St. Petersburg vs Cape Coral: which should you move to?
St. Petersburg or Cape Coral? 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.
St. Petersburg
Cape Coral
Both cities are in Florida, price in US dollars and sit on the Gulf, so neither takes income tax, a single filer on $100,000 pays the same $13,449 in federal tax in each, the homestead rules are the same, and both were last measured by a hurricane's surge. Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,742 a month on St. Petersburg's typical home and $3,056 on the Royal Palm Coast Realtor Association's single-family median for its Cape Coral region, a $314 gap that would be about $198 with St. Petersburg's payment at Cape Coral's October rate of 7.28% rather than August's 6.67%; because Cape Coral households earn $85,584 against $73,048, that is about 45% of median income in St. Petersburg and 43% in Cape Coral. On Zillow's index, the same measure in both, St. Petersburg's typical home was $355,759 and Zillow's index for the City of Cape Coral stood at $335,825, and Cape Coral's tax takes less of the price, about 1.38% against 1.76%, before its City's assessments of about $1,080 a year. Crime can be read on the same FBI year, 2023, and Cape Coral's violent rate was about a fifth of St. Petersburg's, 122 per 100,000 against 573, with 2 homicides against 13. The economy favors St. Petersburg: metro unemployment of 4.8% against 5.2%, a metro with five times the jobs, and transit a household can use. Choose St. Petersburg for a walkable waterfront downtown, the SunRunner, two airports within 16 miles, Bayfront and All Children's, and a younger city. Choose Cape Coral for low crime, higher household pay, a 6.5% sales tax, a January 2.5 F warmer and a canal lot, if you will buy on elevation and read Ian's record first.
| Measure | St. Petersburg | Cape Coral | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| City population | 264,033 (2025) | 236,264 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
| Metro population | 3,418,895 (2025) | 875,607 (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. | 2.2% (2020-2025) | 21.8% (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 | St. Petersburg | Cape Coral | 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. | $355,759 (June 2026) | $389,950 (August 2026) | St. Petersburg |
| Detached house benchmark St. Petersburg and Cape Coral publish a single house index rather than a composite, so the two rows repeat. | $355,759 | $389,950 | St. Petersburg |
| Apartment or condominium benchmark | Not published | $191,729 | Not directly comparable |
| Two-bedroom rent | $2,058/mo (median, June 2026) | $1,186/mo (median, September 2026) | Cape Coral |
| One-bedroom rent | $1,770/mo | $1,032/mo | Cape Coral |
| 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. | 33.8% of a year's income | 16.6% of a year's income | Cape Coral |
| Mortgage payment on the benchmark, 20% down 30-year amortization on American monthly compounding, the convention in both. | $1,831/mo at 6.67% | $2,134/mo at 7.28% | 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. | 4.9× | 4.6× | Cape Coral |
| 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. | $6,248/yr (1.756%, 2025) | $5,362/yr (1.375%, 2025) | Cape Coral |
| 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. | $2,490 (seller pays) | $2,730 (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 |
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. Cape Coral: About 1.38% of the price for a homesteaded owner, worked out on the $389,950 single-family median for the Royal Palm Coast Realtor Association's Cape Coral region, which is lower than the 15.3806 mills a house in the City of Cape Coral is charged because of Florida's homestead exemption rather than any assessment lag. Thirteen levies make it: Lee County 3.7623 for general revenue; the Lee County School District 5.3190 (2.2480 set by its board and 3.0710 by state law); the City 5.1471 for operations and 0.1608 for its voted parks bond; the county's All Hazards Protection District 0.0693 and Library District 0.4218; the South Florida Water Management District 0.0948, 0.1026 for the Okeechobee basin and 0.0327 for the Everglades Construction Project; the Hyacinth Control District 0.0192; the Mosquito Control District 0.2116; and the West Coast Inland Navigation District 0.0394, for 2025. There is no fire district line: the City pays for fire service with an assessment instead. The school lines are charged on the price less $25,000, $364,950, and the rest on the price less a second slice as well, $339,950 on the base amounts, so a homesteaded buyer's first bill is about $5,362. Without a homestead, as a landlord or a buyer who never files, the same house owes $5,998. That second slice is indexed to inflation: the Department of Revenue published $25,722 for 2025, which brings the same bill to $5,354; this page uses the $25,000 base, like every Florida page on this site and like the Lee County Property Appraiser's own pamphlet. For 2026 the Council capped the City's operating rate at 5.1988, the rolled-back rate, and set the parks bond levy at 0.1554. The exemption is not automatic: you file with the property appraiser by 1 March. Three City assessments come on the same bill and no exemption reduces them: for 2025-26, fire service at $349.32 a parcel plus $3.47 for each $5,000 of structure value, $540.17 on a house whose structure is valued at $275,000; stormwater at $156; and solid waste at $384.25, about $1,080 a year together. 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 | St. Petersburg | Cape Coral | 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 | 502 (2025) | 122 (2023) | Cape Coral |
| Property crime per 100,000 | 2,059 (2025) | 918 (2023) | Cape Coral |
| 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. | 9 (2025) | 2 (2023) | Not directly comparable |
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.
Down, on every count that exists, though no FBI or state count covers 2025. On the FBI CDE's figures violent offenses fell from 403 in 2022 to 277 in 2023, about 185 and 122 per 100,000 on each year's Vintage 2025 population, and January to October 2024 brought 236, which at that pace would be about 2023's level. FDLE's incident-based file, which counts somewhat differently (its forcible sex offenses include fondling, and its assault totals run higher), shows the same direction: 420 violent offenses in 2022, 357 in 2023 and 243 in 2024, about 104 per 100,000 in the last year, and property offenses from 2,555 in 2023 to 1,980 in 2024. For 2025 there is only the department's own word: it reported overall crime down 28% in the first half of the year, 1,487 cases against 2,076, with thefts down from 850 to 612 and no homicides (Cape Coral Police Department), and its 2025 annual report claims a 28% reduction for the year and calls the city the second-safest in Florida of those over 150,000, without publishing the counts behind either. The CDE counts were read on 2 October 2026 from a feed last refreshed on 15 September, and why the department's data stop at October 2024 was not found.
What the rates cover: Computed: 277 violent offenses (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) in the FBI Crime Data Explorer's summarized data for the Cape Coral Police Department (ORI FL0360200) in calendar 2023, divided by the 227,458 Vintage 2025 estimate for July 2023; on the CDE's own agency population of 228,672 the rate is 121. 2023 is used, not the 2025 the other Florida profiles use, because it is the last calendar year the FBI carries in full for this department: the CDE has every month of 2022 and 2023, January to October 2024, and nothing from November 2024 on, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's incident-based (FIBRS) offense file, the state system that feeds the FBI, has the department for every month of 2022 to 2024 and not at all for 2025 or 2026. No FBI rate exists for 2025, as for Orlando after 2022. On 2023's figure Cape Coral has the lowest violent crime rate of the Florida cities this site compares, a little below Port St. Lucie's 130 for 2025, a third of Miami's 359 and a quarter of St. Petersburg's 502.
