The municipalities of Tampa Bay
In September 2024 Hurricane Helene put the largest storm surge on record into this bay, and Milton followed two weeks later. 23 of these 24 municipalities have fallen in value since; the one that has not sits on a bluff. This is the only layer on this site where you can watch a housing market reprice a risk in real time.
All 24, sorted by distance from downtown Tampa
Home values are Zillow's index for June 2026. The millage column is published rather than assembled — both counties publish a total per taxing district and this layer carries those totals directly, which is why there is no fire flag or library flag here as there is in the Palm Beach and Miami layers. The rate column is what a homesteaded buyer really pays after the exemption.
| Municipality | County | Miles | Typical home | Year on year | Millage | Buyer's rate | Tax a year | Insurance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tampa | Hillsborough | 0 | $380,283 | -2.1% | 19.8428 | 1.77% | $6,712 | $4,680 |
| Temple Terrace · inland | Hillsborough | 7 | $329,643 | -2.1% | 19.5319 | 1.71% | $5,620 | $3,000 |
| Oldsmar | Pinellas | 14 | $365,109 | -5.0% | 17.5172 | 1.55% | $5,677 | $4,680 |
| Safety Harbor | Pinellas | 15 | $505,295 | -0.7% | 17.4172 | 1.60% | $8,087 | $4,680 |
| Pinellas Park · inland | Pinellas | 17 | $303,946 | -3.8% | 19.1172 | 1.65% | $5,012 | $3,000 |
| St. Petersburg | Pinellas | 17 | $355,759 | -3.9% | 19.1917 | 1.69% | $6,025 | $4,680 |
| Kenneth City · inland | Pinellas | 18 | $304,633 | -1.6% | 18.1745 | 1.57% | $4,785 | $3,000 |
| Dunedin | Pinellas | 20 | $411,373 | -1.1% | 17.6017 | 1.58% | $6,518 | $4,680 |
| Largo · inland | Pinellas | 20 | $339,252 | -1.5% | 18.9872 | 1.67% | $5,649 | $3,000 |
| Gulfport | Pinellas | 21 | $357,477 | -5.4% | 17.4930 | 1.55% | $5,536 | $4,680 |
| Clearwater | Pinellas | 21 | $344,142 | -3.0% | 19.3522 | 1.70% | $5,850 | $4,680 |
| Belleair | Pinellas | 21 | $739,572 | +0.7% | 20.4449 | 1.93% | $14,256 | $4,680 |
| Plant City · inland | Hillsborough | 21 | $343,765 | -2.0% | 18.2926 | 1.61% | $5,532 | $3,000 |
| South Pasadena | Pinellas | 22 | $296,524 | -7.4% | 18.6422 | 1.60% | $4,753 | $4,680 |
| Seminole | Pinellas | 22 | $386,378 | -2.9% | 15.9465 | 1.43% | $5,521 | $4,680 |
| Belleair Bluffs | Pinellas | 22 | $385,582 | -1.9% | 18.8172 | 1.68% | $6,472 | $4,680 |
| Tarpon Springs | Pinellas | 23 | $391,502 | -3.6% | 18.8372 | 1.68% | $6,590 | $4,680 |
| Treasure Island · island | Pinellas | 23 | $523,869 | -6.0% | 16.5501 | 1.53% | $8,000 | $9,000 |
| Madeira Beach · island | Pinellas | 23 | $648,675 | -6.4% | 16.2172 | 1.52% | $9,866 | $9,000 |
| St. Pete Beach · island | Pinellas | 23 | $608,062 | -7.1% | 15.8285 | 1.48% | $8,991 | $9,000 |
| Belleair Beach · island | Pinellas | 24 | $887,071 | -4.3% | 15.5466 | 1.48% | $13,171 | $9,000 |
| Indian Rocks Beach · island | Pinellas | 24 | $784,527 | -1.2% | 15.8672 | 1.51% | $11,812 | $9,000 |
| Redington Shores · island | Pinellas | 24 | $667,757 | -7.0% | 15.1568 | 1.43% | $9,521 | $9,000 |
| Indian Shores · island | Pinellas | 24 | $640,651 | -5.2% | 16.0072 | 1.50% | $9,612 | $9,000 |
The insurance column is the only estimate in the table and it is banded by surge exposure rather than by municipality: $3,000 a year inland, $4,680 coastal and $9,000 on a barrier island. It is homeowners insurance only — flood is a separate policy and is what actually did the damage in 2024. Rents are on each municipality's page rather than here, because Zillow publishes no index for seven of these.
