long power outages are, from Charley in 2004, Irma in 2017, Ian in 2022, with 14 in of rain and 74 mph gusts at the airport, and Milton in 2024, which brought a record one-day tornado outbreak. Surge is exactly St. Petersburg's risk. Helene passed offshore on 26 September 2024 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, and the City recorded 5,189 of the 13,494 parcels it assessed afterward with major damage and 146 destroyed. Milton came ashore at Siesta Key two weeks later, about 35 miles south, and Albert Whitted recorded 18.54 in (471 mm) of rain on 9 October. Neither storm made landfall in St. Petersburg; the last hurricane to strike it directly was in 1921.
The two metros are about the same size and in about the same condition, and what differs is the work. On the same unadjusted basis BLS put July 2026 unemployment at 4.7% for the Orlando metro and 4.8% for Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, with the City of St. Petersburg itself at 4.2%. Greater Orlando had 1,506,600 nonfarm jobs in June, 305,500 of them in leisure and hospitality, about one in five and roughly double the national share, at pay below the private-sector average; Disney alone employs about 77,000 in the region, AdventHealth about 37,700 and Lockheed Martin more than 14,000. The Tampa Bay metro, Tampa included, had 1,559,600 in August, 0.9% more than a year earlier, and 167,300 of them in leisure and hospitality, about one in nine. St. Petersburg's own employers are headquarters, Raymond James with 4,800 staff, Jabil, Duke Energy Florida and Power Design, and hospitals, Johns Hopkins All Children's and Bayfront; 14% of its workers worked outside Pinellas County in 2024, and 21.3% worked from home against 13.2% of Orlando's. Median household income was $77,597 in the City of Orlando in 2024 and $73,048 in St. Petersburg, and $81,044 across greater Orlando against $78,275 across Tampa Bay. 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. Sales tax is 6.5% in Orange County against 7% in Pinellas. Property tax and insurance come to about $9,763 a year on Orlando's typical home and $10,928 on St. Petersburg's.
A car is assumed in both; Orlando runs trains and St. Petersburg has more of its workers on transit. In 2024, 1.5% of City of Orlando workers took transit and 1.7% walked or cycled, against 2.1% and 2.9% in St. Petersburg, where 65.6% drove alone. LYNX carried 21,476,203 trips in fiscal 2025 on 62 routes across three counties, SunRail runs commuter trains through 16 stations from DeLand to Poinciana on weekdays only, and Brightline runs from the airport to South Florida. The Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority carried 10,441,618 trips in 2025 across one county, 769,551 of them on the SunRunner, Tampa Bay's first bus rapid transit line, which runs every 15 minutes from downtown St. Petersburg to St. Pete Beach, and it runs two express routes to Tampa. St. Petersburg has no passenger rail; the freight line into downtown was abandoned in 2008. Orlando International handled 57,675,573 passengers in 2025, seventh busiest in the country. 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, and hospitality jobs in Orlando often carry thin coverage. Florida's uninsured rate was 10.9% in 2024 and the City of St. Petersburg's 7.3%; Orlando's profile gives no city rate. One system runs hospitals in both. Orlando Health's Orlando Regional Medical Center is the Orlando region's Level I trauma center, and its Bayfront Hospital in St. Petersburg, the city's oldest, is Pinellas County's only Level II, with a Level III perinatal intensive care center and the Bayflite helicopters. Orlando also has AdventHealth Orlando and Nemours Children's at Lake Nona; St. Petersburg has 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 county-wide. Orange County Public Schools is the eighth largest in the country at roughly 200,000 students, and Florida's universal vouchers, charters and magnets mean many families never use their zoned school. 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. UCF enrolls about 70,000 students. 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 that the two carries match by accident: the same monthly total is built from different parts, and neither includes what most separates the two addresses. St. Petersburg's mortgage is $100 lower and its tax and insurance about $97 higher, because a City of St. Petersburg address pays 19.9197 mills, the City's own 6.4525 among them, against 18.0878 in Orlando, and the Tampa Bay layer budgets insurance for a coastal address at $390 a month where Orlando's figure is $310. 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 the assessment's growth at 3% a year and resets it on a sale, and the exemption has to be filed by 1 March of the year after you buy; until it is, the full rate applies, 1.81% in Orlando and 1.99% in St. Petersburg, about $6,786 and $7,087. Much of the Orlando metro's newer housing, Lake Nona inside the city among it, adds a community development district assessment of roughly $1,200 to $3,000 a year that no millage shows. St. Petersburg's addition is water. Its insurance figure sits inside the $3,900 to $5,500 a year the layer's source gives for a single-family house with wind cover and excludes flood, a separate policy priced on the elevation certificate; 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. Both sellers pay the 70-cent documentary stamp on the deed, about $2,626 and $2,490, and both buyers 0.55% of the loan, about $1,651 and $1,565. The shapes differ too. Orlando is a city of 333,888 that grew 8.3% from 2020 to 2025, at the center of a metro of 2,957,672. St. Petersburg is 264,033, grew 2.2% and lost 1,822 residents in 2024-25, and is the smaller of the two cities at the center of a metro of 3,418,895.