Homicides: 2 murders and nonnegligent manslaughters in 2023 in the FBI CDE, about 0.9 per 100,000 on the city population. The CDE series is 4 in 2022, 2 in 2023 and 5 in January to October 2024; FDLE's file has 4, 4 and 5 for the three full years. The department reported no homicides in the first half of 2025, against three in the first half of 2024 (Cape Coral Police Department). Port St. Lucie had 4 in 2025, St. Petersburg 9 and Tampa 17.
Winters, summers and what the weather can do to a house
| Measure | St. Petersburg | Cape Coral | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| January mean | 16.8 °C | 18.2 °C | Not directly comparable |
| July mean | 28.8 °C | 28.4 °C | Not directly comparable |
| Precipitation a year | 1,185 mm | 1,458 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 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.
NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals for Fort Myers Page Field (station USW00012835), the general aviation airport in Fort Myers about 9 miles east-southeast of the city's center across the Caloosahatchee River. No station inside Cape Coral has 1991-2020 normals, and of the two Fort Myers airports with full temperature and precipitation normals Page Field is the nearer; Southwest Florida International (USW00012894) is about 17 miles southeast and farther inland. January mean 64.7F, July mean 83.2F, annual mean 75.4F, 57.41 in of precipitation. Neither airport's normals carry snowfall, so the 0.0 in of snow stored here is the normal at the nearest cooperative station that has one, Punta Gorda 4 ESE (USC00087397), about 19 miles north. August is the warmest month at 83.4F, with a mean high of 91.7F; January's mean low is 54.3F. August (10.43 in), June (9.66 in) and July (9.38 in) are the wettest months, and June through September bring 38.47 in, 67% of the year; February and November (1.78 in each) are the driest. The normals count 120.3 days a year at 90F or above, none at 100F and 0.1 nights at or below freezing. Converted here to 18.2 C, 28.4 C, 1,458 mm and 0 cm. Southwest Florida International agrees closely: 64.6F in January, 82.7F in July, 53.39 in a year and 119.1 days at 90F. Cape Coral's January is the warmest of the Florida cities this site compares except Miami's (68.6F), two and a half degrees above St. Petersburg's 62.2F and Port St. Lucie's 62.3F, and its rain is second only to Miami's. Sunshine is not stored: Current Results' US city table, the source and 1961-1990 basis of the other US profiles' sunshine hours, lists no Fort Myers or Cape Coral station, and the 1991-2020 normals do not include sunshine; the 355 days of sunshine Wikipedia repeats is a promotional figure, not a measured total.
Hazards: Storm surge and wind from hurricanes are the defining hazards, and Hurricane Ian in 2022 is the measure of them. Ian came ashore on Cayo Costa, the barrier island off Pine Island west of the city, on 28 September 2022 with sustained winds of 130 kt (150 mph), a high category 4, and again near Punta Gorda an hour and a half later (National Hurricane Center). Its surge put 6 to 9 ft of water above ground in Pine Island, Cape Coral and the other communities at the mouth of the Caloosahatchee, and the US Geological Survey's sensors in Matlacha and Cape Coral were lost or destroyed before they could record a peak; the NOS tide gauge in downtown Fort Myers, across the river, measured 7.26 ft above mean higher high water. Storm surge killed 41 people, 36 of them in Lee County, and in Lee County at least 52,514 structures were affected, 5,369 destroyed and 14,245 with major damage; Ian did $112.9 billion of damage in the US, $109.5 billion of it in Florida, the costliest hurricane in the state's history (NHC). Page Field recorded a gust of 67 mph on 28 September before it stopped reporting; its highest gust since 2010 is 84 mph, on 10 September 2017. Heat is long rather than extreme: 120.3 days a year at 90F or above on the normals, almost twice St. Petersburg's 70.9 and Port St. Lucie's 66.8, and none at 100F (37.8 C). Page Field recorded 168 such days in 2023, the most in its record since 2010, and 134 in 2026 through 28 September. Frost is all but unknown: one night at or below 32F (0 C) since 2010, 31F on 11 January 2010, and a lowest reading of 34F in 2026 on 1 February.
What people earn and what the government takes
| Measure | St. Petersburg | Cape Coral | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income | $73,048 USD (2024) | $85,584 USD (2024) | Cape Coral |
| Unemployment rate | 4.8% (July 2026) | 5.2% (July 2026) | St. Petersburg |
| Sales tax | 7% | 6.5% | Cape Coral |
| 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 St. Petersburg and Cape Coral 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 |
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.
BLS counted 311,300 nonfarm jobs in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers MSA in August 2026 (not seasonally adjusted, preliminary), up 1,500 or 0.5% on the year. Private education and health services (+1,500, or 2.8%, to 55,400) and leisure and hospitality (+1,500, or 3.8%, to 41,200) added the most, then professional and business services (+1,100, or 2.5%, to 45,900), while government lost 2,400 (-7.8%, to 28,500), all of it in local government (down 10.6% to 20,300), and mining, logging and construction 300 (to 40,900). The city's own employment picture is a commuter town's: the ten principal employers in its 2025 financial report, led by the school district (2,563), Lee Health (2,015), the City (1,969) and Publix (1,370), employ 10,442, about 9.5% of the people working in the city on the City's count, and the list is almost unchanged from 2016's except that a regional VA clinic and Lowe's have left it and the water park and the Westin have joined. Most residents work elsewhere: 54% of the city's workers (58,022 of 108,333) worked outside the city in 2024, though only 9.8% (10,604) outside Lee County, against 40% for Port St. Lucie. 16.3% worked from home, and the mean commute for the rest was 32 minutes, seven more than St. Petersburg's, with 11% spending an hour or more (ACS 2024 1-year, B08007, B08008, B08013, B08101 and B08303).
Main sectors: Construction and real estate: mining, logging and construction held 40,900 of the metro's 311,300 nonfarm jobs in August 2026, 13%, about twice the share in the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro, in a city still building out lots platted in the 1950s and 1960s and rebuilding after Ian; Home Depot (559) is among the city's ten largest employers, Health care: Lee Health, the county's hospital system and Cape Coral Hospital's operator, is the city's second-largest employer (2,015 staff in the city), in a metro sector (private education and health services, 55,400 jobs) that added 1,500 jobs over the year, Retail: Publix (1,370 staff in the city), Walmart and Sam's Club (700) and Home Depot, in a metro with 42,500 retail jobs, Public schools and government: the Lee County School District (2,563 staff in the city, the largest employer), the City of Cape Coral (1,969) and the City's own charter school system (371), while metro local government lost 2,400 jobs over the year, Leisure and tourism: Sun Splash Family Water Park (300) and the Westin resort (200) among the city's ten largest employers, boating on the canals, and the beaches of Sanibel and Fort Myers Beach nearby (leisure and hospitality, 41,200 metro jobs, up 3.8% on the year).
