City comparison · 276 km apart

Tampa vs Jacksonville: which should you move to?

Tampa or Jacksonville? 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.

Downtown Tampa
Florida · United States

Tampa

Photograph: Downtown Tampa · Clément Bardot · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
The Jacksonville skyline across the St. Johns
Florida · United States

Jacksonville

Photograph: The Jacksonville skyline across the St. Johns · DXR · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
The short answer

Both cities are in Florida and price in US dollars, so neither takes income tax, a single filer on $100,000 pays the same $13,449 in federal tax in each, sales tax is 7.5% in both counties, and the homestead rules are the same. Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,906 a month on Tampa's typical home and about $2,498 on Duval County's single-family median, a $408 gap that would be about $481 with Tampa's payment at Jacksonville's September rate of 7.03% rather than August's 6.67%. Against local pay the two are level, about 41% of median household income in each, because Tampa households earn $84,114 and Jacksonville's $72,389. On the same Zillow index Tampa's typical home was $380,283 and Zillow's index for the City of Jacksonville stood at $285,103. Crime favors Tampa on every count available: on the FBI's 2024 file violent crime ran 445 per 100,000 against about 563 in Jacksonville and property crime 1,465 against about 2,620, and in 2025 Tampa's 17 homicides were about 4.1 per 100,000 against Jacksonville's 80 at about 7.9. The economies are built alike, each with a port and a military presence at the center. Choose Tampa for a 16.7 C January, the higher city pay, Tampa General and Moffitt, and the larger airport and job market. Choose Jacksonville for the cheaper house and rent, insurance budgeted $115 a month lower, and work with the Navy, at the port or on the railroads.

Population
MeasureTampaJacksonvilleAdvantage
City population413,554 (2025)1,017,689 (2025)Not directly comparable
Metro population3,418,895 (2025)1,785,500 (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.
7.3% (2020-2025)7.2% (2020-2025)Not directly comparable
01: Housing

What a home costs in each

The figures the two cities' rent-versus-buy and mortgage calculators run on, read from the same tables.

Housing costs
MeasureTampaJacksonvilleAdvantage
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.
$380,283 (June 2026)$335,000 (August 2026)Jacksonville
Detached house benchmark
Tampa and Jacksonville publish a single house index rather than a composite, so the two rows repeat.
$380,283$335,000Jacksonville
Apartment or condominium benchmarkNot published$173,549Not directly comparable
Two-bedroom rent$1,999/mo (median, June 2026)$1,306/mo (median, September 2026)Jacksonville
One-bedroom rent$1,719/mo$1,110/moJacksonville
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.
28.5% of a year's income21.6% of a year's incomeJacksonville
Mortgage payment on the benchmark, 20% down
30-year amortization on American monthly compounding, the convention in both.
$1,957/mo at 6.67%$1,788/mo at 7.03%Jacksonville
Price to household income
Benchmark price divided by the median household income below. A ratio is comparable across currencies; the dollars are not.
4.5×4.6×Tampa
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.
$6,712/yr (1.765%, 2025)$5,216/yr (1.557%, 2025)Jacksonville
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.
$2,662 (seller pays)$2,345 (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 lawForbidden by state lawNot directly comparable

Tampa: About 1.77% of what you pay for the house, which is lower than the 19.8428 mills Tampa 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 Hillsborough County school board, which levies 6.3400 of the 19.8428. 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 $6,712 on the $380,283 typical home value here. That 19.8428 is the figure Hillsborough County publishes for this taxing district rather than a total assembled here, and Tampa's own council sets 6.2076 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. Jacksonville: About 1.56% of the price for a homesteaded owner, worked out on the $335,000 Duval County single-family median, which is lower than the 17.7412 mills a house in the City of Jacksonville is charged because of Florida's homestead exemption rather than any assessment lag. Consolidation makes the stack short: the City of Jacksonville levies 11.1919 for county and city government together, Duval County Public Schools 6.3430 (3.0950 set by state law, 2.2480 by the school board and 1.0000 approved by voters in 2022), the St. Johns River Water Management District 0.1793 and the Florida Inland Navigation District 0.0270, which is every levy the property appraiser lists for the general services district for 2025. The school lines are charged on the price less $25,000, $310,000, and the rest on the price less a second slice as well, $285,000 on the base amounts, so a homesteaded buyer's first bill is about $5,215. Without a homestead, as a landlord or a buyer who never files, the same house owes $5,943. That second slice is indexed to inflation: the Department of Revenue published $25,722 for 2025 and the Duval property appraiser's estimator uses $26,411 for 2026, which brings the same bill to $5,199; this page uses the $25,000 base, like every Florida page on this site, and overstates the bill by $16 for it. The total was 17.8650 for 2024 and fell because the City cut its own rate from 11.3169. The school board's voted mill runs to 30 June 2027 and its renewal is on the 3 November 2026 ballot. The exemption is not automatic: you file with the property appraiser by 1 March of the year after you buy. The City's solid waste and stormwater fees come on the same bill, about $414 a year for a house in 2026, and no exemption reduces them. 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.

02: Crime and safety

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.

Crime
MeasureTampaJacksonvilleAdvantage
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 publishedNot publishedNot directly comparable
Violent crime per 100,000376 (2025)514 (2025)Tampa
Property crime per 100,0001,465 (2024)2,154 (2025)Tampa
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.
17 (2025)80 (2025)Not directly comparable
Tampa

Violent crime in the city fell from 2,031 offences in 2023 to 1,862 in 2024 and 1,553 in 2025 (TPD 2025 Annual Report), with homicides halving in 2025 to 17. Total crime fell 21.3% in 2025 and TPD reported a 22% mid-year drop the year before, so the direction over three years is clearly down, though the figures remain preliminary until certified under NIBRS.

What the rates cover: Computed: Tampa Police Department 2025 Annual Report counts 1,553 violent crimes (robbery, aggravated assault/battery, murder, sexual battery) in 2025, down from 1,862 in 2024 and 2,031 in 2023; divided by the 413,554 Vintage 2025 city population. FBI UCR-based 2024 figure for comparison: 1,817 offences, 445 per 100k. TPD notes Florida moved to NIBRS in 2022 and figures are preliminary until certified by FDLE and the FBI.

Homicides: City of Tampa, 2025: 17 homicides, a 52.8% drop from 36 in 2024 (FBI UCR 2024 count 36, 8.8 per 100k). Works out to about 4.1 per 100k in 2025. TPD calls it the lowest annual total in more than 50 years. One January 2026 FOX 13 report quoted 19; the 52.8% figure in TPD's annual report is consistent with 17.

Jacksonville

On the FBI's definitions, violent offenses in Jacksonville went from 6,496 in 2021 to 6,141 in 2022 and 6,513 in 2023, then fell to 5,680 in 2024 and 5,231 in 2025, 8% lower than in 2024 and 19% lower than in 2021. Property offenses rose from 23,968 in 2021 to a peak of 26,443 in 2024 and fell 17% in 2025 to 21,920. Motor vehicle theft drove the swing: 2,035 in 2021, 3,461 in 2024 and 2,036 in 2025, down 41% in the last year. In 2025 the CDE shows aggravated assaults down 7% (4,533 to 4,236), robberies down 16% (639 to 539), rapes down 16% (445 to 376), burglaries down 22% and larcenies down 12%, while murders rose from 63 to 80, the one violent measure that went up. The sheriff's office cleared 55% of 2025's murders against 73% of 2024's, as Action News Jax reported from JSO records. The 2025 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: 5,231 violent offenses (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) in the FBI Crime Data Explorer's summarized data for the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office (ORI FL0160000) in calendar 2025, divided by the 1,017,689 Vintage 2025 city population. On the CDE's own agency population of 1,008,920 the rate is 518. The sheriff's office, formed when the city and county police merged in 1968, is responsible for law enforcement in the county; Jacksonville Beach has its own department. That is higher than Miami (359), Tampa (375.5) and Fort Worth (375), close to Boston (507) and below San Antonio (532), Dallas (577) and Houston (890).

Homicides: 80 murders and nonnegligent manslaughters in 2025 in the FBI CDE, against 63 in 2024, about 7.9 per 100,000 on the city population. The sheriff's office's own counts differ slightly by date and definition: Action News Jax, reading JSO records, reported 76 murders in 2025 against 63 in 2024, and News4JAX reported 79 murder cases in 2025 within more than 100 homicides of all kinds, including 11 fatal police shootings. The 2024 figure was the low point: News4JAX's count of 82 homicides of all kinds that year was the lowest in the 19 years it has kept one. The CDE series is 107 in 2021, 132 in 2022, 128 in 2023, 63 in 2024 and 80 in 2025.

