Tampa vs Tallahassee: which should you move to?
Tampa or Tallahassee? 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.
Tallahassee
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 at August's 6.67% and about $2,733 on the Tallahassee metro's single-family median at October's 7.28%, and the $173 gap would be about $297 with Tampa's payment at the same rate. Against pay the order reverses: Tampa households earn $84,114 and Tallahassee's $56,511, the lowest of the Florida cities here, so the carry is roughly 41% of local median income against 58%. On the same Zillow index Tampa's typical home was $380,283 and Zillow's index for the City of Tallahassee stood at $294,444, about 23% lower, and Tallahassee insures for $220 a month against $390 and carries a slightly lower millage, 19.2060 against 19.8428. Crime is higher in Tallahassee on every year the two can be lined up: on the FBI's 2024 counts about 678 violent offenses per 100,000 against Tampa's 445, and in 2025 20 homicides against 17 in a city half Tampa's size. Tampa's January is 9.8 F warmer, its storms are surge and Tallahassee's are wind and trees. Choose Tampa for household pay that carries a house, Tampa General and Moffitt, the airport in the city, the streetcar and a bigger, faster-growing metro, if you will buy on elevation. Choose Tallahassee for the cheaper house on Zillow's index, the cheapest insurance and rent of the Florida cities here, a 19-minute commute and inland ground, if you can take a capital's economy, freezing nights, higher crime and a fire fee on the utility bill no one could price.
| Measure | Tampa | Tallahassee | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| City population | 413,554 (2025) | 204,902 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
| Metro population | 3,418,895 (2025) | 397,442 (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) | 4.4% (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 | Tampa | Tallahassee | 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. | $380,283 (June 2026) | $364,950 (June 2026) | Tallahassee |
| Detached house benchmark Tampa and Tallahassee publish a single house index rather than a composite, so the two rows repeat. | $380,283 | $364,950 | Tallahassee |
| Apartment or condominium benchmark | Not published | $179,610 | Not directly comparable |
| Two-bedroom rent | $1,999/mo (median, June 2026) | $1,309/mo (median, September 2026) | Tallahassee |
| One-bedroom rent | $1,719/mo | $1,100/mo | Tallahassee |
| 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 income | 27.8% of a year's income | Tallahassee |
| Mortgage payment on the benchmark, 20% down 30-year amortization on American monthly compounding, the convention in both. | $1,957/mo at 6.67% | $1,998/mo at 7.28% | Tampa |
| 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× | 6.5× | 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) | $6,182/yr (1.694%, 2025) | Tallahassee |
| 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) | $2,555 (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 |
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. Tallahassee: About 1.69% of the price for a homesteaded owner, worked out on the $364,950 single-family median for the four-county Tallahassee metro, which is lower than the 19.2060 mills a house in the City of Tallahassee is charged because of Florida's homestead exemption rather than any assessment lag. Nine levies make it, one of them at zero: Leon County 8.3144; the County's Emergency Medical Services levy 0.7500; the Children's Services Council of Leon County 0.3477; the County's voted debt 0.0000; the School Board 5.3660 (3.1180 required by the state, 0.7480 discretionary and 1.5000 for capital outlay); the Northwest Florida Water Management District 0.0207; and the City 4.4072, for 2025. Outside the city the same stack without the City's line is 14.7988, and inside the Downtown Improvement Authority's district it is 20.2060. The School Board's lines are charged on the price less $25,000, $339,950, and the rest on the price less a second slice as well, $314,950 on the base amounts, so a homesteaded buyer's first bill is about $6,183. Without a homestead, as a landlord or a buyer who never files, the same house owes $7,009. That second slice is indexed to inflation: the Department of Revenue published $25,722 for 2025, which brings the same bill to $6,173; this page uses the $25,000 base, like every Florida page on this site. For 2026 the County adopted 8.3144 and the EMS levy 0.7500 again, the City's 4.4072 and the School Board's 5.3430 were tentative when read, and the other two were not read, so no 2026 total is given. The exemption is not automatic: you file with the Leon County Property Appraiser by 1 March. There is no fire, stormwater or garbage line on a City tax bill: the City charges stormwater at $11.00 and garbage at $28.19 a month on the utility bill, $470 a year together, with a fire services fee beside them whose amount this site could not read. 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 | Tampa | Tallahassee | 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 | 376 (2025) | 635 (2025) | Tampa |
| Property crime per 100,000 | 1,465 (2024) | 2,405 (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) | 20 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
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.
Down from a 2023 peak, though the rate is still high. On the FBI CDE's figures violent offenses were 1,587 in 2022, 1,732 in 2023, 1,383 in 2024 and 1,302 in 2025, about 785, 852, 678 and 635 per 100,000 on each year's Vintage 2025 population, so 2025 was 25% below 2023. Property offenses peaked later, at 5,804 in 2024, and fell 15% to 4,927 in 2025. FDLE's incident-based file shows the same direction, 1,806 violent offenses in 2023, 1,441 in 2024 and 1,363 in 2025, and for 2026 so far: January to August brought 783 violent offenses against 893 in the same months of 2025, down 12%, and 2,985 property offenses against 3,450, down 13%. The CDE has January to July 2026, 737 violent offenses against 769, down 4%. Tallahassee Reports, tabulating the police department's daily incident data, found total incidents down 22.6% in 2025, property crime down 28.3% and violent crime down 8.9%, but assaults in September to December up 55.8% on the same months of 2024, 299 against 192. The CDE counts were read on 2 October 2026 from a feed last refreshed on 15 September and can still be revised.
What the rates cover: Computed: 1,302 violent offenses (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) in the FBI Crime Data Explorer's summarized data for the Tallahassee Police Department (ORI FL0370300) in calendar 2025, divided by the 204,902 Vintage 2025 city population; on the CDE's own agency population of 206,918 the rate is 629. The rate is high, for Florida and for the country. It is the highest 2025 rate of the Florida cities this site compares, above Jacksonville's 514, St. Petersburg's 502, Tampa's 375.5 and Miami's 359 and about five times Port St. Lucie's 130; only Orlando's 835.8, which is for 2022, the last full year the FBI has for that city, is higher. The CDE's rate for all reporting Florida agencies in 2025 is 248 per 100,000 and for the nation 329, so Tallahassee's is about two and a half times the state's and nearly twice the national. On the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's incident-based (FIBRS) file, which counts somewhat more (its forcible sex offenses include fondling), the department recorded 1,363 violent offenses in 2025, 663 per 100,000 on FDLE's population, the second-highest of the 46 Florida agencies serving 100,000 or more people, behind the Fort Lauderdale Police Department (675) and ahead of Gainesville's (635), another college town; a few large agencies' 2025 rows in that file, Orlando's among them, are plainly incomplete. The Leon County Sheriff's Office, which polices the unincorporated county, recorded 500 per 100,000.
Homicides: 20 murders and nonnegligent manslaughters in 2025 in the FBI CDE, about 9.8 per 100,000 on the city population, against the CDE's 3.0 for Florida and 4.3 for the nation, and against St. Petersburg's 9 (3.4 per 100,000) and Tampa's 17 (4.1), in a city half Tampa's size; Jacksonville had 80. FDLE's file has 21. The CDE series is 15 in 2022, 21 in 2023, 16 in 2024 and 20 in 2025. Tallahassee Reports, tabulating the police department's daily incident data, counted 18 fatal shootings in 2025 against 26 in 2024. FDLE's file has 7 homicides in January to August 2026, against 17 in the same months of 2025.
Winters, summers and what the weather can do to a house
| Measure | Tampa | Tallahassee | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| January mean | 16.7 °C | 11.2 °C | Not directly comparable |
| July mean | 28.8 °C | 28.1 °C | Not directly comparable |
| Precipitation a year | 1,176 mm | 1,494 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, 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.
NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals for Tallahassee Regional Airport (station USW00093805), the city's airport about 6 miles southwest of the city's center point, which is the National Weather Service's station for the city and has full temperature and precipitation normals: January mean 52.2F, July mean 82.5F, annual mean 68.4F, 58.81 in of precipitation. The airport station's normals carry no snowfall, so the 0.0 in of snow stored here is the normal at Tallahassee AP (USC00088756), the cooperative station at the same airport. July is the warmest month by a tenth of a degree, ahead of August's 82.4F, with a mean high of 92.1F; January's mean low is 40.5F. June (7.76 in), August (7.60 in) and July (7.14 in) are the wettest months, and June through September bring 27.41 in, 47% of the year, so the rain is spread more evenly than in peninsular Florida; November (3.10 in) is the driest. The normals count 102.6 days a year at 90F or above, 2.9 at 100F or above, 27.0 nights at or below freezing and 1.4 at or below 20F. Converted here to 11.2 C, 28.1 C, 1,494 mm and 0 cm. The cooperative station's own temperatures run a little cooler in winter: 51.0F in January, 82.9F in July, 59.82 in a year and 128.3 days at 90F. Tallahassee has the coldest winter of the Florida cities this site compares, a degree below Jacksonville's 12.3 C and five and a half below St. Petersburg's 16.8 C, and its summer is as hot as any: its 102.6 days at 90F are fewer than Cape Coral's 120.3, but it averages 2.9 days at 100F, where Jacksonville averages under one, Hialeah 0.2 and St. Petersburg, Port St. Lucie and Cape Coral none. Its rain is third, after Hialeah's 1,852 mm and Miami's 1,712 mm. Sunshine is not stored: Current Results' US city table, the source and 1961-1990 basis of the other US profiles' sunshine hours, lists no Tallahassee station, and the 1991-2020 normals do not include sunshine.
Hazards: Wind, falling trees and the power cuts that follow them, more than water. Tallahassee is inland, which is why its airport serves as a staging area for hurricane relief (Wikipedia), so storm surge is not its hazard, but it is a city of big trees, and every recent storm has been measured in power outages. Hurricane Hermine struck directly in September 2016 and left about 80% of the city without power, including Florida State University; Hurricane Michael passed about 50 miles to the west in October 2018 after coming ashore as a category 5 and left 95% of Leon County without power (Wikipedia). The airport's highest gust since 2010 is 70.9 mph, on 10 October 2018 during Michael, followed by 67.1 mph on 26 September 2024, the day the airport closed for Hurricane Helene, which came ashore that night near Perry, to the southeast, the strongest hurricane on record to strike the Big Bend (Wikipedia), and 66 mph on 10 May 2024, the day two EF2 tornadoes crossed the city, one of them through downtown at 1,400 yards wide (Wikipedia). Heat is the everyday hazard: 102.6 days a year at 90F or above on the normals and 2.9 at 100F (37.8 C), a temperature the St. Petersburg, Port St. Lucie and Cape Coral normals never reach. The airport reached 105F on 15 June 2011, its highest reading since 2010 and Wikipedia's record for the city, and 104F on 24 June 2022; it counted 108 days at 90F in 2025 and 114 in 2026 through 29 September, three of them at 100F or above. Unlike the peninsula's cities it freezes: 27 nights a year on the normals, 27 in 2025 and 21 so far in 2026, with a low of 14F on 11 January 2010 and 18F on 2 February 2026. Snow is rare but not unknown: the airport measured 1.5 inches on 21 January 2025 and 0.4 more the next day, the city's largest snowfall since 1958 on Wikipedia's list of its measurable snows. Low-lying streets near downtown, notably along Franklin Boulevard, flood in very heavy rain (Wikipedia).
What people earn and what the government takes
| Measure | Tampa | Tallahassee | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income | $84,114 USD (2024) | $56,511 USD (2024) | Tampa |
| Unemployment rate | 4.7% (June 2026) | 5.1% (July 2026) | Tampa |
| Sales tax | 7.5% | 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 Tallahassee 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 1,583,300 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.
BLS counted 200,500 nonfarm jobs in the Tallahassee MSA in August 2026 (not seasonally adjusted, preliminary), up 2,500 or 1.3% on the year. Professional and business services (+1,600, or 5.4%, to 31,100) and leisure and hospitality (+1,100, or 5.7%, to 20,300) added the most, and private education and health services 400 (to 27,600), while government lost 400 (-0.7%, to 60,500): local government 300, to 14,600, and federal government 200, to 2,000, with state government up 100, to 43,900. Government is 30.2% of all jobs in the metro, and it sets the rhythm of the year: state government jobs dropped from 47,300 in April 2026 to 43,300 in July as the universities' terms ended, and it averaged 46,200 of 202,000 jobs in 2025 (22.9%). The City's 2025 financial report lists eleven principal employers for the city, led by the State (26,831), FSU (16,207), Tallahassee Memorial (5,696), the school board (4,300) and the City (4,000), which together employ 67,609; the report's earlier lists counted Leon County rather than the city, so they are not compared here. Most residents work in the city: 88.1% of the city's 103,272 workers worked inside it in 2024 and only 6.1% outside Leon County, against 54% outside the city for Cape Coral. 11.4% worked from home, and the mean commute for the rest was 19 minutes, six shorter than St. Petersburg's and 13 shorter than Cape Coral's, with 1.9% spending an hour or more (ACS 2024 1-year, B08007, B08008, B08013, B08301 and B08303).
Main sectors: State government: the State of Florida employs 26,831 people in the city, the largest employer by far (City of Tallahassee), and state government, which in BLS's count includes the state universities, held 43,900 of the metro's 200,500 nonfarm jobs in August 2026, 21.9%, and 47,300 (23.0%) in April with classes in session, Higher education: Florida State University (16,207 employees in 2025-26, 7,723 of them full- or part-time faculty and staff and the rest graduate assistants, student assistants and temporary workers), Florida A&M University (1,794) and Tallahassee State College (1,468), with 65,657 students between them in fall 2024, Health care: Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, the region's nonprofit hospital system, is the third-largest employer (5,696), in a metro sector (private education and health services) of 27,600 jobs, Local government and schools: the Leon County School Board (4,300), the City of Tallahassee (4,000), which also runs the electric, gas and water utilities and the airport, and Leon County (1,957), in a local government sector of 14,600, Professional and business services, the law firms, lobbyists and associations that cluster around the Capitol (Wikipedia), with 31,100 metro jobs, up 1,600 or 5.4% on the year, the most of any sector; and retail and warehousing, with Amazon (2,256), Walmart (1,700) and Publix (1,400) among the city's eleven largest employers.
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 and qualifies it for the Save Our Homes limit on how fast its assessment can rise (Florida Department of Revenue). A house in the City of Tallahassee (Leon County tax authority code 1) pays 19.2060 mills for 2025, the rates the Leon County Property Appraiser certified to the Department of Revenue: Leon County 8.3144, the county's EMS levy 0.7500, the Children's Services Council of Leon 0.3477, the school board 5.3660 (3.1180 required local effort, 0.7480 discretionary and 1.5000 capital outlay), the Northwest Florida Water Management District 0.0207 and the City 4.4072. The City lowered its rate from the 4.4200 it levied for 2024 and proposed again, but 4.4072 is still 4.7% above the rolled-back rate of 4.2080, and with taxable values up the City's levy rose 9.0% to $81.8 million; the County has held 8.3144 since 2012 (Leon County Property Appraiser). The 2024 total was 19.2379. Downtown Improvement Authority parcels pay one mill more (20.2060), and unincorporated Leon County, which has no city levy, pays 14.7988. That puts the city near Miami's 19.9878, Tampa's 19.8428 and St. Petersburg's 19.9197, a little above Hialeah's 18.6468 and above Cape Coral's 15.3806, as those cities' housing layers carry them. The school board voted in May 2026 to ask the county to put an additional operating mill for 2027 to 2031 on the November ballot to raise teacher pay (WCTV); whether the commission did was not confirmed. Zillow's typical home value for the city was $294,444 in August 2026, up 1.4% on the year and one of only two rises among the nine Florida cities this site compares (Miami's is the other), and its observed rent index $1,470 a month, up 1.5%, the lowest of the nine; only Jacksonville's typical home value ($285,103) is lower. The bills, exemptions, insurance and fees that follow from these figures belong to the housing layer.