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 house in the City of Cape Coral (Lee County taxing district 057) paid 15.3806 mills for 2025 on the Lee County Property Appraiser's millage book, of which the City's own rates are 5.1471 for operations and 0.1608 for its voted parks bond. The total is low partly because there is no fire district line: the City pays for fire service with a per-parcel assessment that, with stormwater and solid waste, comes on the same bill and is not reduced by any exemption. On 22 July 2026 the City Council voted 7 to 1 to cap the fiscal 2027 operating rate at 5.1988 mills, the rolled-back rate, on a taxable value of $33.1 billion, with final adoption set for 24 September (Gulfshore Business). The Royal Palm Coast Realtor Association's single-family median for its Cape Coral region was $389,950 in August 2026, up 6.1% from $367,500 a year earlier, while Zillow's typical home value for the city was $335,825, down 3.9%, and its observed rent $1,949; the bills, assessments, insurance and flood exposure that follow from them belong to the housing layer.
Whether you need a car
| Measure | St. Petersburg | Cape Coral | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| System | 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. | LeeTran, the Lee County Transit Department's bus system, serving Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Bonita Springs, Fort Myers Beach and much of unincorporated Lee County, Monday to Saturday from about 5 a.m. to 9:45 p.m. with reduced Sunday service and trolleys (Wikipedia). Wikipedia's Cape Coral article counts 18 fixed routes, six of them within Cape Coral. There is no passenger rail and no bus rapid transit, and the city is on a peninsula: it reaches Fort Myers and the rest of the county by two bridges across the Caloosahatchee, the Cape Coral Bridge, opened in 1964, and the Midpoint Memorial Bridge, and by road through North Fort Myers. Lee County and the City plan to replace the Cape Coral Bridge's 1964 westbound span with a $185 million six-lane project that also removes the toll booth on the Fort Myers side (Wikipedia). | Not directly comparable |
| Commute by public transit | 2.1% (2024) | 0.2% (2024) | St. Petersburg |
| Walk or cycle to work | 2.9% (2024) | 1.0% (2024) | St. Petersburg |
| Airport | 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. | Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW), owned by the Lee County Port Authority and opened in 1983 southeast of Fort Myers, about 17 miles from the city's center, handled a record 11,154,458 passengers in 2025, a little more than 1% above 2024's record (WGCU; Wikipedia), with Delta, Southwest, American and United the largest carriers. Page Field, in Fort Myers about 9 miles away, serves general aviation. | Not directly comparable |
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.
LeeTran carried 1,969,906 unlinked trips in 2025 on the National Transit Database's monthly ridership file (Federal Transit Administration), 1,758,231 of them on its buses and the rest on demand-response service. That is less than half its peak of 4,222,649 in 2013 and below the 3,156,405 of 2019; ridership fell to about 1.9 to 2.0 million a year from 2020 and has stayed there, and January to August 2026 ran 2.3% above the same months of 2025. Wikipedia's figure for 2025, 1,831,800, counts a narrower set of services. For comparison, Port St. Lucie's Area Regional Transit carried 825,588 trips in 2025 and St. Petersburg's PSTA 10.4 million (their profiles, from the same file).
Health care, schools and what each city is like
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.
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, against 8.2% nationally, on the ACS 2024 1-year estimates; the City of Cape Coral's was 9.4% (21,762 of 232,206), below Lee County's 13.2% and close to Port St. Lucie's 9.9%. Hospital care in the county is Lee Health's: the system, which runs four acute care hospitals and two specialty hospitals, was a public special district until Lee County approved a mission agreement on 28 October 2024 and it became a private nonprofit, Lee Health System, Inc., on 1 November 2024, bound by that agreement to go on providing safety-net care (South Florida Hospital News). Its hospital in the city is Cape Coral Hospital, whose emergency department grew to 56 treatment spaces in January 2026, and Lee Health opened a walk-in care center at Bimini Square in south Cape Coral in late 2025 (South Florida Hospital News). Lee Health is the city's second-largest employer, with 2,015 staff in the city (City of Cape Coral). This file did not verify a bed count for Cape Coral Hospital or a wait time figure for primary or specialist care.
Education
The Lee County School District, the countywide district, counted 87,107 students in its own schools and 13,329 in charter schools in 2025-26, and lost 1,946 students from the year before, mainly to home education, private schools, other Florida districts and moves out of state or country; the zone that takes in Cape Coral was at 94% of capacity (Cape Coral Breeze). Its four high schools in the city are Cape Coral (late 1970s), Mariner (1987), Ida S. Baker (2005) and Island Coast (2008). The City runs its own municipal charter school system, the Oasis schools (Cape Coral Charter Schools on the City's employer list, 371 staff), with two elementary schools, a middle school and a high school open only to children who live in the city and charge no tuition (Wikipedia; City of Cape Coral). Higher education is across the river: Florida Gulf Coast University, established in 1991 and opened in 1997, with almost 15,000 students in 2017, and Florida SouthWestern State College, whose main campus is in Fort Myers (Wikipedia). Cape Coral Technical College, run by the school district, is in the city.
Living there
Cape Coral is a land sale that became the largest city between Tampa and Miami. In 1957 two Baltimore developers, Leonard and Jack Rosen, bought a 103-square-mile tract across the Caloosahatchee from Fort Myers for $678,000, and their Gulf American Land Corporation sold its lots at free-dinner sales events in 24 states, dug canals without state permits (which later bankrupted it) and paved streets ahead of the people (Wikipedia). The result, incorporated in 1970, is a grid of single-family houses on more than 400 miles of canals, more than any other city on earth by Wikipedia's account, some of them with access to the Gulf, and the same platted-lot history Port St. Lucie has on the other coast. It is as suburban as any of the Florida cities here: 79.2% of homes are owner-occupied, 0.2% of workers take transit, the median age is 48.0, the oldest of the seven, and more than half of its workers leave the city for work, nearly all of them for elsewhere in Lee County. It grew 21.8% from 2020 to 2025, second only to Port St. Lucie among large US cities, entirely on people moving in. Its household income, $85,584, is second to Port St. Lucie's; its violent crime rate, 122 per 100,000 in 2023, the last year the FBI has, is the lowest of the Florida cities here; and its sales tax, 6.5%, is the lowest. Its risk is the Gulf. Hurricane Ian came ashore on Cayo Costa, off Pine Island west of the city, in September 2022 at 150 mph, put 6 to 9 feet of water over the ground in Cape Coral and Pine Island, and drowned 36 people in Lee County in its surge.