03: Climate

Winters, summers and what the weather can do to a house

Climate normals
MeasureTampaJacksonvilleAdvantage
January mean16.7 °C12.3 °CNot directly comparable
July mean28.8 °C28.1 °CNot directly comparable
Precipitation a year1,176 mm1,356 mmNot directly comparable
Snowfall a year0 cm0 cmNot directly comparable
Sunshine a yearNot published2,880 hoursNot directly comparable
Tampa

NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals, Tampa International Airport (USW00012842): January mean 62.0 F, July mean 83.8 F (August is the warmest month at 84.0 F), annual precipitation 46.30 in, annual snow normal 0. About 30 of those inches (762 mm) fall June through September. Sunshine hours are not part of the 1991-2020 normals product and were not verified.

Hazards: Hurricanes and storm surge are the defining hazard: Helene's surge in September 2024 flooded coastal Tampa Bay neighborhoods, then Milton made landfall near Siesta Key on October 9, 2024 as a Category 3, and 2024 alone generated 10,261 NFIP flood claims and about $1.1 billion in payouts in Hillsborough County. Flood insurance is effectively required in much of the city and has grown costlier under NFIP Risk Rating 2.0; summer heat indices above 100 F and daily lightning storms are routine from June to September.

Jacksonville

NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals for Jacksonville International Airport (station USW00013889), inside the city about 12 miles north of downtown beside the National Weather Service's Jacksonville office: January mean 54.2F, July mean 82.5F, annual mean 69.3F, 53.40 in of precipitation, 0.0 in of snow. July is the warmest month by less than half a degree over August (82.1F), with a mean high of 91.9F; January's mean low is 42.9F. June (7.60 in) and September (7.56 in) are the wettest months, and June through September bring 28.81 in, 54% of the year; November (2.00 in) is the driest. The normals count 80.1 days a year at 90F or above, 0.7 at 100F or above and 14.3 nights at or below freezing. Converted here to 12.3 C, 28.1 C, 1,356 mm and 0 cm. That makes Jacksonville the coolest in winter of the four Florida cities this site compares, 6.4 F below Orlando's January and 14.4 F below Miami's, and the second-wettest city here after Miami. Sunshine is the 1961-1990 NCDC figure Current Results lists for Jacksonville, 2,880 hours a year, 63% of possible, with 94 clear days, the same source and basis as the other US profiles; the 1991-2020 normals do not include sunshine.

Hazards: Hurricanes are the defining hazard, though direct hits are rare. Wikipedia counts one direct hurricane strike on Jacksonville since 1871: Dora, whose eye crossed St. Augustine on 10 September 1964 as a strong Category 2. Matthew passed about 37 miles offshore in October 2016, bringing storm surge, flooding along the ocean and the St. Johns River and outages for 250,000 people; the airport recorded 6.28 in (160 mm) of rain on 7 October. Irma, which passed about 75 miles to the west in September 2017, did the most damage of the recent storms, and it did it with water rather than wind. A local nor'easter had already raised water levels in the St. Johns basin before the storm arrived; storm surge, high astronomical tides and Irma's rain then pushed the river at the Main Street Bridge downtown to an all-time record crest of 5.57 ft (NAVD88) on 11 September, against Dora's 4.12 ft, and set records or major flood stage along the river and its creeks from Mayport to the Buckman Bridge (National Weather Service). Crews made about 350 water rescues, mostly in Downtown, Riverside and San Marco, where one evacuee reported water to his neck inside his home. The airport recorded 9.72 in (247 mm) of rain on 10 and 11 September and a gust of 86 mph (138 km/h); Wikipedia puts damage in Jacksonville at $85 million and counts five deaths in Duval County. Nor'easters are the routine coastal hazard: persistent northeast winds pile water into the river and the Intracoastal Waterway and bring tidal flooding and beach erosion without a tropical storm in sight, as in September and October 2025, when long-running local nor'easters brought coastal flood advisories and tidal flooding at high tide along the Atlantic coast, the Intracoastal Waterway and the St. Johns River basin (Florida Times-Union). Heat is long rather than extreme. The normals count 80.1 days a year at 90F or above but under one at 100F (37.8 C); 2025 had 113 days at 90F or above, the third-most since the airport's record began in 1938, and 2026 had 107 through 27 September, with three days at 100F or above in 2025. The station's highest reading is 105F (40.6 C), on 21 July 1942. Cold is brief but real: 14.3 freezing nights a year on the normals, 19 in the first months of 2026, and a record low of 7F (-13.9 C) on 21 January 1985. Measurable snow is rare enough to list: 1.5 in (3.8 cm) on 13 February 1958, 0.8 in on 23 December 1989 and 0.1 in on 22 January 2025.

04: Income, jobs and taxes

What people earn and what the government takes

Income and taxes
MeasureTampaJacksonvilleAdvantage
Median household income$84,114 USD (2024)$72,389 USD (2024)Tampa
Unemployment rate4.7% (June 2026)4.9% (July 2026)Tampa
Sales tax7.5%7.5%Even
Top marginal income tax
Federal plus provincial or state. The American figure leaves out payroll taxes and the cost of health insurance, both of which a Canadian household covers through the tax it pays here.
37%37%Even
Income tax on $100,000, single filer
Tampa and Jacksonville 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 USDEven
Tampa

BLS counted 1,583,300 nonfarm jobs in the MSA in December 2025, up 0.9% over the year, with education and health services (+4.2%) and leisure and hospitality (+2.0%) leading and the May 2025 mean hourly wage of $31.96 sitting below the US average of $33.54. The largest industries by employment in the metro in 2024 were health care and social assistance, retail trade, and professional, scientific and technical services (Census ACS via Data USA).

Main sectors: Health care and social assistance, Finance, insurance and professional services, Retail and leisure/hospitality, Port, logistics and defense (Port Tampa Bay, MacDill AFB), Higher education and research (USF, Moffitt).

Florida has no state income tax, estate tax or inheritance tax. Property tax is the main local levy; homesteaded owners get a $50,000 exemption and the Save Our Homes 3% annual assessment cap, which means long-time owners pay much less than a new buyer of the same house.

Jacksonville

BLS counted 803,800 nonfarm jobs in the Jacksonville MSA in August 2026 (not seasonally adjusted, preliminary), up only 500 on the year, almost flat. Private education and health services grew fastest (+3.3%, to 139,800) and professional and business services next (+2.0%, to 120,100), while financial activities lost 4,400 jobs (-6.1%, to 67,800), finance and insurance alone 3,000, and information fell 8.2% to 13,400. Government shrank 2.5% to 77,900, almost all of it federal (-8.4%, from 20,300 to 18,600); BLS's payroll count does not include active-duty sailors. Trade, transportation and utilities is the largest sector at 170,000 jobs, and leisure and hospitality held at 93,900. The seasonally adjusted series (SMS12272600000000001) was 806,600 in August 2026, 0.4% above August 2025. JAXPORT moved 1,388,841 TEUs of containers in fiscal 2025 (October 2024 to September 2025), up 4% on the year, 506,237 vehicles and 10.2 million tons of cargo, and says its cargo supports more than 258,800 jobs and $44 billion of annual economic impact in the region and state; a $250 million modernization of Blount Island's container and auto terminals was completed in 2025. The state's 2024 defense summary, on 2022 figures, puts defense spending in Duval County at $6.5 billion and its total impact at $9.1 billion, 68,060 jobs and 10.4% of the county's economy.

Main sectors: Port, rail and logistics: JAXPORT, Florida's No. 1 container port by volume (nearly 1.39 million TEUs and 506,237 vehicles in fiscal 2025), CSX and the Florida East Coast Railway, both headquartered in the city, and the shipping lines to Puerto Rico (Crowley, TOTE Maritime, Trailer Bridge), The Navy: Naval Air Station Jacksonville, the largest installation in Navy Region Southeast, Naval Station Mayport, home of the Fourth Fleet and 21 ships, and Marine Corps Support Facility Blount Island; defense spending has a $9.1 billion total economic impact in Duval County, Finance, insurance and financial technology (FIS and Fidelity National Financial, both headquartered in the city, Florida Blue, and Deutsche Bank's second-largest US operation), a sector now shrinking, Health care (Mayo Clinic Florida, Baptist Health and Wolfson Children's Hospital, UF Health Jacksonville, St. Vincent's), the metro's fastest-growing large sector, Trade, transportation and utilities, the metro's largest sector by payroll jobs (170,000 in August 2026).

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). On 22 September 2026 the City Council adopted a $2 billion budget for fiscal 2027, 18 to 1, and kept the consolidated government's rate at 11.1919 mills, about $11.19 per $1,000 of taxable value, on a 16 to 3 vote; The four towns that kept their own governments pay a different city rate (7.9012 mills at the Beaches, 9.4208 in Baldwin). Council and mayor held the rate rather than cut it because of Amendment 3, the homestead property tax cut on Florida's 3 November 2026 ballot, which the city expects would open a revenue shortfall of about $300 million by 2028 if it passes, and tied some spending to its outcome (Jacksonville Today). School board and other levies on the same bill belong to the housing layer.