Whether you need a car
| Measure | Tampa | Tallahassee | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| System | HART (Hillsborough Area Regional Transit) buses, the TECO Line Streetcar between downtown and Ybor City, and HART's MetroRapid and on-demand HARTFlex services | StarMetro, the City of Tallahassee's bus system, founded as TalTran in 1973 when the City bought the private bus company, and renamed in 2005 (Wikipedia). It runs 14 weekday fixed routes, two call-ahead FLEX zones and a peak-hour express, with fewer routes on Saturdays and a separate four-route network on Sundays and weekday evenings, nearly all of them meeting downtown at C.K. Steele Plaza, and Dial-A-Ride for riders with disabilities. It also runs Florida State University's campus routes under a contract with the university, free to the public and operated with battery-electric buses, and K-12 students ride free (Wikipedia). There is no rail transit or bus rapid transit, and no intercity passenger rail since Amtrak's Sunset Limited stopped east of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005; Greyhound, Megabus and RedCoach serve the city by coach, and Interstate 10 runs across its north side (Wikipedia). | Not directly comparable |
| Commute by public transit | 1.2% (2024) | 3.2% (2024) | Tallahassee |
| Walk or cycle to work | 3.4% (2024) | 5.3% (2024) | Tallahassee |
| Airport | Tampa 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). | Tallahassee International Airport (TLH), owned and run by the City and named Bobby Bowden-Tallahassee International Airport in April 2026 after the longtime FSU football coach, about 5 miles southwest of downtown (Wikipedia). It handled 936,448 airline passengers in the City's fiscal 2025 (October 2024 to September 2025), slightly below fiscal 2024's 944,835 and above 2019's 851,689 (City of Tallahassee), with American and Delta the main carriers to Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas-Fort Worth and Miami and no scheduled international service (Wikipedia). Wikipedia counts it among the smaller commercial airports in Florida. | Not directly comparable |
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.
StarMetro carried 1,762,062 unlinked trips in 2025 on the National Transit Database's monthly ridership file (Federal Transit Administration), 1,657,717 of them on its buses and the rest on demand-response service. That is about a third of its peak of 4,933,682 in 2010 and below the 3,624,805 of 2019; ridership fell to 1.5 million in 2020 and 2021 with FSU's campus routes suspended, recovered to 2.6 million in 2023, and has fallen since, to 2.25 million in 2024 and 1.76 million in 2025, and January to August 2026 ran 8.7% below the same months of 2025. The file does not separate the campus routes, and why ridership has fallen since 2023 was not found. For comparison, St. Petersburg's PSTA carried 10.4 million trips in 2025, Lee County's LeeTran 1,969,906 and Port St. Lucie's Area Regional Transit 825,588 (their profiles, from the same file).
Health care, schools and what each city is like
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.
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 Tallahassee's was 8.5% (17,205 of 201,731) and Leon County's 8.1%, well below the state's. The city has two acute care hospitals. Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, a private nonprofit founded in 1948 that serves a 22-county region of North Florida and South Georgia, has a 772-bed acute care hospital, a psychiatric hospital and the region's only Level III neonatal intensive care unit, and is the city's third-largest employer with 5,696 staff (Wikipedia; City of Tallahassee). HCA Florida Capital Hospital, owned by HCA Healthcare and known until recently as Capital Regional Medical Center, has 266 beds (Wikipedia). The City's own count of hospital beds at the two is 1,060. Florida State University's College of Medicine trains its first- and second-year students in Tallahassee and places its third- and fourth-year students at regional campuses around the state (Wikipedia). This file did not verify wait times for primary or specialist care.
Education
Tallahassee is a college town, and the share of its residents in college is four times the national share. On the ACS 2024 1-year estimates 54,353 of the city's 199,776 residents aged 3 and over were enrolled in college (43,399 undergraduates) or graduate school (10,954), 27.2%, against 6.6% nationally and 6.2% in Florida; undergraduates alone are 21.7% of the city. Three public institutions account for most of them. Florida State University enrolled a record 46,184 students in fall 2025, 33,068 of them undergraduates and 11,022 graduate and professional students, of whom 43,936 took at least one class on the main campus in Tallahassee (FSU Office of Institutional Research). Florida A&M University, founded in 1887, the only public historically black university in Florida and the third-largest in the country by enrollment (Wikipedia), had 9,313 students in fall 2024 (7,890 undergraduates), and welcomed more than 1,900 first-time students in August 2026, its largest incoming class in a decade (FAMU). Tallahassee State College, called Tallahassee Community College from 1970 until it was renamed on July 1, 2024 (Wikipedia), had 12,455 students in fall 2024, all undergraduates, and acts largely as a feeder to the two universities. Together the three enrolled 65,657 in fall 2024 on the federal College Navigator's counts, and the City's 2025 financial report puts college-level students at 68,667. FAMU's fall 2025 headcount was not found in a source fetched here. Public schools are run by Leon County Schools, the countywide district, with 31,638 students in pre-kindergarten to grade 12 in 2025, down from 34,085 in 2019, in 51 schools (City of Tallahassee). The district is asking voters in November 2026 to renew its half-cent sales surtax, which expires in 2027 and has raised about $400 million since 2012, and warns of a $620 million gap in facility needs without it (WTXL; WCTV).
Living there
Tallahassee is Florida's capital, a college town and almost nothing else, and it shows in every figure here. It became the territorial capital in 1824 as a halfway point between Pensacola and St. Augustine, near the Apalachee town of Anhaica where Hernando de Soto's expedition wintered in 1539 (Wikipedia), and it sits at the southern end of the Red Hills, hilly by Florida standards, along nine officially designated canopy roads, with a winter unlike the peninsula's: it freezes about 27 nights a year and saw 1.9 inches of snow in January 2025. The State of Florida and Florida State University are its two largest employers, government holds 30% of the metro's jobs, and more than a quarter of residents are in college, which makes the city the youngest of the Florida cities this site compares (median age 28.5) and the one with the lowest household income ($56,511), the fourth-lowest share of homeowners, after Miami, Orlando and Hialeah (44.5%), short commutes and, after Miami, the most people who take the bus, walk or cycle to work. It also has the highest violent crime rate of the Florida cities here in 2025, 635 per 100,000 on the FBI's counts, two and a half times the state's, though falling since 2023. Its history includes the Tallahassee bus boycott of 1956, begun by two FAMU students, and the Frenchtown neighborhood, the oldest historically black neighborhood in the state (Wikipedia). It is growing slowly, 4.4% from 2020 to 2025, and its home values and rents are among the lowest of the Florida cities here, with a typical home at $294,444 and a typical rent of $1,470 on Zillow's indexes, against a property tax rate of 19.2060 mills, nearly as high as Miami's, Tampa's and St. Petersburg's.
Where each city wins, and where it loses
Both cities price in US dollars, so the figures net directly, though the two headlines are different instruments priced at different rates. 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, the city's row in the Tampa Bay layer, financed at Freddie Mac's August rate of 6.67%. Tallahassee's is Florida Realtors' single-family median for the Tallahassee metro, Gadsden, Jefferson, Leon and Wakulla counties, $364,950 in June on 364 closed sales, 5.8% above June 2025, as Tallahassee Reports printed it, since Florida Realtors publishes it to members only; no median for the City or for Leon County alone was found, and Leon County is almost 90% of the metro's sales. On the same Zillow index, the like-for-like measure, Zillow's index for the City of Tallahassee stood at $294,444 in August, 1.4% higher on the year, so Tampa's typical home is about 1.29 times it. Against local pay the headlines are 4.5 times the City of Tampa's 2024 median household income of $84,114 and 6.5 times Tallahassee's $56,511, the lowest of the Florida cities this site compares. At 20% down, Tampa's $304,226 loan at 6.67% costs $1,957 a month, and the $291,960 loan on the Tallahassee metro median at 7.28%, the rate for 1 October, $1,998. A homesteaded buyer's first-year property tax is about $6,712 in Tampa, 1.77% of the price on Hillsborough's published 19.8428 mills, against $6,183 in Tallahassee, 1.69% on 19.2060, and insurance is budgeted at $390 and $220 a month, the Tampa Bay layer's band for a coastal address against Tallahassee's NerdWallet average, neither including flood. The three lines come to about $2,906 and $2,733, roughly 41% and 58% of local median income; at 7.28% Tampa's would be about $3,030, and on Zillow's value for the City of Tallahassee the carry would be about $2,234. Renters see Tallahassee lower in dollars and about even against pay: Zillow's observed rent index was $1,999 in Tampa in June 2026 and $1,470 in Tallahassee in August, the lowest of the nine Florida cities here, about 29% and 31% of median income, and Apartment List put Tallahassee's two-bedroom median at $1,309 in September. More than a quarter of Tallahassee's residents are in college, so its rent index is partly a student market. Condominium fees are estimated at $700 a month against $300, neither of them a published average.