Where each city wins, and where it loses
Both cities price in US dollars, so the figures net directly, though the headlines are different instruments priced at different rates. St. Petersburg's is Zillow's typical home value for the city across all homes, $355,759 in June 2026, 3.9% below a year earlier, the city's row in the Tampa Bay layer. Cape Coral's is the Royal Palm Coast Realtor Association's single-family median for its Cape Coral region of the Southwest Florida MLS, $389,950 in August on 442 closed sales, 6.1% above the $367,500 of a year earlier; it is the board's region rather than the City, for which no one publishes a median. On the same Zillow index, the like-for-like measure, Zillow's index for the City of Cape Coral stood at $335,825 in August, 3.9% lower on the year, and St. Petersburg's typical home is about 6% above it. Against local pay the headlines are 4.9 times St. Petersburg's 2024 median household income of $73,048 and 4.6 times Cape Coral's $85,584. At 20% down, St. Petersburg's $284,607 loan at 6.67%, Freddie Mac's August rate, costs $1,831 a month, and the $311,960 loan on the board's Cape Coral region median at 7.28%, the rate for 1 October, $2,134. A homesteaded buyer's first-year property tax is about $6,248 in St. Petersburg, 1.76% of the price on 19.9197 mills, against $5,362 in Cape Coral, 1.38% on 15.3806, and insurance is budgeted at $390 and $475 a month, neither including flood. The three lines come to about $2,742 and $3,056, about 45% and 43% of local median income; at 7.28% St. Petersburg's would be about $2,858, and on Zillow's value for Cape Coral the carry would be about $2,691. Rent is close. Zillow's observed rent index was $2,058 in St. Petersburg in June and $1,949 in Cape Coral in August, about 34% and 27% of median income. Apartment List's Lee County medians, $1,032 for a one-bedroom and $1,186 for a two-bedroom in September, are far lower: its file has no row for the City, and much of Cape Coral's rental stock is single-family houses, which an apartment index barely sees.
Both cities can be read on the same year and the same definitions, the FBI's Crime Data Explorer counts divided by Census Vintage 2025 populations, though the year is 2023, and on it Cape Coral is far the lower on every line. The St. Petersburg Police Department submitted 1,519 violent offenses that year, about 573 per 100,000, and the Cape Coral Police Department 277, about 122, under a quarter of the rate. Property offenses were 7,052 against 2,088, 918 per 100,000 in Cape Coral, the smaller city. Homicide was 13 in St. Petersburg and 2 in Cape Coral, about 0.9 per 100,000. The year before, 2022, ran the same way, about 618 violent offenses per 100,000 against 185. After 2023 the records part. St. Petersburg reports a full year for 2024 and 2025, and its direction is down: violent offenses fell 19% in 2025 to 1,325, 502 per 100,000, after three flat years, property offenses fell 17% to 5,437, 2,059, and its 9 homicides, which its department, counting 10, called the fewest since 1967, were about 3.4 per 100,000. Cape Coral's federal data stop at October 2024, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's incident-based file has nothing for the department in 2025 or 2026, so it has no 2025 rate; why was not found. Its police department reported overall crime down 28% in the first half of 2025, 1,487 cases against 2,076, without publishing counts for the year. Even St. Petersburg's improved 2025 is about four times Cape Coral's 2023. The counts were read on 1 and 2 October 2026 and can still be revised.
The two summers are the same on the mean and the winters are not; both coasts were measured by a recent surge. January averages 16.8 C at Albert Whitted Airport on St. Petersburg's downtown waterfront, 62.2F, against 18.2 C at Fort Myers Page Field, about 9 miles east-southeast of Cape Coral's center across the Caloosahatchee, 64.7F; July averages 28.8 C against 28.4 C, 83.8F against 83.2F, and Cape Coral's warmest month is August, at 83.4F. The difference is how many days are hot. The normals count 70.9 days a year at 90F or above in St. Petersburg and 120.3 at Page Field, and 0.1 freezing nights in each; in 2024 St. Petersburg's station recorded 128 such hot days, and in 2023 Page Field 168. Cape Coral gets 1,458 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 last direct strike was in 1921, and its risk is surge into the bay: Helene passed offshore on 26 September 2024 and put 6.31 ft 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 two weeks later Milton came ashore at Siesta Key, about 35 miles south, and dropped 18.54 in (471 mm) of rain on St. Petersburg on 9 October. Cape Coral's storm was Ian, which came ashore on Cayo Costa, across Pine Island Sound west of the city, on 28 September 2022 at 150 mph and put 6 to 9 ft of water above the ground in Pine Island, Cape Coral and the other communities at the mouth of the Caloosahatchee; the sensors in Cape Coral were lost, and the tide gauge across the river in Fort Myers measured 7.26 ft above mean higher high water. Storm surge killed 41 people, 36 of them in Lee County, where at least 52,514 structures were affected and 5,369 destroyed.
St. Petersburg's metro has five times the jobs and lower unemployment, and Cape Coral's households earn more. On the same unadjusted basis BLS put July 2026 unemployment at 4.8% for Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater and 5.2% for Cape Coral-Fort Myers, up from 4.6% a year earlier, with the two cities themselves at 4.2% and 5.0%. The Tampa Bay metro had 1,559,600 nonfarm jobs in August, 14,200 or 0.9% more than a year earlier; the Cape Coral-Fort Myers metro, which is Lee County, had 311,300, 1,500 or 0.5% more, while its local government lost 2,400. St. Petersburg is a headquarters town: Raymond James, its largest private employer with 4,800 staff, Jabil, Duke Energy Florida and Power Design, with Johns Hopkins All Children's and Bayfront among its hospitals. Cape Coral's metro leans on building: mining, logging and construction held 40,900 jobs, 13% and about twice the share in the Tampa Bay metro, in a city still building out lots platted in the 1950s and 1960s and rebuilding after Ian, and the city's largest employers are the Lee County School District, Lee Health, the City and Publix. Both keep their workers in the county, 86% of St. Petersburg's in Pinellas and 90% of Cape Coral's in Lee, but 54% of Cape Coral's leave the city itself, and their mean commute, 32 minutes, is seven longer than St. Petersburg's; 21.3% and 16.3% worked from home. Median household income was $85,584 in Cape Coral in 2024 and $73,048 in St. Petersburg, and $83,602 across Lee County against $78,275 across Tampa Bay. Cape Coral is the oldest of the Florida cities here, with a median age of 48.0 against St. Petersburg's 43.0, and far more a city of owners, 79.2% of homes against 62.1%. Florida takes no income tax in either, so $100,000 pays the same $13,449 in federal tax for 2025. Sales tax is 7% in Pinellas, where the Penny for Pinellas runs to the end of 2029, and 6.5% in Lee County, the lowest of the Florida cities this site compares. Property tax and insurance come to about $10,928 a year on St. Petersburg's typical home and $11,062 on the board's Cape Coral region median.