05: Getting around

Whether you need a car

Transit
MeasureTampaJacksonvilleAdvantage
SystemHART (Hillsborough Area Regional Transit) buses, the TECO Line Streetcar between downtown and Ybor City, and HART's MetroRapid and on-demand HARTFlex servicesJacksonville Transportation Authority (JTA): fixed-route buses (174 vehicles on 30 routes in 2026), the four-line First Coast Flyer bus rapid transit network (Green, Blue, Red and Orange lines, opened from December 2015 to 2021 and running every 20 minutes on weekdays), the fare-free 2.5-mile Skyway people mover with eight stations Downtown and on the Southbank (opened 1989), the NAVI autonomous shuttle on the 3.5-mile Bay Street corridor (opened June 2025), the St. Johns River Ferry between Mayport and Fort George Island, and Connexion paratransit. The Skyway is due to stop running on 2 November 2026 and NAVI on 1 January 2027.Not directly comparable
Commute by public transit1.2% (2024)0.8% (2024)Tampa
Walk or cycle to work3.4% (2024)2.0% (2024)Tampa
AirportTampa International Airport (TPA), 24,811,007 passengers in calendar 2025 (+0.22% on 2024), 27th busiest US airport, 635 daily flights, Southwest the largest carrier at 24% (TPA Fact Sheet, June 2026).Jacksonville International Airport (JAX), owned by the Jacksonville Aviation Authority about 12 miles north of downtown, handled 7,573,048 passengers in calendar 2025, 1.1% fewer than the 7,654,406 of 2024, by this file's sum of the authority's monthly traffic report; its fiscal year to September 2025 was 7,573,168, below the record 7,647,916 of the year before. American (27.6%) and Delta (27.1%) carried the most enplanements in the fiscal year to May 2026, ahead of United (15.1%) and Southwest (14.8%). That is about a third of Tampa International's 24.8 million.Not directly comparable
Tampa

HART carried about 11.94 million unlinked trips in 2025 (APTA Transit Ridership Report, Q4 2025). The 2.7-mile TECO Line Streetcar, fare-free since 2018, carried 1,323,715 riders in 2024, its record year.

Jacksonville

JTA carried 7,342,300 unlinked trips in 2025, 6,307,000 of them by bus, 413,600 on the ferry and 253,200 on the Skyway, and about 28,000 a weekday in the second quarter of 2026, 1,000 of them on the Skyway (APTA ridership reports, as cited by Wikipedia; APTA's PDFs refused the fetcher). That is less than HART's 11.9 million in Tampa and a third of LYNX's 22.2 million in Orlando, for a city two and a half to three times as large. The agency is in a financial crisis. Its board adopted a $139.2 million budget for fiscal 2027, down from $178 million, to close a projected $17.5 million gap, and in September interim CEO Cleveland Ferguson III, appointed on 27 August after Nathaniel Ford's 13 years in charge, said a $39 million hole meant up to 194 layoffs and a Saturday schedule on weekdays from 2 November, with the First Coast Flyer kept at every 20 minutes. The Skyway, whose original ten-car fleet is down to two working vehicles, will halt that day while JTA decides whether to rebuild it, replace it or turn the guideway into an elevated trail, the option most favored in its spring survey. The Ultimate Urban Circulator, JTA's plan since 2016 to replace the monorail with autonomous vehicles on the Skyway's beams and city streets at an estimated $400 million, has stalled: NAVI, its first phase, drew just over 100 riders a day in its first three months and 11,892 in all by early April 2026, and will stop on 1 January because the developer of its driving software is ending support (Jacksonville Today).

06: Daily life

Health care, schools and what each city is like

Tampa

Health care

Care is paid for through employer plans, ACA marketplace plans, Medicare and Medicaid; Florida has not expanded Medicaid, so low-income adults without children often fall into the coverage gap, and out-of-pocket costs depend entirely on the plan. Tampa General Hospital (the USF Health teaching hospital, ranked the top hospital in the Tampa Bay region by U.S. News for 11 straight years through 2026-2027, with OB-GYN ranked fifth nationally in 2025-2026), Moffitt Cancer Center (an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center), AdventHealth Tampa, St. Joseph's and the James A. Haley VA are the major hospitals; specialist waits are usually weeks rather than months but vary by insurer network.

Education

The University of South Florida (about 48,700 students across Tampa, St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee in 2025-26, an AAU member since 2023) and the private University of Tampa anchor higher education, with Hillsborough Community College for two-year programs. Schools are run by a single county district, Hillsborough County Public Schools, the seventh-largest in the US, whose 40-day enrollment fell 3.9% to 213,513 in 2025-26 as families took state vouchers and charters; it runs 42 magnet schools (about 17,500 students in 2024-25) with admission by lottery, so the school you get depends as much on the choice application as on the address.

Living there

Tampa is a flat, hot, car-first city where a 26-minute average commute hides the reality that I-275 and the Howard Frankland Bridge back up daily and transit carries about one commuter in a hundred. The walkable parts are concentrated: the Riverwalk, Hyde Park, Seminole Heights and Ybor City, with the streetcar linking downtown to Ybor for free. Flood zone and elevation now matter as much as school zone when picking a house, after Helene's surge in 2024 showed which streets go under; summers mean afternoon lightning storms and heat indices over 100 F from June into September.

Jacksonville

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; an organizing committee relaunched a ballot initiative to expand it in February 2026 (KFF). Florida's uninsured rate was 10.9% in 2024 (2,509,782 of 23,038,464), the sixth-highest of any state, against 8.2% nationally, on the ACS 2024 1-year estimates; the City of Jacksonville's was 10.1% (99,720 of 990,245), Duval County's 9.9% and the metro's 8.2%. UF Health Jacksonville, the University of Florida's academic hospital downtown with 695 beds and another 216 at UF Health North, is home to North Florida's Level I trauma center and carries the city's safety-net care: the fiscal 2027 city budget carries $56 million for its indigent care (Jacksonville Today). Mayo Clinic's Florida campus on the Southside, Mayo's first outside Rochester, opened in 1986 and has a hospital Wikipedia gives 304 beds, with an expansion to 428 announced for 2026. Baptist Health runs Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville and, beside it on the downtown riverfront, the 281-bed Wolfson Children's Hospital, the region's only Level I pediatric trauma center verified by the American College of Surgeons. This file did not verify a wait time figure for primary or specialist care.

Education

Duval County Public Schools, whose boundaries match the county's, has fallen below 100,000 students this fall for the first time in modern history, a 16% decline since 2015, when it had more than 115,000, as charter schools, homeschooling and state scholarships for private tuition grew (Action News Jax, 30 September 2026). It cut 115 teaching positions in September 2025 after a 1.9% drop in enrollment, closed several elementary schools that summer under its 2024 master facilities plan, and is consolidating four more in 2026-27, with two others delayed to 2027-28 and 2028-29. The University of North Florida, a public R2 research university founded in 1965 on the Southside, enrolled 16,575 students in 2024 (Florida Board of Governors). Jacksonville University, private, in Arlington, enrolled 4,247 in fall 2024 and has what Wikipedia calls the second-largest Naval ROTC program in the country. Florida State College at Jacksonville, the state college with campuses across the city, enrolled 23,556 students in 2024-25 (IPEDS, as compiled by UnivStats), 70% of them part time. Edward Waters University, founded in 1866, is the state's oldest historically Black college, and the city has committed $130 million to a new University of Florida graduate campus (Jacksonville Today).

Living there

Jacksonville is the largest city by land area in the contiguous United States, 747 square miles, because in 1968 it consolidated with Duval County and took in almost all of it; it is Florida's largest city by a wide margin and the eleventh-largest in the country, yet its metro is the smallest of the four Florida metros this site compares, and half the metro's growth since 2020 has been in St. Johns and Nassau counties rather than the city. The St. Johns River runs north through the middle of it to the Atlantic, and the river is both the economy and the risk: JAXPORT, Florida's busiest container port, and the Navy's bases at NAS Jacksonville and Mayport line it, and Irma in 2017 pushed it to its highest recorded level downtown. It is the coolest of the Florida cities here after Tallahassee, with real if brief winters, and hurricanes rarely hit it directly. It is built for the car: 70.9% of workers drive alone and 0.8% take transit, and the transit agency is cutting service, halting the Skyway and ending its autonomous shuttle in a budget crisis. Violent crime, at 514 per 100,000 on the FBI's counts, is higher than in Miami or Tampa. Household income, at $72,389, sits in the middle of the Florida cities, and Florida takes no income tax. The open questions are the transit agency's finances, a shrinking school district, the November 2026 homestead tax vote the city has budgeted against, and whether finance jobs, down 6.1% in a year, keep leaving.