Only 2024 has the FBI's counts for both cities, and on them Tallahassee reports the higher violent and property crime, as it does on every later figure. Tampa had 1,817 violent offenses that year, 445 per 100,000, and 5,988 property offenses, 1,465. Tallahassee had 1,383 violent offenses, about 678 per 100,000 on that year's estimate, and 5,804 property offenses, about 2,845, a figure that is understated because the FBI's copy carries 30 motor vehicle thefts for the department in 2024 against 559 in the file of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. For 2025 Tallahassee's FBI counts give 635 violent offenses per 100,000 on the Census estimate of 204,902, the highest 2025 rate of the Florida cities this site compares and about two and a half times Florida's 248, and 2,405 property offenses, again short of most car thefts; Tampa's own count for 2025, preliminary until certified, gives about 375.5 violent crimes per 100,000. Homicide is the count least changed by definitions: 17 in Tampa in 2025, about 4.1 per 100,000 and the lowest there in more than 50 years, against 20 in Tallahassee, about 9.8, in a city about half Tampa's size. Both are falling. Tampa's violent count has dropped every year since 2023 and its total crime fell 21.3% in 2025. Tallahassee's violent offenses fell from 1,732 in 2023 to 1,302 in 2025, 25% lower, and on the state's file January to August 2026 brought 783 against 893 in the same months of 2025, with 7 homicides against 17, though assaults rose sharply late in 2025 on the police department's own daily data. The Tallahassee counts were read on 2 October 2026 and can still be revised.
Tampa has the much warmer winter and the drier year, and the two cities fear different water. January averages 16.7 C at Tampa International and 11.2 C at the Tallahassee airport, about 6 miles southwest of the city's center, 62.0F against 52.2F, 9.8 F warmer in Tampa; July averages 28.8 C against 28.1 C, 83.8F against 82.5F, and August is Tampa's warmest month, at 84.0F. Tallahassee's normals count 102.6 days a year at 90F or above, 2.9 at 100F and 27.0 nights at or below freezing, the most of the Florida cities here; Tampa's profile describes heat indices above 100 F and daily lightning storms from June into September. Tampa gets 1,176 mm of rain a year, about 762 mm of it from June through September, and Tallahassee 1,494 mm, 47% in those months, and neither has snow in the normals, though Tallahassee measured 1.9 in on 21 and 22 January 2025, its largest snowfall since 1958. Neither city's sunshine was verified. Tampa's defining hazard is surge: Helene's flooded coastal Tampa Bay neighborhoods in September 2024, Milton came ashore at Siesta Key as a Category 3 two weeks later, and Hillsborough County generated 10,261 flood insurance claims and about $1.1 billion in payouts that year. Tallahassee is inland, which is why its airport serves as a staging area for hurricane relief, so its storms are wind, trees and outages: Hermine struck directly in September 2016 and left about 80% of the city without power, Michael left 95% of Leon County without power in 2018, two EF2 tornadoes crossed the city on 10 May 2024 and broke more than 400 utility poles, and Helene left about 53,000 City utility customers without power that September, the same storm that sent surge into Tampa Bay. Tallahassee's flooding is rain on low streets near downtown, notably along Franklin Boulevard.
Tampa's job market is about eight times the size and its households earn half again as much. On the same unadjusted basis BLS put July 2026 unemployment at 4.8% for Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater and 5.1% for the Tallahassee metro, whose rate moves with the academic year and was 4.4% a year earlier. The Tampa metro had 1,583,300 nonfarm jobs in December 2025, 0.9% more than a year earlier, with education and health services and leisure and hospitality in front; the Tallahassee metro had 200,500 in August 2026, 2,500 or 1.3% more, with professional and business services adding 1,600. Tampa's base is the port, MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa General, USF and Moffitt, and finance, insurance and professional services. Tallahassee's is government: the State of Florida employs 26,831 people in the city and Florida State University 16,207, government holds 30.2% of the metro's jobs, and state government drops from 47,300 jobs in April to 43,300 in July as the universities' terms end; Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, with 5,696 staff, is third. Tallahassee's commute is short, a mean of 19 minutes against Tampa's 26.1, and 88.1% of its workers worked inside the city in 2024. Median household income was $84,114 in the City of Tampa in 2024 and $56,511 in Tallahassee, $27,603 less, with a margin of error of $5,841, and $78,275 across Tampa Bay against $65,009 across the Tallahassee metro. Owners occupy 50.0% of Tampa's homes and 44.5% of Tallahassee's, and Tallahassee is the youngest of the Florida cities here, with a median age of 28.5. 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, the highest of the Florida cities here: Hillsborough's three half-cent surtaxes pay for school capital, indigent care and infrastructure, and Leon's school half-cent expires in 2027 unless voters renew it in November. Property tax and insurance come to about $11,392 a year on Tampa's typical home and $8,823 on the Tallahassee metro median.
Neither is a city to live in without a car, and Tallahassee has more of its workers on the bus and on foot. In 2024, 1.2% of City of Tampa workers commuted by transit and 3.4% walked or cycled, against 3.2% and 5.3% in Tallahassee, the second-highest shares of the Florida cities here after Miami's, though the Tallahassee survey's margin is wide and the five-year table puts its transit share at 2.2%. HART carried about 11.94 million trips across Hillsborough in 2025, and its 2.7-mile TECO Line streetcar, fare-free since 2018, carried a record 1,323,715 riders in 2024 between downtown and Ybor City. StarMetro, the City of Tallahassee's buses, carried 1,762,062 trips in 2025, about a third of its 2010 peak, on 14 weekday routes that nearly all meet downtown at C.K. Steele Plaza and on Florida State's campus routes, free to the public; why its ridership has fallen since 2023 was not found. Neither has passenger rail: Tallahassee's ended when Amtrak's Sunset Limited stopped running east of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and Greyhound, Megabus and RedCoach serve it by coach. Tampa's profile notes that I-275 and the Howard Frankland Bridge back up daily; Tallahassee is a hilly city of about 2,000 residents per square mile of land, with Interstate 10 across its north side and nine designated canopy roads. Tampa International, in the city, handled 24,811,007 passengers in 2025 on 635 daily flights. Tallahassee International, owned by the City about 5 miles southwest of downtown and named for Bobby Bowden in April 2026, handled 936,448 in the City's fiscal 2025, mostly on American and Delta to their hubs, with no scheduled international service.
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. Tallahassee's uninsured rate was 8.5% in 2024, against Florida's 10.9% and the national 8.2%; Tampa's profile gives no city rate. Tampa has the region's largest hospitals: Tampa General, 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, Moffitt, an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center, AdventHealth Tampa, St. Joseph's and the James A. Haley VA. Tallahassee's hospitals serve a region of their own: Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, a private nonprofit founded in 1948 that draws on 22 counties of North Florida and South Georgia, has a 772-bed acute care hospital and the region's only Level III neonatal intensive care unit, and HCA Florida Capital Hospital has 266 beds; Florida State's College of Medicine trains its first- and second-year students in the city. Tampa's profile puts specialist waits in weeks; Tallahassee's verified none. Both county districts are shrinking. Hillsborough County Public Schools enrolled 213,513 in 2025-26, 3.9% fewer than a year earlier as families took vouchers and charters, and admits to its 42 magnets by lottery. Leon County Schools had 31,638 students in 2025, down from 34,085 in 2019, in 51 schools, and is asking voters in November 2026 to renew its half-cent sales surtax. Both are university cities. Tampa has the University of South Florida, about 48,700 students across three campuses, the University of Tampa and Hillsborough Community College. Florida State enrolled a record 46,184 in fall 2025, Florida A&M, the state's only public historically black university, 9,313 in fall 2024 and Tallahassee State College 12,455, and 27.2% of Tallahassee's residents aged three and over were college or graduate students, four times the national share.