What Helene and Milton did to this market
Homeowners insurance does not cover flood, and in Tampa Bay that distinction did the damage. Hurricane Helene put the largest storm surge on record into this bay in September 2024 — over six feet in St. Petersburg and more than seven on the barrier islands — and Milton followed two weeks later. Flood is a separate policy, the elevation certificate is the document that prices it, and FEMA's substantial improvement rule can force a full elevation on what looks like an ordinary repair. The figure on this page is homeowners insurance only.
The repricing is visible in a single column of this table. 23 of 24 municipalities fell in value over the year to June 2026, and the falls are not random: the barrier islands and the low bayfront lost five to seven per cent, while the inland municipalities lost one to two. Belleair, on the bluff above the Intracoastal, is the only municipality here that rose — +0.7% — while Belleair Beach, on the barrier island 2.6 miles from it and visible across the water, fell 4.3%. Two municipalities of a few thousand people each, similar houses, similar rates, opposite outcomes. The variable is elevation.
For a buyer the practical consequence is a document nobody used to ask for. FEMA's substantial improvement rule requires a structure damaged, or improved, beyond fifty per cent of its value to be brought up to current elevation standards — which on a 1950s slab house near the water can cost more than the house is worth. That determination is being made on hundreds of lots across this metro right now, and it decides whether a damaged property is a renovation or a teardown. The elevation certificate and the claims history are the first two documents to ask for here, ahead of anything on this page.
Hillsborough has three municipalities. Pinellas has twenty-four.
Hillsborough County has 1.5 million people and three incorporated municipalities — Tampa, Temple Terrace and Plant City, and that is the entire list. Brandon, Riverview, Town 'n' Country, Carrollwood, Valrico, Apollo Beach, Ruskin and Westchase are all unincorporated: census places with no council, paying the county's General Purpose MSTU of 4.6163 mills in place of a city rate, for a published total of 18.2515. Around eighty per cent of the county lives that way and cannot appear on this table at all.
Pinellas County, across the bay, has twenty-four municipalities in 280 square miles — the most densely municipalized county in Florida and the most densely populated. Twenty-one of them are on this list, and several are barrier-island towns of a few hundred residents with their own council, their own millage and their own building rules. One bay, two completely different answers to the question of who governs a suburb.
The published totals expose the small print of that. Tampa's 19.8428 is the highest in Hillsborough not because its own levy is the highest — Temple Terrace charges more — but because Temple Terrace and Plant City run their own libraries and are outside the county's 0.5583-mill library district, and Plant City is outside the 0.5000-mill transit authority as well.
The cheapest coastal insurance in Florida, on the most exposed coast
This site now carries four Florida metros measured identically — same exemption, same Save Our Homes cap, same two Zillow indexes in the same month. The property tax barely separates them: a median effective rate of 1.60% here against 1.77% in Miami-Dade, 1.79% on the Palm Beach coast and 1.53% around Orlando. What separates them is insurance, and the ordering is not what anyone expects.
A mainland Tampa Bay house is modelled here at $4,680 a year and an inland one at $3,000, against $3,720 inland at Orlando, $6,060 in Miami-Dade and $6,600 on the Palm Beach coast. Tampa Bay is the cheapest coastal metro in Florida to insure — and it is the one that took the largest storm surge on record in 2024, larger than anything either south Florida county has on its books. Premiums here have not caught up with demonstrated risk, and the gap between those two facts is the most interesting thing on this page.
The spread within the bay: Redington Shores charges the lowest effective rate at 1.43% and Belleair the highest at 1.93%. In dollars, $4,753 a year in South Pasadena against $14,256 in Belleair. Values run from $296,524 in South Pasadena to $887,071 in Belleair Beach — and seven of these municipalities are on a barrier island while five are fully inland, which is the distinction that now matters most.
Five groupings, and none of them official
Neither county publishes sub-regions, so this grouping is editorial — built from the geography that decides an insurance premium here, which is which side of the bay the address is on and how far above the water it sits.
Hillsborough
Tampa One of only three municipalities in a county of 1.5 million, and the highest total millage in the bay. · Temple Terrace A 1920s golf-course suburb next to the university, with its own library and no county library levy. · Plant City The strawberry capital, thirty-five kilometres inland, outside the transit authority entirely.
St. Petersburg and the south
St. Petersburg The metro's second city, and where Helene put the largest storm surge on record in 2024. · Gulfport A small arts town on Boca Ciega Bay, hit hard in 2024 and down 5.4% since. · South Pasadena A square kilometre of condominiums on the water, down 7.4% in a year.
The Gulf beaches
Treasure Island Wide beach, low-rise, and a market down six per cent in a year. · Madeira Beach John's Pass, a working fishing fleet, and a 6.4% fall in a year. · St. Pete Beach A barrier island of hotels and houses, and one of the lowest millages in the county. · Belleair Beach The highest typical home value in this layer, and almost the lowest rate. · Indian Rocks Beach The most expensive beach town on this list, at one of the lowest rates. · Redington Shores The lowest total millage in this layer, on a barrier island down seven per cent. · Indian Shores Thirteen hundred people on a strip of sand, and a seabird sanctuary.