07: The trade-offs

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. Tampa's is Zillow's typical home value for the city across all homes, $380,283 in June 2026, 2.1% below a year earlier. Jacksonville's is the Northeast Florida Association of REALTORS' median sale price of single-family homes in Duval County, $335,000 in August on 887 closed sales, 1.5% below the $340,000 of a year earlier; the association publishes no City of Jacksonville figure, and the city is 96% of the county's people. On the same Zillow index, the like-for-like measure, Zillow's index for the City of Jacksonville stood at $285,103 in August, 0.8% lower on the year, and Tampa's typical home is about 1.3 times it. Against local pay the headlines are 4.5 times the City of Tampa's 2024 median household income of $84,114 and 4.6 times Jacksonville's $72,389. At 20% down, Tampa's $304,226 loan at 6.67%, Freddie Mac's August rate, costs $1,957 a month, and the $268,000 loan on Duval County's median at 7.03%, the rate for 24 September, $1,788. A homesteaded buyer's first-year property tax is about $6,712 in Tampa, 1.77% of the price on 19.8428 mills, against $5,215 in Jacksonville, 1.56% on 17.7412, and insurance is budgeted at $390 and $275 a month, neither including flood. The three lines come to about $2,906 and $2,498, roughly 41% of local median income in each; at 7.03% Tampa's would be about $2,979, and on Zillow's value for Jacksonville the carry would be about $2,158. Zillow's observed rent index, which the Florida layers use for a two-bedroom, was $1,999 in Tampa in June 2026 and $1,601 in Jacksonville in August, about 29% and 27% of median income, and Apartment List's median two-bedroom in Jacksonville was $1,306 in September.

The two cities' latest figures are built differently, and the one file that covers both on the same definitions favors Tampa. Tampa Police counted 1,553 violent crimes in 2025, about 375.5 per 100,000 on the city's 413,554 residents, a department count on its own categories that stays preliminary until certified under NIBRS. Jacksonville's 5,231 violent offenses are the FBI's count for 2025, 514 per 100,000 on the Census estimate of 1,017,689, so the two 2025 rates should not be set side by side. The FBI's 2024 file is the steadier comparison: it gave Tampa 445 violent offenses per 100,000 and 1,465 property offenses, and Jacksonville's 5,680 and 26,443 come to about 563 and 2,620 on the city's 2024 estimate of 1,009,370. Homicide is the count least changed by definitions, and here the two cities moved in opposite directions. Tampa recorded 17 in 2025, about 4.1 per 100,000 and the lowest in more than 50 years, after 36 in 2024; Jacksonville recorded 80, about 7.9, after 63, the one violent measure there that rose, and its sheriff's office cleared 55% of the year's murders against 73% the year before. Otherwise both are falling. Tampa's violent count has dropped every year since 2023 and its total crime fell 21.3% in 2025; Jacksonville's violent offenses fell 8% and its property offenses 17%, with motor vehicle theft down 41%. The Jacksonville counts were read on 1 October 2026 and can still be revised.

Tampa has the warmer winter and Jacksonville the wetter year; July is close. January averages 16.7 C at Tampa International against 12.3 C at Jacksonville International, the coolest of the four Florida cities this site compares, where the normals count 14.3 nights a year at or below freezing and the record low is 7F (-13.9 C); July averages 28.8 C against 28.1 C. Jacksonville gets 1,356 mm of rain a year, 54% of it from June through September, against Tampa's 1,176 mm, about 30 in (762 mm) of which falls in the same four months, and neither has snow in the normals. Jacksonville's normals count 80.1 days a year at 90F or above, and 2025 had 113, the third-most since the airport's record began in 1938; Tampa's profile describes heat indices above 100 F and daily lightning storms from June into September. Tampa's sunshine normal is not published; Jacksonville's older 1961-1990 figure is 2,880 hours. The water arrives differently. Tampa's risk is surge from the Gulf: Helene's surge flooded coastal Tampa Bay neighborhoods in September 2024, Milton made landfall near Siesta Key as a Category 3 on 9 October, and Hillsborough County generated 10,261 flood insurance claims and about $1.1 billion in payouts that year. Jacksonville has had one direct hurricane strike since 1871, Dora in 1964, and its worst recent flooding came from the St. Johns River: in September 2017 Irma passed about 75 miles to the west, a nor'easter had already raised the river, and surge, high tides and 9.72 in (247 mm) of rain over two days pushed it downtown to a record 5.57 ft, with about 350 water rescues, mostly in Downtown, Riverside and San Marco. Nor'easters bring tidal flooding along its coast and river without a tropical storm, as in September and October 2025.

Unemployment is level, and Tampa's job market is twice the size and grew faster. On the same unadjusted basis BLS put July 2026 unemployment at 4.8% for the Tampa metro and 4.9% for Jacksonville's. Tampa Bay's 1,583,300 nonfarm jobs grew 0.9% in the year to December 2025, led by education and health services; the Jacksonville metro's 803,800 in August 2026 were only 500 more than a year earlier, as private education and health services grew 3.3% while financial activities lost 4,400 jobs, 6.1%, and federal payroll jobs fell 8.4%. The two economies are built alike. Each has a port, Port Tampa Bay and JAXPORT, Florida's No. 1 container port by volume at nearly 1.39 million TEUs in fiscal 2025. Each has the military near its center: MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, and in Jacksonville Naval Air Station Jacksonville and Naval Station Mayport, home of the Fourth Fleet, with defense spending's total economic impact in Duval County put at $9.1 billion. And each leans on health care, finance and insurance. Jacksonville adds the railroads, with CSX and the Florida East Coast Railway headquartered in the city. Median household income was $84,114 in the City of Tampa and $72,389 in Jacksonville in 2024, but the metros run the other way, $78,275 across Tampa Bay against $82,053 around Jacksonville, where the suburban counties earn more than the city. Florida takes no income tax in either, so $100,000 pays the same $13,449 in federal tax for 2025, and sales tax is 7.5% in both Hillsborough and Duval. Property tax and insurance come to about $11,392 a year on Tampa's typical home and $8,516 on Duval County's median.

A car is assumed in both, and Jacksonville assumes it more. In 2024, 1.2% of City of Tampa workers took transit and 3.4% walked or cycled; in Jacksonville 0.8% took transit, the second-lowest share of any city this site compares, 2.0% walked or cycled and 70.9% drove alone. HART carried about 11.94 million trips across Hillsborough County in 2025 and the Jacksonville Transportation Authority 7,342,300 for a city about two and a half times Tampa's size. Each runs a short fare-free downtown line, and only one is keeping it. Tampa's TECO Line streetcar runs 2.7 miles from downtown to Ybor City and had a record 1,323,715 riders in 2024. Jacksonville's 2.5-mile Skyway carried 253,200 in 2025, its original ten-car fleet down to two working vehicles, and stops on 2 November 2026 while JTA decides whether to rebuild it, replace it or turn the guideway into an elevated trail. Facing a $39 million hole, the agency also plans up to 194 layoffs and a Saturday schedule on weekdays from that date, keeping its four First Coast Flyer bus rapid transit lines every 20 minutes. Tampa International handled 24,811,007 passengers in 2025 on 635 daily flights, more than three times Jacksonville International's 7,573,048.

Florida has not expanded Medicaid, so coverage in both runs through an employer or marketplace plan, Medicare or Medicaid, and Tampa's profile notes that low-income adults without children often fall into the gap. Florida's uninsured rate was 10.9% in 2024, the sixth highest of any state, and the City of Jacksonville's 10.1%. Tampa General, the USF Health teaching hospital, has been ranked the top hospital in the Tampa Bay region by U.S. News for 11 straight years through 2026-2027, and Moffitt is an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center. Jacksonville's safety-net hospital is UF Health Jacksonville, the University of Florida's academic hospital downtown with 695 beds and North Florida's Level I trauma center, for whose indigent care the city budgets $56 million in fiscal 2027; Mayo Clinic's Florida campus, Mayo's first outside Rochester, is on the Southside, and Wolfson Children's is the region's only Level I pediatric trauma center verified by the American College of Surgeons. Tampa's profile puts specialist waits in weeks; Jacksonville's verified none. Both county districts are shrinking as families take vouchers and charters. Hillsborough County Public Schools enrolled 213,513 in 2025-26, 3.9% fewer than a year earlier, and admits to its 42 magnets by lottery. Duval County Public Schools has fallen below 100,000 students this fall for the first time in modern history, 16% fewer than in 2015, after cutting 115 teaching positions in September 2025 and closing several elementary schools. USF has about 48,700 students; the University of North Florida enrolled 16,575 in 2024 and Florida State College at Jacksonville 23,556 in 2024-25.