Both are built for the car, and St. Petersburg is the one with transit a household can use. In 2024, 2.1% of St. Petersburg's workers took transit and 2.9% walked or cycled, against 0.2% and about 1% in Cape Coral, the lowest transit share of any city this site compares, where the survey's margin of error reaches zero; 65.6% and 70.0% drove alone. The Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority carried 10,441,618 trips in 2025, 769,551 of them on the SunRunner, Tampa Bay's first bus rapid transit line, every 15 minutes from downtown St. Petersburg to St. Pete Beach. LeeTran carried 1,969,906 across Lee County, about a fifth as many and less than half its own 2013 peak. Neither city has passenger rail; the freight line into downtown St. Petersburg was abandoned in 2008. The two were laid out differently. St. Petersburg grew from a railroad town of the 1880s, with more water than land inside its limits and about 4,270 residents per square mile of land. Cape Coral was a land sale: in 1957 the Gulf American Land Corporation bought a 103-square-mile tract across the river from Fort Myers and sold its quarter-acre lots at dinner events in 24 states, and the result is a grid of single-family houses on more than 400 miles of canals with about 2,220 residents per square mile, reaching the rest of the county by two bridges across the Caloosahatchee or by road through North Fort Myers. St. Petersburg has St. Pete-Clearwater International about 9 miles north of downtown, which handled a record 2,794,067 passengers in 2025, and Tampa International about 16 miles away, which handled 24,811,007. Southwest Florida International, about 17 miles from Cape Coral's center, handled a record 11,154,458.
Florida has not expanded Medicaid, so coverage in both runs through an employer or marketplace plan, Medicare or Medicaid. Florida's uninsured rate was 10.9% in 2024, St. Petersburg's 7.3% and the City of Cape Coral's 9.4%, below Lee County's 13.2%. St. Petersburg is its county's hospital center: Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital is 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 has 259 beds and a Level I pediatric trauma center. Hospital care in Lee County is Lee Health's, a public district until it became a private nonprofit on 1 November 2024, bound by its agreement with the county to go on providing safety-net care; its hospital in the city is Cape Coral Hospital, whose emergency department grew to 56 treatment spaces in January 2026. Neither profile verified a wait time, and Cape Coral's verified no bed count. Both districts lost students and only one has room. 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. The Lee County School District counted 87,107 students in its own schools and 13,329 in charters in 2025-26, 1,946 fewer than a year before, while the zone that takes in Cape Coral was at 94% of capacity, and the City runs its own tuition-free charter schools, the Oasis schools, for children who live in the city. St. Petersburg has the University of South Florida's downtown campus of about 6,500, Eckerd College, St. Petersburg College and the Poynter Institute; Florida Gulf Coast University and Florida SouthWestern State College are across the river from Cape Coral.
What people underestimate is what each bill carries beyond the millage, and what the last storm left behind. Both cities run on the same Florida rules: $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 by 1 March of the year after you buy. Without it St. Petersburg's typical home owes about $7,087, 1.99%, and the board's Cape Coral region median about $5,998, 1.54%. A City of St. Petersburg address pays 19.9197 across the Pinellas stack, of which the City's council sets 6.4525 and kept it for fiscal 2027 on a 6 to 2 vote. A City of Cape Coral address pays 13 levies adding to 15.3806, and its Council capped the City's fiscal 2027 operating rate at 5.1988, the rolled-back rate. Part of Cape Coral's lower millage is that it carries no fire district: the City charges a fire service assessment instead, which with stormwater and solid waste comes to about $1,080 a year on a house whose structure is valued at $275,000, on the same bill and reduced by no exemption. Cape Coral also began on septic tanks and shallow wells, and the City has been assessing water and sewer lines in area by area since 2001; its two latest areas cost $33,367 and $32,288 on a standard lot paid up front, or up to $3,734 and $3,385 a year on the tax bill over 30 years. Both sellers pay the 70-cent documentary stamp, about $2,490 and $2,730, and both buyers 0.55% of the loan, about $1,565 and $1,716. Then the water. St. Petersburg's insurance is the Tampa Bay layer's band for a coastal address, inside the $3,900 to $5,500 a year its source gives for a single-family house with wind cover; Cape Coral's is an estimate between published averages of $3,695 and $8,688. Neither includes flood, and from 1 January 2027 most new and renewing Citizens Property Insurance policies with wind cover must carry it. Both cities apply FEMA's substantial improvement rule, under which a repair costing half a structure's value or more brings the house under the flood rules for new buildings: St. Petersburg assessed 13,494 parcels after Helene and recorded 5,189 with major damage and 146 destroyed, and Cape Coral, since 2025, judges the rule permit by permit. And the two are on opposite paths. St. Petersburg grew 2.2% from 2020 to 2025 and lost 1,822 residents in 2024-25, the year of the storms; Cape Coral grew 21.8%, the second fastest of any US city of 200,000 or more, and added 3,156 in 2024-25.
Better here
- Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,742 a month on the June 2026 typical home, and $2,858 at October's 7.28%, against $3,056 on the board's Cape Coral region median.
- Insurance is budgeted at $390 a month against $475, and a homesteaded buyer's property tax is about $6,248 a year.
- Metro unemployment was 4.8% in July 2026, not seasonally adjusted, against 5.2%, in a metro with five times the jobs.
- 2.1% of workers commuted by transit in 2024 against 0.2%, and PSTA carried about five times the trips of LeeTran, with the SunRunner every 15 minutes.
- Bayfront is a Level II trauma center in the city and Johns Hopkins All Children's a Level I pediatric one, and the uninsured rate was 7.3% against 9.4%.
- St. Pete-Clearwater International is about 9 miles from downtown and Tampa International about 16.
Worse here
- Violent crime was about 573 per 100,000 in 2023 on the FBI's counts, against 122 in Cape Coral the same year, and 502 in 2025.
- There were 13 homicides in 2023, against 2 in Cape Coral, and 9 in 2025.
- City median household income was $73,048 in 2024 against $85,584 in Cape Coral.
- 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.
- Pinellas County Schools enrolled more than 3,000 fewer students in 2025-26 and voted to close two schools.
- Sales tax is 7% against 6.5%, and the population fell by 1,822 in 2024-25.
Choose St. Petersburg if
- you want a waterfront downtown, a bus rapid transit line and an airport within 10 miles
- you work in finance, utilities or health care at Raymond James, Duke Energy Florida, All Children's or Bayfront
- you want a large job market within reach and a shorter commute
- you will read the elevation certificate and the City's Helene assessment before the price
The St. Petersburg guide · Neighborhoods · St. Petersburg rent vs buy · St. Petersburg mortgage calculator
Better here
- Violent crime was about 122 per 100,000 in 2023 on the FBI's counts, under a quarter of St. Petersburg's 573 the same year, and there were 2 homicides against 13.
- City median household income was $85,584 in 2024 against $73,048, so the higher carry takes a smaller share of it, 43% against 45%.
- A homesteaded buyer's property tax is about 1.38% of the price on 15.3806 mills, against 1.76% on 19.9197 in St. Petersburg.
- Sales tax is 6.5%, the lowest of the Florida cities this site compares, against 7% in Pinellas.
- January averages 18.2 C against 16.8 C, 2.5 F warmer, with July within a degree.
- The city grew 21.8% from 2020 to 2025, the second fastest of any US city of 200,000 or more, against 2.2% in St. Petersburg.
