Understand Wellington before you commit to an address
Wellington is sixty-three thousand people twenty-five kilometers west of the coast, a planned community carved out of drained Everglades farmland that has become the center of American showjumping and polo. The Winter Equestrian Festival brings several thousand horses and a great deal of money here every January to April. Figures are the same two indexes measured the same way in all 24 municipalities on this coast, on Florida's rules including the homestead exemption.
The cost of living in Wellington, and what a home costs
Two calculators on Florida's own rules: monthly compounding and the month private mortgage insurance stops, and the closing costs this state actually charges.
Rent or buy in Wellington
Whether buying here beats renting, and the year it turns over. On this coast insurance moves the answer more than the mortgage rate, and you can edit it.
Mortgage calculator
Monthly compounding, the 30-year fixed loan, the private mortgage insurance a low down payment triggers, and Florida's documentary stamp and intangible taxes on the loan itself.
Then work out whether Wellington is the right part of this coast
No neighborhood guides for Wellington yet. What is here instead is the whole coast on one comparable footing.
All 24 municipalities on the Palm Beach coast
Every municipality from Boca Raton to Tequesta side by side on home value, millage, the rate a homesteaded buyer pays, and which of them pay the county for fire.
Compare the coastThe 24 municipalities of the Orlando metro
Identical rules and exemptions, the same two Zillow indexes, and insurance at less than half what it costs here. It is the clearest measure of what proximity to the Atlantic costs.
Compare coast and inlandWhat buying in Wellington actually involves
Wellington's own rate of 2.4700 mills is the third-lowest municipal levy in this layer, after Royal Palm Beach and Jupiter, but it is inside the county's Fire/Rescue MSTU and its library district, and the MSTU's 3.4581 mills plus the library's 0.5491 takes the total to 18.7352: a homesteaded buyer's rate of about 1.76%, or roughly $11,600 a year on a typical home value of $658,112. The village has an unusually large tax base for its population because of the equestrian and commercial property, which is what keeps the municipal rate where it is.
There are effectively two Wellingtons. The equestrian preserve west and south of the village center is farms, barns and multi-million-dollar properties with agricultural zoning and seasonal occupancy; the rest is conventional planned-community suburbia at conventional prices. The index blends them. Being this far inland puts insurance in a much better band than the coast, but the whole area is drained wetland behind a managed water system, and drainage district assessments apply to parts of it.
Outside the equestrian preserve this is a large, conventional planned suburb with a hospital, strong schools and a village-run park and trail network, and most of its housing sits inside associations of varying size and cost. The village figure on this page is really a figure for that part of Wellington rather than for the farms.
The whole village sits on drained land managed by a water control district, so canals, berms and pump stations are part of the infrastructure everywhere here. Those carry their own assessments and their own maintenance responsibilities, and they are the reason drainage rather than surge is the flood question in the western communities.
Moving to Wellington: check these before you commit
- Whether the property is in the equestrian preserve, which has its own zoning, its own uses and a completely different market.
- Drainage and water control district assessments, which are non-ad-valorem and not in the millage here.
- The commute east to the coast, which is thirty to fifty minutes and the reason this land was affordable to develop.
- Which association the property sits in, since fees and rules vary widely across the village.
- The drainage arrangements for the specific lot, including any canal or easement responsibility.
Wellington levies 2.4700 of the 18.7352 mills charged here. A further 3.4581 is the fire district levy, and the remaining 12.8071 is Palm Beach County, the school district and the countywide special districts. None of which the municipality sets.
Sourced, dated, and separated from the guesswork
Every Wellington figure below is cited, stamped with the period it describes, and editable, because a number for the whole city rarely describes your purchase. Appreciation and investment returns are assumptions rather than facts, and they are labelled that way. Read the methodology for how the line is drawn.
- Prices, rents and tax rates: published statistics and the official schedules.
- Nothing here is a lender quote, a pre-approval or financial advice.
Where the Wellington figures come from
- Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI), all homes, mid-tier, smoothed and seasonally adjusted: city file, June 2026 · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: A typical home value for the 35th to 65th percentile of each municipality's market, computed on one method across all twenty-four, The same series and month the Charlotte and Orlando metro pages use, so all three American layers can be read against each other, Year-over-year change to June 2026
- Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI), all homes, smoothed: city file, June 2026 · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: Asking rents across the whole rental stock for the eighteen municipalities Zillow indexes, No index at all for the six smallest, several of which have fewer than five hundred residents
- Taxing Authority Code Description, Palm Beach County 2025 · Palm Beach County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: One row per tax authority code, 123 codes, with a named column for every levy and a published TOTAL, which settles the district set for all twenty-four municipalities by inspection, The Fire/Rescue MSTU at 3.4581 on five of the twenty-four and on no others: South Palm Beach, Lake Worth Beach, Wellington, Royal Palm Beach and Lake Park, The county Library district at 0.5491 on eleven: Ocean Ridge, Hypoluxo, South Palm Beach, Greenacres, Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, Palm Beach Shores, Palm Beach Gardens, Jupiter, Jupiter Inlet Colony and Tequesta, The Jupiter Inlet District at 0.0722 on three: Jupiter, Tequesta and Jupiter Inlet Colony, Children's Services 0.4908, the Health Care District 0.6561 and F.I.N.D. 0.0270 on all 123 codes, which is why they are countywide here, The published TOTAL every row in this layer reproduces, from Palm Beach's 14.8690 to Lake Worth Beach's 21.6106
- 2025 millage rates by taxing authority, Palm Beach County · Palm Beach County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: The countywide levies: county 4.5000 and county debt 0.0330, school state 3.0730 and local 3.2480, Children's Services 0.4908, Health Care District 0.6561, three SFWMD levies totalling 0.2301 and FIND 0.0270, The conditional Fire/Rescue MSTU at 3.4581 and the separate Jupiter Fire/Rescue MSTU at 1.7251, Every municipality's own operating and debt millage, and the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District at 1.0800, A published total for Boca Raton of 17.0029 mills, which this layer's stack reproduces exactly
- 2026 Proposed, Rollback and 2025 Final Millage Rates, Palm Beach County · Palm Beach County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: The 2025 Final column corroborating the three district rates read off the code chart: Fire/Rescue 3.4581, Library 0.5491 and Jupiter Inlet District 0.0722, F.I.N.D. at 0.0270 for 2025, against the 0.0288 this layer carried for a year, which is the 2024 rate
- Table 1: Comparison of Taxes Levied, county and municipal governments, fiscal years 2024-25 and 2025-26: Palm Beach · Florida Department of Revenue, Property Tax Oversight · retrieved Supports: The adopted 2025-26 millage rate and taxes levied for Palm Beach County and every municipality in it, Independent confirmation of the municipal rates taken from the property appraiser's table