What people underestimate is where the water comes from and what the bill leaves out. 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 the Duval median owes about $5,943. Both sellers pay the state's 70-cent documentary stamp on the deed, about $2,662 on Tampa's typical home and $2,345 on the Duval median, and both buyers 0.55% of the loan, about $1,673 and $1,474. Jacksonville's bill also carries the City's solid waste and stormwater fees, about $414 a year for a house in 2026, which no exemption reduces, and its consolidated government held its rate for fiscal 2027 against Amendment 3, the homestead tax cut on Florida's 3 November 2026 ballot, which the City expects would open a shortfall of about $300 million by 2028; the school board's voted mill is up for renewal the same day. On the newer edges of Duval a community development district can add a bond assessment no millage shows, $4,225.50 for fiscal 2027 on a developed 50-foot lot in Normandy CDD. Then the water. Tampa's risk is Gulf surge, priced by the elevation certificate, and flood cover is effectively required in much of the city. Jacksonville's is the river as much as the ocean, which is how Irma flooded Riverside and San Marco while passing well to the west. Neither insurance figure here includes flood, and from 1 January 2027 every Citizens Property Insurance homeowners policy with wind cover must carry flood as well, wherever the house is.

Tampa

Better here

  • January averages 16.7 C with no snow on the 1991-2020 normals, against 12.3 C in Jacksonville, which counts 14.3 freezing nights a year.
  • City median household income was $84,114 in 2024 against $72,389 in Jacksonville.
  • On the FBI's 2024 file violent crime was 445 per 100,000 and property crime 1,465, against about 563 and 2,620 in Jacksonville.
  • Homicides fell to 17 in 2025, about 4.1 per 100,000 and the lowest in more than 50 years, against 80 and about 7.9 in Jacksonville.
  • Tampa General has been the region's top-ranked hospital for 11 straight years through 2026-2027, and Moffitt is an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center.
  • Tampa International handled 24,811,007 passengers in 2025 on 635 daily flights, against 7,573,048 at Jacksonville International, and HART carried about 11.94 million trips against JTA's 7,342,300.

Worse here

  • Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,906 a month on the June 2026 typical home, and about $2,979 at September's 7.03%, against $2,498 on Duval County's median.
  • A homesteaded buyer's first-year property tax is about $6,712, 1.77%, against $5,215 and 1.56% on Duval County's median, and insurance is budgeted at $390 a month against $275.
  • Zillow's observed rent index was $1,999 in June 2026 against $1,601 in Jacksonville in August, where Apartment List's median two-bedroom was $1,306.
  • Helene and Milton in 2024 produced 10,261 flood insurance claims and about $1.1 billion in payouts in Hillsborough County, and flood cover is effectively required in much of the city.
  • The mean hourly wage of $31.96 in May 2025 sat below the national $33.54, and the metro's median household income, $78,275, is below Jacksonville's $82,053.
  • Only 1.2% of workers commuted by transit in 2024, and beyond the 2.7-mile streetcar there is no rail.

Choose Tampa if

  • you want a January at 16.7 C rather than 12.3 C and will buy on elevation and flood zone first
  • you work in health care, insurance or finance, at USF or Moffitt, or at MacDill
  • you want the larger job market and airport, and the higher city pay that goes with the higher price
  • you want the lower crime rates on the one file that covers both cities the same way

The Tampa guide · Neighborhoods · Tampa rent vs buy · Tampa mortgage calculator

Jacksonville

Better here

  • Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,498 a month on Duval County's August 2026 median, against about $2,906 on Tampa's typical home, and the same 41% or so of local median income.
  • Property tax is about $5,215 a year with a homestead, 1.56% on 17.7412 mills, against $6,712 and 1.77% on 19.8428 mills in Tampa.
  • Home insurance is budgeted at $275 a month against $390, and the city has had one direct hurricane strike since 1871.
  • Zillow's observed rent index was $1,601 in August 2026 against $1,999 in Tampa in June, and Apartment List's median two-bedroom was $1,306 in September.
  • The metro's median household income was $82,053 in 2024, above Tampa Bay's $78,275, and the metro grew 11.2% from 2020 to 2025 against Tampa Bay's 7.2%.
  • JAXPORT, Florida's No. 1 container port by volume, CSX, the Florida East Coast Railway and two Navy bases give work beyond health care and finance.

Worse here

  • Violent crime ran about 563 per 100,000 on the FBI's 2024 file against Tampa's 445, and property crime about 2,620 against 1,465.
  • There were 80 homicides in 2025, about 7.9 per 100,000 and up from 63, against 17 and about 4.1 in Tampa.
  • City median household income was $72,389 in 2024 against $84,114 in Tampa.
  • The metro added only 500 jobs in the year to August 2026, with financial activities down 6.1% and federal payroll jobs down 8.4%.
  • Only 0.8% of workers commuted by transit in 2024, the Skyway stops on 2 November 2026, and JTA plans a Saturday schedule on weekdays from that date.
  • January averages 12.3 C with 14.3 freezing nights a year, and Irma pushed the St. Johns River downtown to a record 5.57 ft in 2017.

Choose Jacksonville if

  • you want to own for about $2,498 a month and will check a newer address for a community development district first
  • you work for the Navy, at the port, for the railroads or in logistics, or at Mayo Clinic, Baptist or UF Health
  • you rent, and would pay about $1,601 on Zillow's index rather than $1,999
  • you will drive anyway and would take a cooler winter and a river to check over a Gulf surge zone

The Jacksonville guide · Neighborhoods · Jacksonville rent vs buy · Jacksonville mortgage calculator

08: Questions people ask

Tampa or Jacksonville, in short

Is Tampa or Jacksonville cheaper to live in?

Jacksonville, in dollars, and they are level against what people earn. Both cities are in Florida and price in US dollars, so the figures net directly. Tampa's typical home was $380,283 in June 2026 on Zillow's all-homes index, and Duval County's median single-family sale price $335,000 in August, a county figure because no city median is published; Zillow's index for the City of Jacksonville stood at $285,103. The mortgage at 20% down is $1,957 against $1,788, though Tampa's uses August's 6.67% rate and Jacksonville's September's 7.03%. Property tax is about $6,712 a year against $5,215 and insurance $390 a month against $275, so the three lines come to about $2,906 in Tampa and $2,498 in Jacksonville, or about $2,979 for Tampa at the same 7.03%, and roughly 41% of local median income in both. Neither includes flood cover. Zillow's observed rent index was $1,999 in Tampa in June and $1,601 in Jacksonville in August. Neither city levies income tax, and sales tax is 7.5% in both.

Is Tampa or Jacksonville safer?

Tampa, on every comparison the figures allow. The FBI's 2024 file covers both on the same definitions: violent crime 445 per 100,000 in Tampa against about 563 in Jacksonville, and property crime 1,465 against about 2,620. For 2025 Jacksonville's FBI counts give 514 violent and 2,154 property offenses per 100,000, while Tampa Police's preliminary count, on the department's own categories, gives about 375.5 violent crimes and no property total. Homicide favors Tampa clearly: 17 in 2025, about 4.1 per 100,000 and the fewest in more than 50 years, against 80 in Jacksonville, about 7.9, up from 63. Both are falling on most lines, Tampa's total crime by 21.3% in 2025 and Jacksonville's violent offenses by 8% and property offenses by 17%. The Jacksonville counts, read on 1 October 2026, can still be revised.

Which has the better job market, Tampa or Jacksonville?

Tampa's is twice the size and grew faster; unemployment is level. On the same unadjusted basis BLS put July 2026 unemployment at 4.8% for the Tampa metro and 4.9% for Jacksonville's. Tampa Bay had 1,583,300 nonfarm jobs in December 2025, 0.9% more than a year earlier, and the Jacksonville metro 803,800 in August 2026, only 500 more, with financial activities down 6.1% and federal payroll jobs down 8.4%. The two are built alike, with a port, a military presence, health care and finance in each. Tampa adds MacDill, USF and Moffitt; Jacksonville adds JAXPORT, CSX, the Florida East Coast Railway and the Navy's two bases, whose defense spending has a $9.1 billion total impact in Duval County. Median household income was $84,114 in the City of Tampa and $72,389 in Jacksonville in 2024, though around the metros it was $78,275 and $82,053.

How much do storms and water change the comparison?

Enough to price first in both, and neither carry here includes flood insurance. In Tampa the risk is Gulf surge: Helene flooded coastal Tampa Bay neighborhoods in September 2024, Hillsborough County generated 10,261 flood insurance claims and about $1.1 billion in payouts that year, and flood cover is effectively required in much of the city. Jacksonville has had one direct hurricane strike since 1871, Dora in 1964, but its river floods: in 2017 Irma, passing about 75 miles to the west, helped push the St. Johns to a record 5.57 ft downtown, with about 350 water rescues, and nor'easters bring tidal flooding to the coast and the river without a tropical storm. A Florida homeowners policy covers wind and not rising water, and from 1 January 2027 every Citizens policy with wind cover must carry flood as well, so get a quote on the address before comparing.