Better here
- Property tax is about $6,043 a year with a homestead, 1.61% of the price, against $6,248 and 1.76% in St. Petersburg, and insurance is budgeted at $310 a month against $390.
- City median household income was $77,597 in 2024 against $73,048, so the carry is about 42% of it against 45%.
- Zillow's observed rent index was $1,904 in June 2026 against $2,058 in St. Petersburg.
- The city sits about 100 ft above sea level and 42 mi inland, so storm surge is not its risk.
- LYNX carried 21,476,203 trips in fiscal 2025, SunRail runs commuter trains through 16 stations, and Brightline connects the airport to South Florida.
- Orlando International handled 57,675,573 passengers in 2025, seventh busiest in the country, and sales tax is 6.5% against 7% in Pinellas.
Worse here
- The FBI's 2022 file, the last with complete Orlando data, put violent crime at 835.8 per 100,000 against about 618 in St. Petersburg the same year, and homicides at 32 against 16.
- 305,500 of the metro's 1,506,600 jobs are in leisure and hospitality at below-average pay, about one in five against one in nine around Tampa Bay.
- Only 1.5% of workers commuted by transit in 2024 against 2.1% in St. Petersburg, and 13.2% worked from home against 21.3%.
- Ian brought 14 in of rain and 74 mph gusts to the airport in 2022, and hurricanes bring wind, inland flooding and long power outages.
- Much of the newer housing, Lake Nona inside the city among it, carries a community development district assessment of roughly $1,200 to $3,000 a year.
- January averages 15.9 C, 1.6 F cooler than St. Petersburg's 16.8 C.
Choose Orlando if
- you work in tourism, simulation and defense, or health care at AdventHealth or Orlando Health
- you want commuter rail and a train to South Florida, even if you still drive most days
- you want an inland address where surge is not the risk and the insurance is budgeted $80 a month lower
- you want the larger airport and a 6.5% sales tax
The Orlando guide · Neighborhoods · Orlando rent vs buy · Orlando mortgage calculator
Better here
- Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,742 a month on a typical home about 5% cheaper than Orlando's, against $2,745 there at the same rate.
- The FBI's 2022 file put violent crime at about 618 per 100,000 against Orlando's 835.8, and homicides at 16 against 32.
- 2.1% of workers commuted by transit in 2024 against 1.5% in Orlando, and the SunRunner runs every 15 minutes from downtown to St. Pete Beach.
- The city's uninsured rate was 7.3% in 2024 against Florida's 10.9%, and Johns Hopkins All Children's has a Level I pediatric trauma center.
- Leisure and hospitality is about one metro job in nine rather than one in five, and the city's largest employers are headquarters and hospitals.
- January averages 16.8 C against 15.9 C, with 0.1 freezing nights a year on the normals.
Worse here
- Property tax is about 1.76% of the price on 19.9197 mills against 1.61% in Orlando, and insurance is budgeted at $390 a month against $310, before flood.
- City median household income was $73,048 in 2024 against $77,597 in Orlando.
- Zillow's observed rent index was $2,058 in June 2026, about 34% of median income, against $1,904 and 29% in Orlando.
- 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.
- The population fell by 1,822 in 2024-25, while Orlando grew 8.3% from 2020 to 2025.
- There is no passenger rail, and the main airport, Tampa International, is about 16 miles away across the bay.
Choose St. Petersburg if
- you work in finance, utilities, electronics or health care at Raymond James, Duke Energy Florida, Jabil or All Children's
- you want a waterfront downtown with museums, murals and seven miles of public parks rather than a tourism-led economy
- you want a little more transit and a bus rapid transit line to the beach
- you will read the elevation certificate and price a flood policy before you buy
The St. Petersburg guide · Neighborhoods · St. Petersburg rent vs buy · St. Petersburg mortgage calculator
Orlando or St. Petersburg, in short
Is Orlando or St. Petersburg cheaper to live in?