Worse here
- Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $3,056 a month on the board's Cape Coral region median for August 2026, against $2,858 in St. Petersburg at the same 7.28% rate.
- The City's fire, stormwater and solid waste assessments add about $1,080 a year that no exemption reduces, and a lot in a utility extension area owes more than $30,000 for water and sewer.
- Ian's surge put 6 to 9 ft of water above the ground in Cape Coral in 2022, and 36 of its 41 surge deaths were in Lee County.
- Only 0.2% of workers commuted by transit in 2024, the lowest share of any city this site compares, and the mean commute is seven minutes longer.
- Page Field's normals count 120.3 days a year at 90F or above, against 70.9 in St. Petersburg.
- No FBI or state count covers 2025 for the city, so its crime record ends where St. Petersburg's improvement begins.
Choose Cape Coral if
- you want the lower crime rate, on the last year both cities report in full
- you want a canal lot and a boat, and will check the bridge clearances between the dock and the Gulf
- you work from home, or in construction, health care, the schools or tourism in Lee County
- you want a city of owners that is still growing and will drive everywhere in it
The Cape Coral guide · Neighborhoods · Cape Coral rent vs buy · Cape Coral mortgage calculator
St. Petersburg or Cape Coral, in short
Is St. Petersburg or Cape Coral cheaper to live in?
St. Petersburg, on the house and the insurance, though against local pay the two are level. Both cities are in Florida and price in US dollars, so the figures net directly. St. Petersburg's typical home on Zillow's index was $355,759 in June, and the Royal Palm Coast Realtor Association's single-family median for its Cape Coral region $389,950 in August, the board's region because no City median is published; Zillow's index for the City of Cape Coral stood at $335,825. The mortgage at 20% down is $1,831 at August's 6.67% against $2,134 at October's 7.28%. Property tax is about $6,248 a year against $5,362 and insurance $390 a month against $475, so the three lines come to about $2,742 and $3,056, or $2,858 for St. Petersburg at the same 7.28%, about 45% and 43% of each city's median household income, $73,048 and $85,584. Cape Coral's City adds about $1,080 a year in assessments, and neither figure includes flood. Zillow's observed rent index was $2,058 in St. Petersburg and $1,949 in Cape Coral. Neither city levies income tax, and sales tax is 7% in Pinellas against 6.5% in Lee County.
Is St. Petersburg or Cape Coral safer?
Cape Coral, by a wide margin, on figures built the same way for the same year. Both are the FBI's counts for 2023 divided by Census estimates: about 122 violent offenses per 100,000 in Cape Coral against 573 in St. Petersburg, and 2,088 property offenses against 7,052. Homicides were 2 and 13. St. Petersburg's crime then fell, to 502 violent offenses per 100,000 in 2025 and 9 homicides, its fewest in decades. Cape Coral's federal data stop at October 2024 and the state's file has nothing for it in 2025; its police department reported overall crime down 28% in the first half of 2025 without publishing the counts. The counts were read on 1 and 2 October 2026 and can still be revised.
Which has the better job market, St. Petersburg or Cape Coral?
St. Petersburg's, on size and unemployment, though Cape Coral's households earn more. On the same unadjusted basis BLS put July 2026 unemployment at 4.8% for Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater and 5.2% for Cape Coral-Fort Myers. The Tampa Bay metro had 1,559,600 nonfarm jobs in August and the Cape Coral-Fort Myers metro 311,300. St. Petersburg's work is headquarters such as Raymond James, Jabil and Duke Energy Florida and its hospitals; Cape Coral's is construction, at 13% of the metro's jobs, Lee Health, the schools, retail and tourism, and more than half its workers leave the city for work, nearly all of them for elsewhere in Lee County. Median household income was $85,584 in Cape Coral and $73,048 in St. Petersburg in 2024.
Which is more exposed to hurricanes, St. Petersburg or Cape Coral?
Both, from the same Gulf, and neither figure here includes flood. St. Petersburg has not had a direct strike since 1921, but Helene's surge in 2024 reached 6.31 ft above mean higher high water on its tide gauge, a record since 1947, and the City recorded 5,189 parcels with major damage; its insurance is budgeted at $390 a month. Ian came ashore just west of Cape Coral in 2022 at 150 mph and put 6 to 9 ft of water above the ground there and on Pine Island; the gauge across the river in Fort Myers read 7.26 ft above mean higher high water, and 36 of the storm's 41 surge deaths were in Lee County. Cape Coral's insurance is budgeted at $475 a month, between published averages of $3,695 and $8,688 a year. From 1 January 2027 most new and renewing Citizens policies with wind cover must carry flood, and both cities apply FEMA's substantial improvement rule, which can require a full elevation on a repair costing half the structure's 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 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
- 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
- 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
- 2025 Gazetteer Files: Places, Florida · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: point, City population, Climate normals, Airport passengers, Cape Coral city: 106.265 sq mi of land, 13.366 sq mi of water, internal point 26.643192, -81.997364
- Cape Coral, Florida (history, geography, climate, education, infrastructure, transportation) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: City population, Climate normals, Transit system, Education, Character
- Crime Data Explorer summarized agency data, Cape Coral Police Department (FL0360200): 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, 2022: 403 violent (4 + 39 + 25 + 335), 1,974 property; 2023: 277 violent (2 + 18 + 13 + 244), 2,088 property (344 + 1,618 + 124 + 2); January to October 2024: 236 violent, 1,809 property; no data from November 2024; agency population 228,672 for 2023
- FIBRS offense data by agency and month, 2021 to August 2026 · Florida Department of Law Enforcement · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend, Cape Coral Police Department: twelve months for each of 2022, 2023 and 2024 and no rows for 2025 or 2026; 420, 357 and 243 violent and 2,233, 2,555 and 1,980 property offenses; motor vehicle thefts 118, 175 and 135; homicides 4, 4 and 5
- Cape Coral Police Department Mid-Year Crime Report 2025: Continued Success in Reducing Crime · Cape Coral Police Department · retrieved Supports: Homicides, Crime trend, Crime down 28% in January to June 2025, 1,487 cases against 2,076; no homicides against three; thefts 612 against 850
- 2025 Annual Report · Cape Coral Police Department · retrieved Supports: Crime trend, A 28% reduction in crime in 2025 and the second-safest city in Florida with a population over 150,000, stated without counts
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00012835 Fort Myers Page Field (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Climate normals, Climate hazards, January 64.7F, July 83.2F and August 83.4F and the monthly highs, lows and rain from the monthly series, which carries no snowfall normal for this station, and annual mean 75.4F, precipitation 57.41 in, 120.3 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 USW00012894 Fort Myers Southwest Florida International Airport (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate normals, January 64.6F, July 82.7F, 53.39 in of precipitation, 119.1 days at 90F; no snowfall normal
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USC00087397 Punta Gorda 4 ESE (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)