What people underestimate is that Tampa's bill carries the higher rate and the higher insurance and Tallahassee's leaves its fire service off the tax bill entirely, and what neither carry includes. Both 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 with the property appraiser by 1 March of the year after you buy; without it Tampa's typical home owes about $7,546 and the Tallahassee metro median about $7,009. Tampa's council sets 6.2076 of the 19.8428 mills on a City address. A City of Tallahassee address pays nine levies for 2025, one of them at zero, 19.2060 mills, of which the City's own is 4.4072 and Leon County's 8.3144, a rate the County has held since 2012, and there is no fire, stormwater or garbage line on that bill. The City is the utility, owning the electric, gas, water and sewer systems, and it charges stormwater at $11.00 and garbage at $28.19 a month on the utility bill, about $470 a year, with a fire services fee beside them that it raised 9.98% on 1 October 2025, about $2 a month for most residents, and that residents challenged in a lawsuit filed on 17 November 2025. This site could not read the fee's amount, so the Tallahassee carry leaves it out. Both sellers pay the state's 70-cent documentary stamp, about $2,662 on Tampa's typical home and $2,555 on the Tallahassee metro median, and both buyers 0.55% of the loan, about $1,673 and $1,606. Then the water and the wind. Tampa's insurance line is the Tampa Bay layer's band for a coastal address, and inside the city the ground runs from nine feet above the bay in the Channel District to forty-nine in Seminole Heights. Tallahassee's $220 is NerdWallet's average, and the state's average Leon County homeowners premium with wind cover was $2,538 a year; the City sits in Class 5 of FEMA's Community Rating System, 25% off a flood policy in its special flood hazard area, and on a wooded lot tree work is a cost no maintenance estimate here includes. Neither includes flood, which from 1 January 2027 most new and renewing Citizens policies with wind cover must carry. And Tampa is growing faster: 7.3% from 2020 to 2025, against Tallahassee's 4.4%, whose county has lost more residents to the rest of the country than it gained in each of the last three years.
Better here
- City median household income was $84,114 in 2024, $27,603 more than Tallahassee's $56,511, so the carry is about 41% of it against 58%.
- Violent crime was 445 per 100,000 on the FBI's 2024 counts, against about 678 in Tallahassee that year, and the department's own 2025 count gives about 375.5 against Tallahassee's 635.
- There were 17 homicides in 2025, about 4.1 per 100,000 and the fewest in more than 50 years, against 20 and about 9.8 in Tallahassee.
- January averages 16.7 C, 9.8 F warmer than Tallahassee's 11.2 C.
- 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, which handled 24,811,007 passengers in 2025 on 635 daily flights, is in the city.
Worse here
- Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,906 a month on the June 2026 typical home, against $2,733 in Tallahassee, or about $3,030 at the same 7.28% rate.
- Insurance is budgeted at $390 a month against $220, and a City address pays 19.8428 mills against 19.2060.
- Zillow's observed rent index was $1,999 in June 2026, against $1,470 in Tallahassee.
- Helene and Milton produced 10,261 flood insurance claims and about $1.1 billion in payouts in Hillsborough County in 2024.
- Only 1.2% of workers commuted by transit and 3.4% walked or cycled in 2024, against 3.2% and 5.3% in Tallahassee, and the mean commute was 26.1 minutes against 19.
- Metro unemployment was 4.8% in July 2026, not seasonally adjusted, close to Tallahassee's 5.1%.
Choose Tampa if
- you work at Tampa General, Moffitt, USF, MacDill or the port, or in finance and insurance
- you want household pay that carries the typical home at about 41% of median income
- you want the streetcar, Ybor City and the Riverwalk, and the airport in your own city
- you will buy on elevation, and Tampa's higher ground is where you want to look
The Tampa guide · Neighborhoods · Tampa rent vs buy · Tampa mortgage calculator
Better here
- Zillow's index for the City of Tallahassee stood at $294,444 in August 2026, about 23% below Tampa's typical home, and the carry on it would be about $2,234 at 7.28%.
- Insurance is budgeted at $220 a month, the lowest of the Florida cities this site compares, against $390.
- Zillow's observed rent index was $1,470 in August 2026, the lowest of the nine Florida cities here, against $1,999 in Tampa.
- The city is inland, out of the reach of storm surge, and the mean commute was 19 minutes in 2024.
- In 2024, 3.2% of workers took transit and 5.3% walked or cycled, against 1.2% and 3.4% in Tampa.
- The uninsured rate was 8.5% in 2024, and 27.2% of residents were college or graduate students at Florida State, Florida A&M or Tallahassee State College.
Worse here
- Violent crime was 635 per 100,000 on the FBI's 2025 counts, the highest 2025 rate of the Florida cities here, and there were 20 homicides, about 9.8 per 100,000.
- City median household income was $56,511 in 2024, the lowest of the Florida cities this site compares, so the carry is about 58% of it.
- January averages 11.2 C with 27.0 freezing nights a year, and the normals count 2.9 days at 100F.
- The metro has 200,500 nonfarm jobs, about an eighth of Tampa's, 30.2% of them in government.
- The City's fire services fee, charged on the utility bill, could not be priced, and the fee is under challenge in court.
- Hermine left about 80% of the city without power in 2016, and two EF2 tornadoes broke more than 400 utility poles in 2024.
Choose Tallahassee if
- you work for the state, at Florida State, Florida A&M or Tallahassee Memorial, or in the law and lobbying around the Capitol
- you want a cheaper house on Zillow's index, the cheapest insurance of the Florida cities here and a short commute
- you want inland ground, hills and canopy roads, and can take a real winter
- you will ask the City for the fire fee at the address and read the seller's utility bill as closely as the tax bill
The Tallahassee guide · Neighborhoods · Tallahassee rent vs buy · Tallahassee mortgage calculator
Tampa or Tallahassee, in short
Is Tampa or Tallahassee cheaper to live in?
Tallahassee, in dollars, on the house, the insurance and the rent; Tampa, against local pay. Both cities are in Florida and price in US dollars, and the headlines are different measures priced at different rates: Tampa's typical home on Zillow's index was $380,283 in June and the Tallahassee metro's single-family median $364,950 that month, while on the same Zillow index Zillow's index for the City of Tallahassee stood at $294,444. At 20% down the mortgage is $1,957 at August's 6.67% against $1,998 at October's 7.28%. Property tax is about $6,712 a year against $6,183 and insurance $390 a month against $220, so the three lines come to about $2,906 and $2,733, or about $3,030 for Tampa at the same rate, roughly 41% and 58% of each city's median household income, $84,114 and $56,511. Zillow's observed rent index was $1,999 against $1,470. Neither city levies income tax, sales tax is 7.5% in both, and Tallahassee's fire services fee, on the utility bill, is not in its figure.
Is Tampa or Tallahassee safer?
Tampa, on every year the two can be compared. On the FBI's 2024 counts, the only year with both, Tampa had 445 violent offenses per 100,000 against about 678 in Tallahassee, and 1,465 property offenses against about 2,845, a Tallahassee figure short of most of its car thefts. For 2025 Tallahassee's FBI rate was 635, the highest of the Florida cities here, and Tampa's own preliminary count about 375.5. Homicides in 2025 were 17 in Tampa, about 4.1 per 100,000, and 20 in Tallahassee, about 9.8. Both are falling: Tampa's total crime fell 21.3% in 2025, and Tallahassee's violent offenses were 25% below their 2023 peak, with January to August 2026 down 12% again on the state's file.
Which has the better job market, Tampa or Tallahassee?
Tampa's, on size, breadth and pay. On the same unadjusted basis BLS put July 2026 unemployment at 4.8% for Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater and 5.1% for the Tallahassee metro, whose rate moves with the academic year. The Tampa metro had 1,583,300 nonfarm jobs in December 2025 and the Tallahassee metro 200,500 in August 2026. Tampa's base is the port, MacDill, Tampa General, USF, Moffitt and finance. Tallahassee's is the State of Florida, with 26,831 employees in the city, Florida State with 16,207 and Tallahassee Memorial with 5,696, and government is 30.2% of the metro's jobs. Median household income was $84,114 in Tampa and $56,511 in Tallahassee, where many households are students, though Tallahassee's mean commute is 19 minutes against 26.1.