Neither, to own: the two typical homes cost almost exactly the same to hold, and Orlando is cheaper to rent and against local pay. Both headlines are Zillow's typical home value for June 2026, priced at the same 6.67% rate: $375,175 in Orlando and $355,759 in St. Petersburg. The mortgage at 20% down is $1,931 against $1,831, property tax about $6,043 a year against $6,248, and insurance $310 a month against $390, so the three lines come to about $2,745 and $2,742, roughly 42% and 45% of each city's median household income, $77,597 and $73,048. That is before flood cover, which weighs more in St. Petersburg, and before any district levy on a newer Orlando house. Zillow's observed rent index was $1,904 in Orlando and $2,058 in St. Petersburg. Neither city levies income tax, and sales tax is 6.5% in Orange County against 7% in Pinellas.
Is Orlando or St. Petersburg safer?
St. Petersburg, in the one year that covers both, and level on homicide since. The FBI's 2022 file is the last with complete Orlando data: violent crime ran 835.8 per 100,000 in Orlando and about 618 in St. Petersburg, and homicides were 32 against 16. Orlando has no FBI rate since, and its department's 2025 tally uses a broader definition that lands near 1,775 per 100,000; St. Petersburg's FBI counts for 2025 give 502 violent and 2,059 property offenses per 100,000. Homicide is the cleanest count: 10 in Orlando in 2025, about 3.0 per 100,000 and its fewest since 1971, and 9 in St. Petersburg on the FBI's count, about 3.4, and 10 on its department's, its fewest since 1967. Crime fell sharply in both in 2025. The St. Petersburg counts, read on 1 October 2026, can still be revised.
Which has the better job market, Orlando or St. Petersburg?
Neither clearly: the two metros are about the same size, unemployment is level, and the difference is the work. On the same unadjusted basis BLS put July 2026 unemployment at 4.7% for the Orlando metro and 4.8% for Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater. Greater Orlando had 1,506,600 nonfarm jobs in June, one in five of them in leisure and hospitality, with Disney at about 77,000, AdventHealth at about 37,700 and Lockheed Martin at more than 14,000. The Tampa Bay metro had 1,559,600 in August, about one in nine in leisure and hospitality, and St. Petersburg's own employers are headquarters such as Raymond James, Jabil and Duke Energy Florida, and hospitals. Median household income was $77,597 in the City of Orlando and $73,048 in St. Petersburg in 2024.
Which is more exposed to hurricanes, Orlando or St. Petersburg?
St. Petersburg, to the water; Orlando to the wind and rain alone. Orlando sits about 100 ft above sea level and 42 mi inland, so its hurricanes bring wind, inland flooding and long power outages, as Ian did in 2022 with 14 in of rain at the airport, and its insurance is budgeted at $310 a month. St. Petersburg is on Tampa Bay: Helene's surge in September 2024 reached 6.31 ft above mean higher high water on the city's tide gauge, a record since 1947, and the City recorded 5,189 parcels with major damage afterward; its insurance is budgeted at $390. Neither figure includes flood cover, which in St. Petersburg is priced on the elevation certificate, 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.
- Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places in Florida: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025 (SUB-EST2025) · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: City population, Five-year growth, crime.homicides rate
- Annual Resident Population Estimates for Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025 (CBSA-EST2025-ALLDATA) · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: Metro population, Five-year growth
- Crime Data Explorer, Orlando Police Department summarized offenses (violent crime, property crime, homicide), 2021-2025 · FBI · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, crime.homicides 2022
- Proactive policing in Orlando yields significant crime reductions · WFTV · retrieved Supports: Homicides, Crime trend, crime notes
- Police say crimes, including homicides, declining in Orlando · Spectrum News 13 · retrieved Supports: Homicides, Crime trend
- Orlando Police: 2025 violent crime down 9 percent in the City Beautiful · Headline Surfer · retrieved Supports: Crime trend, crime.homicides 2024
- Orlando Police Department releases 2024 crime statistics · WFTV via Yahoo News · retrieved Supports: Crime trend
- U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00012815 (Orlando International Airport), monthly and annual · NOAA NCEI · retrieved Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Annual snowfall
- Orlando, Florida (climate and hurricane history) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, character
- Hurricane Milton · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- ACS 2024 1-year, tables B19013 and B08301, Orlando city and Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford MSA · US Census Bureau via Census Reporter API · retrieved Supports: Median household income, Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share
- Local Area Unemployment Statistics, series LAUMT123674000000003 (Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford MSA unemployment rate) · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate
- Current Employment Statistics, series SMU12367400000000001 and SMU12367407000000001 (Orlando MSA total nonfarm and leisure and hospitality) · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Labour market
- Top employers and talent report search results (Disney, AdventHealth, Lockheed Martin employment) · Orlando Economic Partnership · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- Orange County, Florida sales tax rate 2026 · Avalara · retrieved Supports: Sales tax
- 2025 Tax Brackets · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
- Facts at a Glance · LYNX (Central Florida Regional Transportation Authority) · retrieved Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership
- SunRail Ridership Grows to 1.2 Million Riders in 2024 · SunRail · retrieved Supports: Transit ridership
- Orlando International Moves Up In 2025 National Rankings for Busiest Airport · Greater Orlando Aviation Authority · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- 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
- 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
- Discretionary Sales Surtax Information for Calendar Year 2026 (DR-15DSS) · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: Sales tax, Pinellas 1%, February 1, 1990 to December 31, 2029
- 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
- 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
- 2025 Final Millage Rates · Orange County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: Orange County general at 4.4347 mills, the library district at 0.3748 and the St Johns River Water Management District at 0.1793, School state and local levies totalling 6.449 mills, Municipal rates from Windermere's 3.7425 to Eatonville's 7.2938, A published total against every mill code, including Winter Park's 15.3615 on codes 2, 4 and 6, Maitland's 16.3055 on code 6, and Windermere's 15.2311 on code 35 and 15.4839 on code 75, A blank library column on every Winter Park and Maitland code, which is what puts both municipalities outside the district
- Special taxing district information: the Orange County Library District's boundary · Orange County Library System · retrieved Supports: The district's boundary is Orange County exclusive of Winter Park and Maitland, each of which operates its own library, Laws of Florida chapter 99-486 as the enabling act behind it
- Final 2025 Millage Rates, fiscal year 2025-26 · Seminole County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: Total millage by taxing authority for every Seminole municipality, from Lake Mary's 14.3929 to Casselberry's 18.1808, School required local and discretionary levies totalling 5.2490 mills, The county fire and road MSTUs, which apply in the unincorporated area and in some cities but not others
- 2025 Final Millage Rates · Osceola County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: Kissimmee at 17.4114 mills and Saint Cloud at 17.8989, School levies totalling 5.3060 mills across required local, discretionary and capital, Dozens of separate municipal service taxing units in the unincorporated county, from 0.13 to 12.42 mills, which is why an unincorporated Osceola address cannot be given one rate
- 2025 Final Millage Rates by district, and the 2025 Final Millage Rates and Values Comparison Sheet · Lake County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: Total millage for every Lake municipality, from Leesburg's 15.9477 to Eustis's 19.8623, Leesburg's own adopted rate of 3.4752 mills, on the district sheet and again as the 2025 adopted rate on the comparison sheet, School board state and local levies totalling 6.0850 mills, The county fire, ambulance and stormwater MSTUs and which municipalities are subject to them, including that an incorporated city pays neither the fire nor the stormwater MSTU
- 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 population estimates for each municipality, Leesburg's growth from 27,011 to 37,815, the fastest in the metro in percentage terms, Orlando at 334,854, which is twelve percent of its own metropolitan area
- Primary Mortgage Market Survey · Freddie Mac · retrieved Supports: 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaging 6.67%
- Average cost of homeowners insurance in Florida, 2026 · MoneyGeek · retrieved Supports: A Florida average of about $3,815 a year against a national average of about $2,543, Orange County premiums in the $3,200 to $4,500 range, at the cheaper end of the state because the metro is inland
- Conforming loan limit values for 2026 · Federal Housing Finance Agency · retrieved Supports: A baseline one-unit conforming loan limit of $832,750 for 2026, which applies in every county in this metro
- Documentary stamp tax · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: 70 cents per $100 on a deed, in every county except Miami-Dade, which charges 60 cents plus a 45-cent surtax, 35 cents per $100 on a promissory note or other written obligation to pay money
- 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
- Table 1: Comparison of Taxes Levied, county and municipal governments, fiscal years 2024-25 and 2025-26 · Florida Department of Revenue, Property Tax Oversight · retrieved Supports: Independent confirmation of each municipality's own adopted 2025-26 levy in both counties
- 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