Sources

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.

  1. Tampa, FL Population (2025), citing US Census Bureau PEP Vintage 2025 · Every City in the USA (compiling US Census Bureau) · retrieved
    Supports: City population, Five-year growth
  2. Resident Population in Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL (MSA), TMAPOP · FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (US Census Bureau data) · retrieved
    Supports: Metro population, Five-year growth
  3. Florida Metropolitan Statistical Areas, 2025 Estimate · Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research · retrieved
    Supports: Metro population
  4. Tampa Police Department Annual Report 2025: Strength in Partnerships · City of Tampa · retrieved
    Supports: Violent crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend, Property crime rate
  5. Tampa crime drops in 2025, outpacing national trend: TPD · FOX 13 Tampa Bay · retrieved
    Supports: Crime trend
  6. Tampa police sees drop in homicides, violent crime for 2025 · WTSP 10 Tampa Bay · retrieved
    Supports: Homicides
  7. Tampa, St. Pete homicides, other crimes drop to lowest level in 50+ years · FOX 13 Tampa Bay · retrieved
    Supports: Homicides
  8. Tampa Police Release Mid-Year Crime Stats Showing Significant Reductions · City of Tampa · retrieved
    Supports: Crime trend
  9. Tampa, FL Crime Rates: Stats & Map (FBI UCR 2024 data) · AreaVibes · retrieved
    Supports: Property crime rate, Homicides, Violent crime rate
  10. US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00012842 Tampa International Airport (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved
    Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Annual snowfall
  11. Milton misses worst-case scenario, devastates Florida · Cotality (formerly CoreLogic) · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  12. Flooding the zone · UF Warrington College of Business · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  13. FEMA Exercises Borrowing Authority for National Flood Insurance Program · FEMA · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  14. Tampa, FL profile, ACS 2024 1-year · Census Reporter (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved
    Supports: Median household income, Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share
  15. ACS 2024 1-year tables B08301 and B19013 for Tampa city and Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater MSA · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved
    Supports: Median household income, Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share
  16. Unemployment Rate in Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL (MSA), TAMP312URN · FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (BLS LAUS data) · retrieved
    Supports: Unemployment rate
  17. What is the unemployment rate in the Tampa, FL area right now? · USAFacts (BLS data) · retrieved
    Supports: Unemployment rate
  18. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL: Southeast Information Office · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved
    Supports: Labour market
  19. Occupational Employment and Wages in Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL, May 2025 · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved
    Supports: Labour market
  20. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL · Data USA (Census ACS) · retrieved
    Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
  21. TIP 25A01-12: Hillsborough County Surtax Rate Update · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved
    Supports: Sales tax
  22. 2025 Tax Brackets · Tax Foundation · retrieved
    Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
  23. Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (citing APTA Transit Ridership Report Q4 2025) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Transit ridership
  24. TECO Line Streetcar · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Transit ridership
  25. TPA Fact Sheet: Activity Report, Calendar Year 2025 · Tampa International Airport / Hillsborough County Aviation Authority · retrieved
    Supports: Airport passengers
  26. Tampa General Is the Top-Ranked Hospital in the Tampa Bay Region for the 11th Year in a Row, According to U.S. News & World Report · Tampa General Hospital via PR Newswire · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  27. Tampa General again named the top hospital in Tampa Bay; OB-GYN rises to No. 5 in the U.S. · USF Health · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  28. State University System of Florida 2025-2026 Matrix · Florida Board of Governors · retrieved
    Supports: Education
  29. HCPS data shows total county enrollment has declined since last year · Plant City Observer · retrieved
    Supports: Education
  30. 2024 Annual Report, Growth Management · Hillsborough County Public Schools · retrieved
    Supports: Education
  31. Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places in Florida: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025 (SUB-EST2025) · US Census Bureau · retrieved
    Supports: City population, Five-year growth, Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Character, Jacksonville city 949,607 (April 2020 base), 1,009,370 (2024) and 1,017,689 (2025); Duval County 1,062,963; Atlantic Beach, Baldwin, Jacksonville Beach and Neptune Beach rows
  32. 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, Character
  33. 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
  34. 2024 Gazetteer Files: Places (national) · US Census Bureau · retrieved
    Supports: Character, point, Jacksonville city: 747.266 sq mi of land, 127.193 sq mi of water, internal point 30.336864, -81.661603
  35. Jacksonville, Florida (consolidation, land area, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, hurricanes, economy, colleges) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Character, Climate hazards, Violent crime rate, Main sectors, Education
  36. Crime Data Explorer summarized agency data, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office (FL0160000): 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
  37. JSO reporting more murders over the last year, with fewer murder cases cleared · Action News Jax · retrieved
    Supports: Homicides, Crime trend
  38. Jacksonville's 2025 homicide data reveals spikes in certain areas but only 1 gang-related death · News4JAX · retrieved
    Supports: Homicides
  39. Jacksonville violence takes historic tumble in 2024: City reports lowest homicide numbers in 2 decades · News4JAX · retrieved
    Supports: Homicides
  40. US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00013889 Jacksonville International Airport (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved
    Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Annual snowfall, Climate normals, Climate hazards, Character, January 54.2F, July 82.5F, August 82.1F and the monthly highs, lows, rain and snow from the monthly series, and annual mean 69.3F, precipitation 53.40 in, snowfall 0.0 in, 80.1 days at 90F, 0.7 at 100F and 14.3 nights at freezing from dataset=normals-annualseasonal-1991-2020 for the same station
  41. Global Historical Climatology Network daily summaries, Jacksonville International Airport (USW00013889), 1938-2026 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards, 113 days at or above 90F in 2025 (after 116 in 1955 and 114 in 2011), 107 in 2026 through 27 September, three days at 100F or above in 2025, 105F on 21 July 1942, 7F on 21 January 1985, 19 freezing nights in 2026, 5.18 and 4.54 in on 10 and 11 September 2017, 6.28 in on 7 October 2016, snow of 1.5 in on 13 February 1958, 0.8 in on 23 December 1989 and 0.1 in on 22 January 2025
  42. Average Annual Sunshine in US Cities · Current Results (NCDC Comparative Climatic Data, 1961-1990) · retrieved
    Supports: Sunshine hours, Climate normals
  43. Post Tropical Cyclone Report, Hurricane Irma (PSHJAX, issued 22 September 2017) · National Weather Service, Jacksonville · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards, Character, St. Johns River at Main Street crest of 5.57 ft NAVD88 against Dora's 4.12 ft, the preceding nor'easter, about 350 water rescues in Duval County, 86 mph gust at the airport
  44. Effects of Hurricane Irma in Florida (Duval County) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  45. Irma Brings Record Flooding to Jacksonville, Cuts Power to More Than 7 Million · Weather Underground · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  46. Long Nor'easter, tidal flooding and Tropical Storm Jerry. What to expect in Jacksonville · Florida Times-Union (via Yahoo News) · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  47. Nor'easter impacts in Jacksonville and coastal flood advisory extends through weekend · Florida Times-Union (via Yahoo News) · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  48. ACS 2024 1-year tables B08301 and B19013 for Jacksonville city, Duval County and the Jacksonville MSA · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved
    Supports: Median household income, Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share, Character
  49. ACS 2024 1-year table B27001 (health insurance coverage) for the 50 states, DC, Duval County, Jacksonville city and the Jacksonville MSA, and for the US · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  50. Local Area Unemployment Statistics, Jacksonville, FL MSA (LAUMT122726000000003), Jacksonville city (LAUCT123500000000003), Duval County (LAUCN120310000000003), Florida (LAUST120000000000003), the Tampa, Orlando and Miami MSAs and the US rate (LNU04000000), not seasonally adjusted · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved
    Supports: Unemployment rate
  51. Current Employment Statistics, Jacksonville, FL MSA: total nonfarm (SMU12272600000000001, SMS12272600000000001), supersectors (SMU1227260xx00000001), finance and insurance (SMU12272605552000001) and federal, state and local government (SMU1227260909x000001) · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved
    Supports: Main sectors, Labour market, Character
  52. JAXPORT Highlights Infrastructure Progress and Long-Term Strategy at 2026 State of the Port · JAXPORT · retrieved
    Supports: Main sectors, Labour market, Character
  53. Annual Report 2024/2025 (Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for the year ended September 30, 2025) · Jacksonville Port Authority · retrieved