Which is more exposed to hurricanes, Tampa or Tallahassee?
Tampa to surge, Tallahassee to wind and falling trees. Helene's surge flooded coastal Tampa Bay neighborhoods in September 2024 and Milton came ashore at Siesta Key two weeks later, and Hillsborough County had 10,261 flood insurance claims that year. Tallahassee is inland, but Hermine left about 80% of the city without power in 2016, Michael about 95% of Leon County in 2018, the tornadoes of 10 May 2024 broke more than 400 utility poles, and Helene left about 53,000 City utility customers without power. Insurance is budgeted at $390 a month in Tampa and $220 in Tallahassee, and neither figure includes flood.
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.
- 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
- 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
- Florida Metropolitan Statistical Areas, 2025 Estimate · Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research · retrieved Supports: Metro population
- Tampa Police Department Annual Report 2025: Strength in Partnerships · City of Tampa · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend, Property crime rate
- Tampa crime drops in 2025, outpacing national trend: TPD · FOX 13 Tampa Bay · retrieved Supports: Crime trend
- Tampa police sees drop in homicides, violent crime for 2025 · WTSP 10 Tampa Bay · retrieved Supports: Homicides
- Tampa, St. Pete homicides, other crimes drop to lowest level in 50+ years · FOX 13 Tampa Bay · retrieved Supports: Homicides
- Tampa Police Release Mid-Year Crime Stats Showing Significant Reductions · City of Tampa · retrieved Supports: Crime trend
- Tampa, FL Crime Rates: Stats & Map (FBI UCR 2024 data) · AreaVibes · retrieved Supports: Property crime rate, Homicides, Violent crime rate
- 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
- Milton misses worst-case scenario, devastates Florida · Cotality (formerly CoreLogic) · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Flooding the zone · UF Warrington College of Business · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- FEMA Exercises Borrowing Authority for National Flood Insurance Program · FEMA · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- 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
- 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
- Unemployment Rate in Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL (MSA), TAMP312URN · FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (BLS LAUS data) · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate
- What is the unemployment rate in the Tampa, FL area right now? · USAFacts (BLS data) · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate
- Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL: Southeast Information Office · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Labour market
- Occupational Employment and Wages in Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL, May 2025 · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Labour market
- Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL · Data USA (Census ACS) · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- TIP 25A01-12: Hillsborough County Surtax Rate Update · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: Sales tax
- 2025 Tax Brackets · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
- Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (citing APTA Transit Ridership Report Q4 2025) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Transit ridership
- TECO Line Streetcar · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Transit ridership
- TPA Fact Sheet: Activity Report, Calendar Year 2025 · Tampa International Airport / Hillsborough County Aviation Authority · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- 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
- 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
- State University System of Florida 2025-2026 Matrix · Florida Board of Governors · retrieved Supports: Education
- HCPS data shows total county enrollment has declined since last year · Plant City Observer · retrieved Supports: Education
- 2024 Annual Report, Growth Management · Hillsborough County Public Schools · retrieved Supports: Education
- 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, Metro population, Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend, Character, Tallahassee city 196,182 (April 2020 base), 197,919 (2020), 200,283 (2021), 202,205 (2022), 203,267 (2023), 204,025 (2024) and 204,902 (2025); Leon County 299,048 (April 2020 base 292,205); national rank 122 and Florida rank 9; 37th of the 129 cities of 200,000 or more for growth since 2020
- 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, Tallahassee MSA (CBSA 45220) 384,303 (April 2020 base) and 397,442 (2025), 143rd of 387 metros and 14th of 22 in Florida; Gadsden 44,298, Jefferson 16,007, Leon 299,048, Wakulla 38,089; births, deaths and domestic and international migration by county and year
- 2025 Gazetteer Files: Places, Florida · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: point, City population, Climate normals, Tallahassee city (1270600): 102.578 sq mi of land, 2.913 sq mi of water, internal point 30.453529, -84.252272
- Tallahassee, Florida (history, geography, climate, neighborhoods, transportation) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: City population, Climate hazards, Main sectors, Transit system, Character, Capital since 1824; only incorporated municipality in Leon County; Hermine (about 80% of the city without power), Michael (95% of Leon County without power), EF2 tornadoes on 10 May 2024; record 105F on 15 June 2011; measurable snows including 2.8 in on 13 February 1958 and 1.9 in on 21-22 January 2025; nine canopy roads; Frenchtown; the 1956 bus boycott; Greyhound, Megabus and RedCoach; Amtrak's Sunset Limited suspended east of New Orleans in 2005
- Crime Data Explorer summarized agency data, Tallahassee Police Department (FL0370300): violent crime, property crime, homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson, 2021-2025, with Florida and national rates · FBI · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend, Character, 2022: 1,587 violent, 4,430 property; 2023: 1,732 and 5,212; 2024: 1,383 and 5,804; 2025: 1,302 violent (20 + 149 + 214 + 919) and 4,927 property (745 + 4,148 + 23 + 11); homicides 15, 21, 16 and 20; agency population 206,918 for 2025; January to July 2026 737 violent against 769 in 2025; 2025 rates for reporting Florida agencies 248.3 violent, 1,076.6 property and 3.0 homicide, and for the US 329.3, 1,552.1 and 4.3
- 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, Tallahassee Police Department: 1,681, 1,806, 1,441 and 1,363 violent and 5,444, 5,591, 6,371 and 5,280 property offenses in 2022 to 2025; motor vehicle thefts 628, 624, 559 and 396; homicides 16, 21, 16 and 21; January to August 2026 783 violent, 2,985 property and 7 homicides against 893, 3,450 and 17; FDLE population 205,623; the 46 agencies serving 100,000 or more in 2025, led by Fort Lauderdale PD (675 per 100,000), Tallahassee PD (663) and Gainesville PD (635); Leon County Sheriff's Office 500
- Total Crime Incidents Down in 2025, Violent Crime Spikes During Last Four Months · Tallahassee Reports · retrieved Supports: Homicides, Crime trend, From the Tallahassee Police Department's daily incident data: total incidents down 22.6% in 2025, property down 28.3%, violent down 8.9%; assaults in September to December 299 against 192; 18 fatal shootings in 2025 against 26 in 2024
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00093805 Tallahassee Regional Airport (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Climate normals, Climate hazards, Character, January 52.2F, July 82.5F and August 82.4F and the monthly highs, lows and rain from the monthly series, which carries no snowfall normal for this station, and annual mean 68.4F, precipitation 58.81 in, 102.6 days at 90F, 2.9 at 100F, 27.0 nights at or below 32F and 1.4 at or below 20F from dataset=normals-annualseasonal-1991-2020 for the same station
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USC00088756 Tallahassee AP (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 51.0F, July 82.9F, 59.82 in, 128.3 days at 90F
- NCEI data search, normals-monthly-1991-2020 stations within 30.7N to 30.2N and 84.6W to 84.0W, and stations with a snowfall normal within 31.3N to 29.7N and 85.3W to 83.4W · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate normals, USW00093805 at 30.3975N, 84.3289W and USC00088756 at 30.3961N, 84.3556W, both at the airport; the other stations near the city are CoCoRaHS precipitation gauges
- Global Historical Climatology Network daily summaries, Tallahassee Regional Airport (USW00093805), 2010-2026 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Character, 105F on 15 June 2011 and 104F on 24 June 2022; 108 days at or above 90F in 2025 and 114 in 2026 through 29 September, 3 of them at 100F or above; 27 nights at or below 32F in 2025 and 21 in 2026; 14F on 11 January 2010 and 18F on 2 February 2026; snowfall 1.5 in on 21 January 2025 and 0.4 in on 22 January; gusts of 70.9 mph on 10 October 2018, 67.1 mph on 26 September 2024 and 66.0 mph on 10 May 2024
- Average Annual Sunshine in US Cities · Current Results (NCDC Comparative Climatic Data, 1961-1990) · retrieved Supports: Sunshine hours, Climate normals, Jacksonville and Miami listed; no Tallahassee station