- NCEI data search, normals-monthly-1991-2020 stations within 26.85N to 26.4N and 82.25W to 81.6W, and stations with a snowfall normal within 27.2N to 25.9N and 82.5W to 81.2W · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate normals, USW00012835 at 26.585N, 81.8614W and USW00012894 at 26.5361N, 81.755W, the only stations with full normals near the city; USC00087397 at 26.9147N, 81.9969W the nearest with a snowfall normal
- Global Historical Climatology Network daily summaries, Fort Myers Page Field (USW00012835), 2010-2026 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, 168 days at or above 90F in 2023 and 134 in 2026 through 28 September; 31F on 11 January 2010, the only reading at or below freezing since 2010; 34F on 1 February 2026; a 67.1 mph gust on 28 September 2022 and no observations for the following days; 84.1 mph on 10 September 2017
- Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Ian (AL092022) · NOAA National Hurricane Center · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Character, Landfall on Cayo Costa at 1905 UTC 28 September 2022 at 130 kt and near Punta Gorda at 125 kt; 6 to 9 ft above ground in Pine Island and Cape Coral; USGS sensors in Matlacha and Cape Coral lost or destroyed; Fort Myers NOS gauge 7.26 ft above MHHW; 41 surge deaths, 36 in Lee County; 52,514 Lee County structures affected, 5,369 destroyed, 14,245 with major damage; $112.9 billion in US damage
- FY2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, Statistical Section (Schedules 6, 7, 14 and 15) · City of Cape Coral (filed with the Florida Auditor General) · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Main sectors, Labour market, Health care, Education, Principal employers 2025: Lee County School District 2,563, Lee Health 2,015, City of Cape Coral 1,969, Publix 1,370, Wal-Mart/Sam's Club 700, Home Depot 559, Gulf Coast Village 395, Cape Coral Charter Schools 371, Sun Splash Family Water Park 300, Westin Resort 200 (9.5% of city employment together); the 2016 list; tax-exempt property $8.56 billion in fiscal 2022 and $19.73 billion in fiscal 2024, with Ian's uninhabitable-home relief
- ACS 2024 1-year tables B19013 and B25003 for Cape Coral and Fort Myers cities, Lee County, the Cape Coral-Fort Myers MSA, Florida and the US · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Median household income, Character
- ACS 2024 1-year tables B19013 and B25003 for Port St. Lucie, St. Petersburg, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville and Miami cities · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Median household income, Character
- ACS 2024 1-year table B01002 (median age) for Cape Coral and the other Florida cities this site compares, Lee County, Florida and the US · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Median household income, Character
- ACS 2024 1-year tables B08007 (place of work by county), B08008 (place of work by place), B08013 (aggregate travel time), B08101 (means of transportation by age) and B08303 (travel time to work) for Cape Coral city and Lee County · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Labour market, Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share, Character
- ACS 2024 1-year table B08301 (means of transportation) for Lee County, and ACS 2020-2024 5-year table B08301 for Cape Coral city and Lee County · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share
- ACS 2024 1-year table B27001 (health insurance coverage) for Cape Coral city, Lee County, Florida and the US · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Local Area Unemployment Statistics, Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL MSA (LAUMT121598000000003), Lee County (LAUCN120710000000003) and Cape Coral city (LAUCT121027500000003), not seasonally adjusted · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate
- Current Employment Statistics, Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL MSA: total nonfarm (SMU12159800000000001), mining, logging and construction (SMU12159801500000001), supersectors (SMU1215980xx00000001), retail trade and local government (SMU12159809093000001) · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- Tax Information Publication 18A01-25: Lee County Adds a 0.5% School Capital Outlay Surtax Beginning January 1, 2019 · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: Sales tax, approved by voters on November 6, 2018; combined rate 6.5%; expires December 31, 2028
- 2025 millage rates for Lee County, Florida: taxing district millage book (district 057, City of Cape Coral) · Lee County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, District 057 total 15.3806 mills for 2025, of which the City 5.1471 operating and 0.1608 parks voted debt (as carried in lib/housing/cape-coral.ts)
- Cape Coral council sets fiscal 2027 property tax cap rate · Gulfshore Business · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, A 5.1988-mill maximum, the rolled-back rate against 5.1471, set 7 to 1 on 22 July 2026; taxable value $33.1 billion; hearings on 10 and 24 September
- Market insights report, August 2026: market summary and Cape Coral region · Royal Palm Coast Realtor Association · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, Cape Coral region single-family median $389,950 in August 2026 against $367,500 a year earlier (as carried in lib/housing/cape-coral.ts)
- Monthly Module Adjusted Data Release, complete monthly ridership with adjustments and estimates (Lee County, NTD 40028) · Federal Transit Administration, National Transit Database (via data.transportation.gov) · retrieved Supports: Transit ridership
- LeeTran (service area, hours, 2025 ridership) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership
- Southwest Florida International Airport (owner, opening, location, carriers, annual passenger traffic 2023 to 2025) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- Southwest Florida International Airport reports record-breaking year-end traffic · WGCU · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- Lee Health and Lee County Vote to Approve Mission Agreement, Allowing for Conversion of the Health System to a Community-Focused Nonprofit · South Florida Hospital News · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Lee Health Expands Cape Coral Hospital's Emergency Department · South Florida Hospital News · retrieved Supports: Health care
- School district addresses declining enrollment · Cape Coral Breeze · retrieved Supports: Education
- Florida Gulf Coast University · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Education
- 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
- 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, Tampa at 414,547 and St. Petersburg at 267,102; Indian Shores at 1,190
- 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
- Primary Mortgage Market Survey · Freddie Mac · retrieved Supports: 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaging 6.67%
- 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
- 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
- Cape Clips: highlights from the August 26, 2026, City Council meeting · City of Cape Coral · retrieved Supports: Fire service assessment for 2026-27: the flat tier from $349.32 to $341.63 a parcel and the structure tier from $3.47 to $3.16 per equivalent benefit unit, the average single-family home from $540.17 to $515.43, Stormwater from $156 to $163; solid waste for individual residential households unchanged at $384.25
- Tax billed assessments (non-ad valorem taxes) · City of Cape Coral, Customer Billing Services · retrieved Supports: Stormwater at $156.00 per equivalent residential unit for fiscal 2026 and $149.00 for 2025, A fire service assessment of $349.32 per parcel (Tier 1) and $3.47 per $5,000 of structure value (Tier 2) for fiscal 2026, against $278.84 and $3.07 for 2025, Solid waste at $384.25 per dwelling unit for fiscal 2026 and $345.76 for 2025; lot mowing by district on vacant lots, Utilities Extension Project assessments on a standard 10,000-square-foot parcel: North 1 West $33,367 prepaid or $35,930 financed at 6.50%, first on the taxes in 2024; North 1 East $32,288 prepaid or $33,142 financed at 6.25%, first on the taxes in 2026; 30-year default terms, Maximum annual installments for North 1 West of $812, $1,490 and $660 for water, sewer and irrigation line extension and $131, $383 and $258 for capital facility expansion charges; for North 1 East $855, $997, $803, $126, $360 and $244, Utilities extended to nearly all of south Cape Coral and work under way north of Pine Island Road