    Supports: Main sectors, Labour market, 1,388,841 TEUs against 1,340,412, 506,237 auto units against 509,091, 10,230,114 tons
  54. Florida Military and Defense Economic Impact Summary, January 2024 (Duval County, on 2022 figures) · Florida Defense Support Task Force / Select Florida · retrieved
    Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
  55. Naval Air Station Jacksonville · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Main sectors
  56. Naval Station Mayport · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Main sectors
  57. Discretionary Sales Surtax Information for Calendar Year 2026 (DR-15DSS) · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved
    Supports: Sales tax
  58. Jacksonville Transportation Authority (toll removal and 1988 sales tax, Better Jacksonville Plan, routes, fleet, gas tax, budget) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Sales tax, Transit system, Transit ridership
  59. Duval County, Florida, School Sales Tax Referendum (November 2020) · Ballotpedia · retrieved
    Supports: Sales tax
  60. Duval County voters approve half-cent sales tax for schools · News4JAX · retrieved
    Supports: Sales tax
  61. Florida Tax Rates & Rankings · Tax Foundation · retrieved
    Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000, Tax notes
  62. 2026 Tax Brackets and Federal Income Tax Rates · Tax Foundation · retrieved
    Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
  63. Property Tax Exemptions for Taxpayers (homestead exemption and Save Our Homes) · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved
    Supports: Tax notes
  64. Jacksonville City Council approves $2B budget, restores affordable housing trust fund · Jacksonville Today · retrieved
    Supports: Tax notes, Health care, Education, Character
  65. Template:American transit ridership (APTA Transit Ridership Reports, Q4 2025 and Q2 2026) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Transit ridership
  66. Skyway (Jacksonville) (length, stations, fleet, fare, Ultimate Urban Circulator) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership
  67. First Coast Flyer (lines and opening dates) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Transit system
  68. JTA begins first AV-powered service in U.S. · Mass Transit · retrieved
    Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership
  69. Friday is deadline to give your views on Skyway options · Jacksonville Today · retrieved
    Supports: Transit ridership
  70. JTA studies Skyway options and postpones community meetings · Jacksonville Today · retrieved
    Supports: Transit ridership
  71. JTA raises fares and cuts services to make up for budget deficit · Jacksonville Today · retrieved
    Supports: Transit ridership
  72. Facing shortfall, JTA will cut jobs, reduce bus service and halt Skyway and NAVI · Jacksonville Today · retrieved
    Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership, Character
  73. Traffic statistics, enplaned and deplaned passengers by month, fiscal years 2021/2022 to 2025/2026, and enplanements by airline (prepared 14 June 2026) · Jacksonville Aviation Authority · retrieved
    Supports: Airport passengers
  74. Jacksonville International Airport (location, ownership) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Airport passengers, Climate normals
  75. Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions · KFF · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  76. UF Health Jacksonville · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  77. Mayo Clinic Florida · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  78. Wolfson Children's Hospital · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  79. Duval Schools enrollment down 16% since 2015, drops below 100K students · Action News Jax (via Yahoo News) · retrieved
    Supports: Education, Character
  80. Duval Schools cutting 115 teacher positions due to falling enrollment · Action News Jax · retrieved
    Supports: Education
  81. Board approves delays in proposed school consolidations · Duval County Public Schools · retrieved
    Supports: Education
  82. University of North Florida (founding, R2 classification) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Education
  83. Fast Facts, Fall 2024 · Jacksonville University · retrieved
    Supports: Education
  84. Jacksonville University (Naval ROTC) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Education
  85. Florida State College at Jacksonville Student Population and Demographics (IPEDS 2024-2025) · UnivStats · retrieved
    Supports: Education
  86. Duval County Public Schools (boundaries) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Education
  87. Florida State College at Jacksonville (campuses) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Education
  88. Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI), all homes, mid-tier, smoothed and seasonally adjusted: city file, June 2026 · Zillow Research · retrieved
    Supports: A typical home value for each municipality, computed on one method across all twenty-four, The same series and month the Charlotte, Orlando, Palm Beach and Miami pages use, Year-over-year change to June 2026, which is negative in twenty-three of the twenty-four
  89. 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
  90. Millage rates levied for 2025 taxes · Pinellas County Tax Collector · retrieved
    Supports: A published real estate total for every taxing district in Pinellas County, from Redington Shores at 15.1568 to Belleair at 20.4449, including St Petersburg at 19.9197 and Belleair Beach at 15.4466, Countywide components: general fund 4.5423, health department 0.0713, emergency medical services 0.8050 and school 6.2930, Other districts totalling 1.0256: planning council 0.0175, Juvenile Welfare Board 0.8250 and the Southwest Florida Water Management District 0.1831, The Transit District at 0.7300 and which districts are inside it, and the Pinellas Suncoast Fire District at 0.6700 and which are inside that
  91. 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
  92. 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
  93. 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
  94. 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
  95. Primary Mortgage Market Survey · Freddie Mac · retrieved
    Supports: 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaging 6.67%
  96. 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
  97. 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
  98. 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
  99. Northeast Florida market shows signs of a more balanced housing environment (August 2026 market report) · Northeast Florida Association of REALTORS · retrieved
    Supports: A median price of single-family homes in Duval County of $335,000 in August 2026, the same as July, 887 closed sales, 965 pending sales, 1,265 new listings, an active inventory of 3,057 homes and a 3.4-month supply in Duval County, and a median of 25 days on market, A six-county single-family median of $397,420, down 1.6%, and a St. Johns County median of $573,250, Monthly figures by county only, with no City of Jacksonville figure
  100. Inventory climbs while sales cool in the August housing market (August 2025 market report) · Northeast Florida Association of REALTORS · retrieved
    Supports: A median price of single-family homes in Duval County of $340,000 in August 2025, 889 closed sales, an active inventory of 4,197 homes, a 4.7-month supply and a median of 38 days on market in Duval County
  101. Jacksonville's Consolidation Mayor: Hans G. Tanzler Jr. · Florida Historical Quarterly, vol. 80 no. 2 (2001), via University of Central Florida STARS · retrieved
    Supports: Jacksonville's consolidation with Duval County on 1 October 1968
  102. 2025 Gazetteer files: places, Florida · United States Census Bureau · retrieved
    Supports: A land area of 747.33 square miles and a water area of 127.129 square miles for Jacksonville city
  103. 2025 final millages · Office of the Property Appraiser, Duval County, Florida, via the City of Jacksonville · retrieved
    Supports: For the general services district (excluding the beaches and Baldwin) and for USD1, the old City of Jacksonville: schools 6.3430, general government 11.1919, urban service district 0.0000, St. Johns River Water Management District 0.1793 and Florida Inland Navigation District 0.0270, a final total of 17.7412, Jacksonville Beach (USD2) at 18.4452, Atlantic Beach (USD3) at 17.2004, Neptune Beach (USD4) at 17.8161 and Baldwin (USD5) at 18.9701, each with a general government rate of 7.9012 or 9.4208 and its own municipal levy, No bond millage for any authority
  104. 2024 final millages · Office of the Property Appraiser, Duval County, Florida, via the City of Jacksonville · retrieved
    Supports: For the general services district: schools 6.3400, general government 11.3169, St. Johns River Water Management District 0.1793 and Florida Inland Navigation District 0.0288, a final total of 17.8650
  105. Millage rates · Duval County Property Appraiser, via the City of Jacksonville · retrieved
    Supports: Taxing districts for Duval County: GS and USD1, City of Jacksonville; USD2, Jacksonville Beach; USD3, Atlantic Beach; USD4, Neptune Beach; USD5, Baldwin, Taxing authorities for Duval County: the county public schools, the Florida Inland Navigation District and the St. Johns River Water Management District, with the four other municipalities as additional taxing authorities
  106. Property tax estimator · Duval County Property Appraiser · retrieved
    Supports: For a $350,000 purchase in Jacksonville (GS or USD1) with homestead and no portability, tax roll 2026: a school taxable value of $325,000 and a non-school taxable value of $298,589, Lines of general government 11.1919, $3,341.78; public schools by state law 3.0950, $1,005.88; by local board 2.2480, $730.60; school board voted 1.0000, $325.00; Florida Inland Navigation District 0.0270, $8.06; and St. Johns River Water Management District 0.1793, $53.54; an estimated total of $5,464.86, A $25,000 exemption against the school lines and $51,411 against the others, The estimator using the most recently certified millage, and a final bill that may also carry non-ad valorem assessments for solid waste, stormwater and other services
  107. Additional homestead exemption adjustment, revised January 2025 · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved
    Supports: Section 196.031(1)(b), Florida Statutes, requiring the additional homestead exemption to be adjusted annually by the Consumer Price Index from the 2025 tax year, A CPI change of 2.9% and a maximum additional exemption of $25,722 for 2025, against the $25,000 base year of 2024
  108. Property tax information for homestead exemption, PT-113, R. 08/25 · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved
    Supports: A $25,000 exemption against all taxes and an additional exemption of up to $25,000, adjusted annually for inflation, on assessed value over $50,000 for non-school taxes only, Applications on Form DR-501 to the county property appraiser by 1 March
  109. Homestead and other exemptions · Duval County Property Appraiser, via the City of Jacksonville · retrieved
    Supports: The Save Our Homes benefit limiting future annual increases in assessed value to 3% or less, removed on a sale, with the assessed value rising to market value for the next tax roll, Portability of the Save Our Homes benefit from a Florida homestead held in any of the three preceding tax roll years, on a separate application due by 1 March, Automatic annual renewal of the exemption
  110. Vote: 1-mill continuation, 3 November 2026 · Duval County Public Schools · retrieved
    Supports: Voters' approval of a 1-mill levy in 2022, and state law requiring voters to approve its continuation every four years, The ballot question on 3 November 2026 to continue the current one mill, A $300,000 home with $275,000 of taxable value paying $275 a year for the mill
  111. 2026 Voter's guide: Duval County referendum, extending 1-mill property tax funding for schools · News4JAX · retrieved
    Supports: The current authorization ending 30 June 2027, and the measure extending it from 1 July 2027 through 30 June 2031
  112. City fees · City of Jacksonville · retrieved
    Supports: Residential solid waste and stormwater fees billed as non-ad valorem assessments on property tax bills, Homestead and other ad valorem exemptions not applying to either fee
  113. Residential solid waste fee · City of Jacksonville, Solid Waste Division · retrieved
    Supports: A rate of $29.50 a month, $354 a year, per premise for 2026, and $32.00 a month, $384 a year, for 2027, subject to annual approval by the City Council, The fee collected as a non-ad valorem assessment on the property tax bill, and charged regardless of occupancy
  114. Frequently asked questions: stormwater fee · City of Jacksonville · retrieved
    Supports: A fee based on impervious area, $5 a month for the owner of an average single-family house
  115. Zillow Home Value Index, all homes, middle tier, smoothed and seasonally adjusted, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved
    Supports: A typical home value of $285,103 for the city of Jacksonville (region 25290, Duval County) in August 2026, against $287,470 in August 2025, down 0.8%
  116. Zillow Home Value Index, single-family and condominium series, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved
    Supports: A typical single-family value of $296,995 in the city of Jacksonville in August 2026, against $298,701 a year earlier, down 0.6%, A typical condominium value of $173,549 in the same month, against $186,154, down 6.8%, from the condominium file at https://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public_csvs/zhvi/City_zhvi_uc_condo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv
  117. Jacksonville rent report, October 2026 · Apartment List · retrieved
    Supports: A median rent of $1,110 for a one-bedroom and $1,306 for a two-bedroom in the city of Jacksonville, and $1,321 across all bedroom sizes, Rents down 0.1% over September and up 0.7% over the past 12 months, against -1.2% for the state and -0.4% for the nation
  118. Apartments for rent in Jacksonville, FL: average rent · Apartment List · retrieved
    Supports: Average listed rents of $1,185 and up for a studio, $1,392 and up for one bedroom, $1,636 and up for two, and $1,904 and up for three or more
  119. Zillow Observed Rent Index, all homes plus multifamily, smoothed, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved
    Supports: An observed rent index of $1,601 for the city of Jacksonville in August 2026, against $1,569 a year earlier, up 2.04%
  120. Zillow Observed Rent Index, single-family homes, smoothed, by metro · Zillow Research · retrieved
    Supports: A single-family observed rent index of $2,075 for the Jacksonville metro area (region 394714) in August 2026, against $2,024 a year earlier
  121. Median household income, median home value and tenure, tables B19013, B25077 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 $72,389 in Jacksonville city, against $77,735 for Florida, $84,114 in Tampa, $77,597 in Orlando and $66,337 in Miami, A median owner-occupied home value of $325,300 in Jacksonville city, against $396,900 for Florida, 240,209 of Jacksonville's 413,620 occupied homes owner-occupied
  122. Monthly homeowners' association and condominium fee, tables B25142 and B25143, 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates, Jacksonville city · United States Census Bureau, via the Census Reporter API · retrieved
    Supports: 99,738 of 240,209 owner-occupied units, or 42%, paying a homeowners' association or condominium fee, A median monthly fee of $93 among them, and 7,399 paying $500 or more a month
  123. 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
  124. Best home insurance in Jacksonville, Florida (2026) · Insurify · retrieved
    Supports: An average Jacksonville premium of $3,471 a year for $300,000 of dwelling cover and a $1,000 deductible, against a national average of $2,417 for the same cover, updated 27 September 2026
  125. Florida homeowners insurance · NerdWallet · retrieved
    Supports: An average Jacksonville premium of $3,145 a year, $262 a month, against $3,765 in Orlando, $3,470 in Clearwater and $8,345 in Miami, A Florida average of $3,390 a year, on a sample policy with $500,000 of dwelling cover and $300,000 of liability, updated 20 February 2026
  126. Renters insurance in Florida · NerdWallet · retrieved
    Supports: An average Jacksonville renters premium of $179 a year, $15 a month
  127. 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, with the $500 option not required at $250,000 of dwelling limits or more
  128. 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; outside it, dwelling values of $600,000 or more from 2024, $500,000 from 2025, $400,000 from 2026 and all policies from 2027, Condominium unit-owner, tenant and wind-excluded policies exempt
  129. FloodSmart · Federal Emergency Management Agency, National Flood Insurance Program · retrieved
    Supports: Most homeowners insurance not covering flood damage, Almost one-third of National Flood Insurance Program claims, 29%, coming from outside high-risk flood areas
  130. Hurricane Irma brought record flooding to Jacksonville 5 years ago · News4JAX · retrieved
    Supports: Irma passing 100 miles west of Jacksonville early on 11 September 2017, and the river rising to a historical 5.57 feet when a rainband and 86 mph easterly gusts pushed water into the basin at high tide, Downtown streets flooded and homes in San Marco and across the city flooded, with businesses on both sides of the St. Johns River shut for months
  131. Hurricane Irma review: from violent Cat. 5 to record flooding · Action News Jax, First Alert Weather (Mike Buresh) · retrieved
    Supports: Riverside and San Marco with the worst flooding since at least 1846, A crest of 5.57 feet at the Main Street Bridge against a flood stage of 2 feet, major flooding at 3.5 feet and a previous record of 4.1 feet from Hurricane Dora in 1964
  132. Section 190.021, Florida Statutes: taxes; non-ad valorem assessments · The Florida Legislature · retrieved
    Supports: A community development district's benefit special assessments for bonds, levied annually, a lien on the property enforceable in like manner as county taxes
  133. Section 190.048, Florida Statutes: sale of real estate within a district; required disclosure to purchaser · The Florida Legislature · retrieved
    Supports: A boldfaced disclosure, in each contract for the initial sale of a parcel or residential unit in a district, that the district may impose taxes or assessments in addition to county and other local taxes
  134. Normandy Community Development District: about the CDD, and the fiscal 2027 final adopted budget · Normandy Community Development District · retrieved
    Supports: The district established by Ordinance 2022-117-E of the Jacksonville City Council, effective 24 March 2022, and about 641 acres entirely within Duval County, from https://www.normandycdd.org/about-the-cdd, For a developed 50-foot lot in fiscal 2027, operations and maintenance of $2,343.78 and Series 2024 debt service of $1,881.72, $4,225.50 in all, against $3,007.18 in fiscal 2026; a 40-foot lot at $3,380.40 and a 20-foot townhome at $1,690.20, Series 2024 bonds with annual debt service through 1 May 2054
  135. Bartram Park Community Development District · Bartram Park Community Development District · retrieved
    Supports: A community development district established in 2005 and located in Duval County
  136. 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
  137. #AskJAXTDY: How will JEA's new electric and water rates affect me? · Jacksonville Today · retrieved
    Supports: JEA's electric rates up 6.2% and water and sewer rates up 8% from 1 October 2026, A residential electric bill for 1,000 kWh of $170.37 in April 2026, forecast to be $8.70 less in October, and a residential water and sewer bill for 6,000 gallons forecast at $83.50 in October
  138. Housing Services: Headstart to Homeownership program · City of Jacksonville, Housing and Community Development · retrieved
    Supports: Financial assistance of up to $25,000 for down payment and closing costs, subject to funding, Applicants who do not currently own a home, will live in it, and have household income no higher than 80% of the area median income for Duval County, Homes required to meet Section 8 Housing Quality Standards before closing, and applicants told not to sign a sales contract before approval
  139. 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: health care, school staff, first responders, public safety and court employees, child care workers, service members and veterans 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, An HTH 2026 program