- Hurricane Hermine (2016) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, 57% of homes in Leon County without power, including about 80% of the city proper and Florida State University
- Hurricane Helene · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Tallahassee International Airport closed on 26 September 2024
- FY2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, Statistical Section (Demographic Statistics, Principal Employers and Miscellaneous Statistical Data) · City of Tallahassee (filed with the Florida Auditor General) · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market, Airport passengers, Health care, Education, Principal employers 2025: State of Florida 26,831, Florida State University 16,207, Tallahassee Memorial Hospital 5,696, Leon County School Board 4,300, City of Tallahassee 4,000, Amazon 2,256, Leon County 1,957, Florida A&M University 1,794, Walmart 1,700, Tallahassee State College 1,468, Publix 1,400, and the 2016 list; airline passengers 936,448 (fiscal 2025), 944,835 (2024) and 851,689 (2019); Leon County School enrollment 31,638 (2025) and 34,085 (2019); 51 public schools; 68,667 college-level students; 1,060 hospital beds at Tallahassee Memorial and Capital Regional
- ACS 2024 1-year tables B19013, B25003 and B01002 for Tallahassee city, Leon County, the Tallahassee MSA, Florida, the US and the other Florida cities this site compares · 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) and B08303 (travel time to work) for Tallahassee city and Leon County · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Labour market, Character
- ACS 2024 1-year table B08301 (means of transportation to work) for Tallahassee city, Leon County, the Tallahassee MSA, Florida and the US · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share, Labour market, Character
- ACS 2020-2024 5-year table B08301 (means of transportation to work) for Tallahassee city and Leon County · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share
- ACS 2024 1-year tables B14001 and B14007 (school enrollment by level) for Tallahassee city, Leon County, the Tallahassee MSA, Florida and the US · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: City population, Education, Character, Tallahassee city: 199,776 aged 3 and over, 43,399 enrolled in college undergraduate years and 10,954 in graduate or professional school; US 17,005,362 and 4,797,493 of 329,362,620; Florida 1,094,685 and 311,297 of 22,719,284
- ACS 2024 1-year table B27001 (health insurance coverage) for Tallahassee city, Leon County, the Tallahassee MSA, Florida and the US · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Local Area Unemployment Statistics, Tallahassee, FL MSA (LAUMT124522000000003), Leon County (LAUCN120730000000003) and Tallahassee city (LAUCT127060000000003), not seasonally adjusted · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate
- Current Employment Statistics, Tallahassee, FL MSA: total nonfarm (SMU12452200000000001), supersectors (SMU1245220xx00000001), retail trade and federal, state and local government (SMU12452209091000001, SMU12452209092000001, SMU12452209093000001) · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market, Character
- Florida State University 2025-2026 Pocket Fact Book · Florida State University Office of Institutional Research · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Education, Fall 2025 enrollment 46,184 (33,068 undergraduate, 11,022 graduate and professional, 2,094 unclassified), the highest in the enrollment history table; 43,603 at the Tallahassee location and 43,936 taking at least one class on the main campus; 16,207 employees in 2025-26, 7,605 full-time, 118 part-time and 8,484 OPS
- College Navigator: Florida State University, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University and Tallahassee State College (fall 2024 enrollment) · US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Education, Fall 2024 total enrollment: FAMU 9,313 (7,890 undergraduate, 1,423 graduate; id 133650), FSU 43,889 (32,720 undergraduate; id 134097), Tallahassee State College 12,455, all undergraduate (id 137759)
- FAMU Welcomes Largest Incoming Class in a Decade at New Student Pinning Ceremony · Florida A&M University · retrieved Supports: Education, More than 1,900 first-time-in-college students in fall 2026, the largest incoming class in a decade, plus 400 online, 700 transfer and 1,200 graduate students
- Florida A&M University · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Education, Character
- Florida State University · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Health care, Education
- Tallahassee State College · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Education, Known as Tallahassee Community College from 1970 to 2024; renamed Tallahassee State College on July 1, 2024
- Leon County Schools approve increase in property tax rates, voters could decide in November · WCTV · retrieved Supports: Sales tax, Tax notes, Education, A one-mill operating levy for July 2027 to June 2031 sent to the county commission for the November ballot; the commission's 12 May motion to put the half-cent sales tax renewal on the November ballot; $400 million raised from 2012 to 2026
- Leon County school leaders push to renew half-cent sales tax before 2027 expiration · WTXL · retrieved Supports: Education, A $620 million gap in facility needs without renewal; more than $500 million over 15 years if renewed
- Discretionary Sales Surtax Information for Calendar Year 2026 (DR-15DSS) · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: Sales tax, Leon 1.5%: 1% from December 1, 1989 to December 31, 2039 and 0.5% from January 1, 2003 to December 31, 2027
- Tax Information Publication 14A01-17: Leon County Discretionary Sales Surtax Continues at 1.5% Rate · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: Sales tax, Combined rate 7.5%: 1% infrastructure surtax, 0.5% school capital outlay surtax and 6% state tax; the infrastructure surtax extended through December 31, 2039
- Florida Tax Rates & Rankings · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000, Tax notes
- 2026 Tax Brackets and Federal Income Tax Rates · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
- Property Tax Exemptions: Homestead Exemption, Save Our Homes Assessment Limitation, and Portability Transfer · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: Tax notes
- Leon County 2025 taxing authority millage rates by tax authority code (with 2010 to 2024), as certified by the Leon County Property Appraiser · Florida Department of Revenue, Property Tax Oversight (Leon County Property Appraiser's filing) · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, Character, 2025 code 1, City of Tallahassee: County 8.3144, EMS MSTU 0.7500, CSC of Leon 0.3477, School Board RLE 3.1180, discretionary 0.7480 and capital outlay 1.5000, NW Florida Water Management District 0.0207, City 4.4072, total 19.2060 ('City lowered from proposed rate of 4.4200'); code 3, Downtown Improvement, 20.2060; code 2, unincorporated, 14.7988; 2024 code 1 total 19.2379; County 8.3144 every year since 2012
- Table 1: Comparison of Taxes Levied, County and Municipal Governments, Fiscal Years 2024-25 and 2025-26 (Leon County) · Leon County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, City of Tallahassee 4.4200 in 2024-25, rolled-back rate 4.2080 and 4.4072 adopted for 2025-26, levy $81,772,259, up 9.0% and 4.7% above rolled-back; Leon County BCC 8.3144 and EMS 0.7500
- Zillow Home Value Index and Observed Rent Index, city files, August 2026 · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, Character, Tallahassee (region 47945) all-homes value (City_zhvi_uc_sfrcondo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv) $294,444 in August 2026 against $290,281 a year earlier, up 1.4%, and observed rent (City_zori_uc_sfrcondomfr_sm_month.csv) $1,470 against $1,448, up 1.5%; the same month for Jacksonville $285,103 and $1,601, Orlando $371,120 and $1,896, Miami $580,866 and $3,008, Tampa $377,566 and $1,957, St. Petersburg $354,074 and $2,058, Port St. Lucie $384,593 and $2,396, Cape Coral $335,825 and $1,949, Hialeah $442,859 and $2,357
- Monthly Module Adjusted Data Release, complete monthly ridership with adjustments and estimates (City of Tallahassee, NTD 40036) · Federal Transit Administration, National Transit Database (via data.transportation.gov) · retrieved Supports: Transit ridership
- StarMetro (bus service) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership
- Tallahassee International Airport (ownership, location, carriers, naming) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions · KFF · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Health care, Main sectors
- HCA Florida Capital Hospital · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Health care
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Tallahassee home prices outpace state as sales slow in June · Tallahassee Reports · retrieved Supports: A median sale price for an existing single-family home in the Tallahassee MSA of $364,950 in June 2026, up 5.8% from June 2025, A year-to-date median of $340,000, up 1.5%, and 364 closed sales in June, down 6.2% from a year earlier, Florida Realtors' statistics compiled from local multiple listing services, June 2026 data released on 17 July 2026; the Tallahassee MSA is Gadsden, Jefferson, Leon and Wakulla counties, A statewide single-family median of $432,000 in June 2026