- Water, wastewater and irrigation rate schedules, effective 1 October 2026 · City of Cape Coral, Financial Services · retrieved Supports: A water capacity charge of $25.36 a month on a 5/8-inch meter and a residential commodity charge of $5.44 per thousand gallons to 5,000, A wastewater capacity charge of $32.83 a month and $12.85 per thousand gallons, Single-family irrigation at a flat $13.40 a month
- City of Cape Coral GIS: Ownership, Canals and Bridges layers · City of Cape Coral, ArcGIS Server · retrieved Supports: 137,402 parcels, 93,343 with City water available and 91,771 with City sewer, the rest in the Utilities Extension Project's North areas, 20,889 lots marked on salt water, 16,881 on fresh water and 406 on the river, Saltwater canals in five navigation systems on the Canals layer (PublicWorks MapServer 11), and 160 bridges with vertical clearances on the Bridges layer (PublicWorks MapServer 0)
- Notice to industry: substantial improvement and substantial damage, and the FEMA 50% rule notice · City of Cape Coral, Development Services · retrieved Supports: Substantial improvement as any repair, reconstruction, rehabilitation, alteration, addition or other improvement whose cost equals or exceeds 50% of the market value of the building before the work, and any repair of a substantially damaged building, City staff comparing the cost of the work with the depreciated market value of the building, and a building at or over 50 percent brought into compliance with the floodplain rules for new buildings, its lowest floor elevated, From 10 July 2025, under HB 683 and SB 180 (2025), determinations made per permit rather than on aggregate improvements
- Cape Coral helps Hurricane Ian recovery, removing five-year look-back for FEMA's 50% rule · Woodward, Pires & Lombardo, P.A. · retrieved Supports: Ordinance 96-22, approved 30 November 2022, removing the five-year cumulative count of repairs and additions from the City's substantial damage determination
- Additional homestead exemption adjustment, revised January 2025 · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: A CPI change of 2.9% and a maximum additional exemption of $25,722 for 2025, against the $25,000 base year of 2024
- Exemption information pamphlet · Lee County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: A homestead exemption of up to $50,000: the first $25,000 against all taxes and an additional $25,000 on assessed value over $50,000 for all levies other than school taxes, Applications on Form DR-501 by 1 March, and portability to a new homestead established within three years of 1 January of the year the old one was abandoned
- Zillow Home Value Index, all homes, single-family and condominium series, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: A typical home value of $335,825 for the city of Cape Coral (region 30742, Lee County) in August 2026, against $349,486 in August 2025, down 3.9%, A typical single-family value of $346,047 against $359,529, down 3.7%, and a typical condominium value of $191,729 against $211,186, down 9.2%, from the single-family and condominium files
- Zillow Observed Rent Index, by city and single-family by metro · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: An observed rent index of $1,949 for the city of Cape Coral in August 2026, against $1,929 a year earlier, up 1.0%, A single-family observed rent index of $2,154 for the Cape Coral metro area (region 394440) in August 2026, from the metro single-family file
- Rent estimates summary, September 2026 · Apartment List · retrieved Supports: For Lee County, September 2026: $1,258 overall, $1,032 for one bedroom and $1,186 for two, with rents down 0.61% on the month and 4.8% on the year, No row for the City of Cape Coral among the file's cities
- Apartments for rent in Cape Coral, FL: average rent · Apartment List · retrieved Supports: Average listed rents of $1,336 and up for a studio, $1,607 and up for one bedroom, $1,832 and up for two, and $2,419 and up for three or more
- Median household income, median home value, median gross rent and tenure, tables B19013, B25077, B25064 and B25003, 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates · United States Census Bureau, via the Census Reporter API · retrieved Supports: A median household income of $85,584 in Cape Coral city, against $83,602 in Lee County and $77,735 for Florida, A median owner-occupied home value of $401,800 in Cape Coral city, 69,402 of Cape Coral's 87,681 occupied homes owner-occupied, and a median gross rent of $1,998 against $1,812 for Florida
- Median gross rent by bedrooms, table B25031, 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates, Cape Coral city · United States Census Bureau, via the Census Reporter API · retrieved Supports: A median gross rent of $1,719 for one bedroom, $1,702 for two, $2,272 for three and $2,637 for four
- Monthly homeowners' association and condominium fee, tables B25142 and B25143, 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates, Cape Coral city · United States Census Bureau, via the Census Reporter API · retrieved Supports: 8,351 of 69,402 owner-occupied units, or 12%, paying a homeowners' association or condominium fee, A median monthly fee of $386 among them, and 1,993 paying $500 or more a month
- Rule 69O-186.003, Florida Administrative Code: title insurance rates · Florida Department of State, Florida Administrative Code · retrieved Supports: An owner's title insurance premium of $5.75 per $1,000 of liability to $100,000 and $5.00 per $1,000 from $100,000 to $1 million
- Florida homeowners insurance · NerdWallet · retrieved Supports: An average Cape Coral premium of $3,695 a year, $308 a month, against $3,725 in Fort Myers, on a sample policy with $500,000 of dwelling cover, updated 20 February 2026
- Best home insurance in Florida (2026) · Insurify · retrieved Supports: An estimated average annual premium of $8,688 in Cape Coral for $300,000 of dwelling cover, against $10,296 in Naples and $13,716 in Port Saint Lucie, current as of 30 September 2026
- Renters insurance in Florida · NerdWallet · retrieved Supports: An average Cape Coral renters premium of $140 a year, $12 a month
- Section 627.701, Florida Statutes: liability of insureds; hurricane deductibles · The Florida Legislature · retrieved Supports: An insurer offering hurricane deductibles of $500, 2%, 5% and 10% of the policy dwelling limits
- Flood: Citizens' flood insurance requirements · Citizens Property Insurance Corporation · retrieved Supports: Under section 627.715, Florida Statutes, most new and renewing Citizens personal residential policies with wind coverage required to carry flood insurance by 1 January 2027, Homes in a FEMA special flood hazard area required already
- FloodSmart · Federal Emergency Management Agency, National Flood Insurance Program · retrieved Supports: Most homeowners insurance not covering flood damage
- SB 4-D (2022): Building Safety, chapter 2022-269, Laws of Florida · The Florida Senate · retrieved Supports: Milestone inspections required of condominium and cooperative associations, and a prohibition on waiving or reducing reserves for certain items after a specified date
- Florida Hometown Heroes Housing Program · Florida Housing Finance Corporation · retrieved Supports: Down payment and closing cost assistance for first-time, income-qualified buyers in eligible occupations employed full time by a Florida-based employer, Up to 5% of the first mortgage, a maximum of $35,000 and a minimum of $10,000, as a 0%, non-amortizing, 30-year deferred second mortgage that is not forgivable