- Tallahassee MSA median single-family sales price up 4.4% in May · Tallahassee Reports · retrieved Supports: A Tallahassee MSA single-family median of $355,000 in May 2026 against $340,000 in May 2025, up 4.4%
- Tallahassee MSA residential sales prices trending down · Tallahassee Reports · retrieved Supports: Leon County accounting for almost 90% of the MSA's real estate transactions
- Florida market reports · Florida Realtors · retrieved Supports: Metropolitan Statistical Area reports, Tallahassee among them, published to members only
- FY26 budget, 1.4 millage rate · City of Tallahassee · retrieved Supports: A millage rate of 4.4072, a decrease of 0.0128 mills against the prior year; the budget proposed at 4.4200 and adopted at 4.4072
- Tallahassee's $1.2B budget advances, with final vote set for September · WTXL · retrieved Supports: The City Commission setting the millage rate at 4.4072 mills, with public hearings on 9 and 23 September 2026 before the final vote, The City projecting that a property tax amendment, if voters pass it in November, would cost it $11.2 million in fiscal 2028 and $17.8 million in fiscal 2029
- Leon Commission OKs $420M budget with property tax increase, raises · Tallahassee Democrat (via Yahoo News) · retrieved Supports: The County Commission voting 6-1 for a property tax rate of 8.3144 per $1,000 of assessed value, unchanged for the 15th consecutive year, and the EMS rate alongside it, at its final hearing on 22 September 2026, The unincorporated area's solid waste assessment going from $40 to $80 in the fiscal year starting 1 October
- Leon County School Board approves tentative 2026-27 budget in a 4-1 vote · WTXL · retrieved Supports: A tentative 5.343-mill tax rate, with the final public hearing on the millage and budget on 8 September 2026
- 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
- Zillow Home Value Index, all homes, single-family and condominium series, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: A typical home value of $294,444 for the City of Tallahassee (region 47945, Leon County) in August 2026, against $290,281 in August 2025, up 1.4%, A typical single-family value of $305,442 against $300,921, up 1.5%, and a typical condominium value of $179,610 against $181,439, down 1.0%, 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 $1,470 for the City of Tallahassee in August 2026, against $1,448 a year earlier, up 1.5%, A single-family observed rent index of $1,650 for the Tallahassee metro area in August 2026, against $1,619 a year earlier, from the metro single-family file
- Rent estimates summary, September 2026 · Apartment List · retrieved Supports: For the City of Tallahassee (FIPS 1270600), September 2026: $1,296 overall, $1,100 for one bedroom and $1,309 for two, with rents down 0.31% on the month and 0.43% on the year, For Leon County: $1,290 overall, $1,106 for one bedroom and $1,288 for two
- 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 $56,511 in Tallahassee city, against $63,548 in Leon County and $77,735 for Florida, A median owner-occupied home value of $294,500 in Tallahassee city, 39,706 of Tallahassee's 89,217 occupied homes owner-occupied, and a median gross rent of $1,369 against $1,812 for Florida
- Median gross rent by bedrooms, table B25031, 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates, Tallahassee city · United States Census Bureau, via the Census Reporter API · retrieved Supports: A median gross rent of $1,239 for one bedroom, $1,401 for two and $1,592 for three
- Monthly homeowners' association and condominium fee, tables B25142 and B25143, 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates, Tallahassee city · United States Census Bureau, via the Census Reporter API · retrieved Supports: 17,174 of 39,706 owner-occupied units paying a required homeowners' association or condominium fee, 6,936 of them less than $25 a month, A median monthly fee of $44 among them, and 1,906 paying $300 or more a month
- Utility rate pricing plans · City of Tallahassee Utilities · retrieved Supports: A stormwater charge of $11.00 per month; residential garbage at $28.19 per month for regular homes, $64.64 for premium service and $18.92 for an additional container, Residential electric: a customer charge of $10.29 single phase and an effective billing rate of $0.13583 per kWh (energy $0.09518 and fuel $0.04065), Residential gas: a customer charge of $12.93 per month and an effective billing rate of $1.42287 per CCF, Water: a minimum charge of $17.75 per month and a 50% surcharge outside the City; sewer: a customer charge of $26.09 per month and $0.83458 per cgal
- About your utility bill · City of Tallahassee Utilities · retrieved Supports: Stormwater and Fire Service lines on the City's utility bill
- Department: Electric and Gas Utility · City of Tallahassee (OpenGov) · retrieved Supports: The Electric Utility serving over 128,000 customers in a 221-square-mile service territory, Natural gas through 965 miles of underground mains serving over 34,000 customers in Leon, Gadsden and Wakulla counties
- Tallahassee sued over fire services fee charged through utility bills · Fire Law Blog · retrieved Supports: A Fire Services Fee imposed since 1999 as a flat monthly charge on City utility bills, at two monthly rates by geographic zone, the inner zone paying more, The City Commission's September 2025 decision to readopt the fee and approve a 9.98% increase, effective 1 October 2025
- Complaint, Inman-Johnson et al. v. City of Tallahassee, Second Judicial Circuit · Fire Law Blog (court filing) · retrieved Supports: Filed electronically on 17 November 2025, Resolution 25-R-45, adopted in September 2025, implementing a 9.98% increase in the Fire Services Fee charged monthly to each residential utility customer
- City commissioners move forward with revised fire service fee · WTXL · retrieved Supports: The increase costing approximately $2 extra per month for most residents
- Leon County residents now pay fire fee on property tax bill · WCTV · retrieved Supports: Residents outside the city limits paying the fire services fee on the property tax bill, about $230 depending on the zone, The City Commission raising the fee by 10% only on its own residents
- Property taxes: discounts for early payment · Leon County Tax Collector · retrieved Supports: A 4% discount if paid in November, 3% in December, 2% in January and 1% in February
- Property Insurance Stability Report, July 1, 2026 · Florida Office of Insurance Regulation · retrieved Supports: Average premiums for Leon County from data reported as of 31 March 2026: homeowners $2,538 with wind and $1,710 without; condominium unit owners $846 and $441, Actual charged premium varying by company, insured value, deductibles and policy terms
- Florida homeowners insurance · NerdWallet · retrieved Supports: An average Tallahassee premium of $2,640 a year, $220 a month, against $8,345 in Miami, updated 20 February 2026
- Renters insurance in Florida · NerdWallet · retrieved Supports: An average Tallahassee renters premium of $138 a year, $12 a month
- Flood prevention and preparedness information · City of Tallahassee, Stormwater Management · retrieved Supports: A substantially improved or damaged home, where the repairs or renovations equal or exceed 50% of the structure's market value, brought up to the NFIP and City flood ordinance requirements, elevated to at least 2 feet above the base flood elevation, Tallahassee citizens and businesses receiving up to a 25 percent discount on flood insurance
- CRS eligible communities, April 2025 · Federal Emergency Management Agency · retrieved Supports: The City of Tallahassee (community 120144) in Class 5 from 1 October 2022, a 25% discount in the special flood hazard area; Leon County also Class 5
- National Flood Hazard Layer, FIRM panels · Federal Emergency Management Agency · retrieved Supports: Leon County's countywide FIRM, DFIRM 12073C, with panels effective 18 August 2009
- Tropical cyclone report: Hurricane Hermine (AL092016) · National Hurricane Center · retrieved Supports: Landfall along the Florida Big Bend coast just east of St. Marks at 0530 UTC on 2 September 2016, About 65% of electric customers (75,000 in all) without power in the City of Tallahassee, the most significant damage to its system since Hurricane Kate in 1985
- Hurricane Hermine (2016) · National Weather Service Tallahassee · retrieved Supports: Approximately 80% of customers in Tallahassee losing power during the hurricane
- NWS Tallahassee newsletter, June 2024 · National Weather Service Tallahassee · retrieved Supports: Three tornadoes through Leon County on 10 May 2024, two of them EF-2 with maximum winds of 115 mph converging on Tallahassee, More than 400 broken utility poles, more than Hermine, Irma and Michael combined on the City's count, and two storm-related deaths
- Post tropical cyclone report, Hurricane Helene: impact narratives · National Weather Service Tallahassee · retrieved Supports: In Leon County at the peak, roughly 53,000 City of Tallahassee utility customers and 35,000 Talquin Electric customers without power, A mandatory evacuation of mobile and manufactured homes, and 3 homes destroyed and 27 with major damage
- 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
- 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
- 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