Mid-county
Pinellas Park The county's most affordable city, inland and out of the surge zone. · Kenneth City A 1950s subdivision that incorporated, and one of the cheapest bills in the layer. · Largo The county's third-largest city, mid-peninsula and out of the surge. · Seminole The lowest effective rate of any mainland city here, on a mid-county suburb.
The north county
Oldsmar Ransom Olds's failed motor city, now the closest Pinellas address to Tampa. · Safety Harbor A mineral-spring town on Old Tampa Bay, and the mildest fall in the layer. · Dunedin A Scottish-founded town with the best downtown in the county, and the Blue Jays. · Clearwater The county seat, a famous beach, and the second-highest municipal rate here. · Belleair The highest total millage in this layer, on a bluff above the Intracoastal. · Belleair Bluffs Twenty-four hundred people on the bluff, with a commercial strip that funds them. · Tarpon Springs The sponge docks, the largest Greek-American community in the country, and the north end of the county.
Three Pinellas municipalities are left out for space — North Redington Beach, Redington Beach and Belleair Shore, each a few hundred people on the same strip of sand as their neighbours here. The unincorporated county is left out because it has no municipal rate to compare, which in Hillsborough means most of the population and in Pinellas a good deal of it.
Sources
Both counties publish a total millage per taxing district for the 2025 tax year, and this layer carries those published totals rather than assembling its own. The Hillsborough table's components are also carried, so a test can check that the four published totals — Tampa, Temple Terrace, Plant City and the unincorporated county — are internally consistent. The homestead derivation applies the state's own exemption, $25,000 for every authority and a second $25,000 for all but the school board, which levies 6.3400 in Hillsborough and 6.2930 in Pinellas; Save Our Homes caps a homesteaded assessment at 3% a year until a sale resets it. These are the figures on this page that are estimates:
- Home insurance — $250 a month inland, $390 on the coast and $750 on the barrier islands. It is the least certain figure here and the one to replace with a real quote; it also excludes flood, which is a separate policy and is what actually did the damage in 2024
- The condominium fee at $700 a month, which on the Pinellas waterfront is conservative and has been moving since both the 2022 reserve legislation and the 2024 storms
- The split of rent by bedroom count, derived on the same ratios the other Florida layers use — the level is measured, the shape is assumed
- The rent in the seven municipalities Zillow publishes no index for, which falls back to the median of the other seventeen
- The utilities an owner pays over a renter, at $150 a month
- Maintenance at 1% of the home's value a year
- Every forward-looking rate: appreciation, rent growth, cost inflation and the return on the invested difference — and note that twenty-three of these twenty-four municipalities fell in value over the year to June 2026, so a 2% appreciation assumption is a long-run figure rather than a description of this market
- And nothing at all for flood insurance, an elevation certificate, or the cost of a substantial improvement determination
- Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI), all homes, mid-tier, smoothed and seasonally adjusted — city file, June 2026 — Zillow Research, retrieved 2026-08-14
- Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI), all homes, smoothed — city file, June 2026 — Zillow Research, retrieved 2026-08-14
- Final 2025 millage rates by taxing district — Hillsborough County Property Appraiser, retrieved 2026-08-14
- Millage rates levied for 2025 taxes — Pinellas County Tax Collector, retrieved 2026-08-14
- 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 2026-08-14
- Annual estimates of the resident population for incorporated places, 2020 to 2024 — United States Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program, retrieved 2026-08-14
- Hurricane Helene storm surge and Pinellas County flooding, September 2024 — Latent Insurance, on National Weather Service and Pinellas County data, retrieved 2026-08-14
- Home insurance in Tampa, Florida — 2026 rates — InsuranceQuotes, retrieved 2026-08-14
- Primary Mortgage Market Survey — Freddie Mac, retrieved 2026-08-14
- Documentary stamp tax — Florida Department of Revenue, retrieved 2026-08-14
- Governmental leasehold intangible personal property tax and the non-recurring intangible tax on mortgages — Florida Department of Revenue, retrieved 2026-08-14
- Property tax exemptions and additional benefits — Florida Department of Revenue, retrieved 2026-08-14
- Chapter 2023-17, Laws of Florida — preemption of rent control — The Florida Senate, retrieved 2026-08-14
None of this includes a community development district assessment. A CDD is a special-purpose government that borrows to build a master-planned community's roads, drainage and amenities and repays the bonds through a non-ad-valorem line on your tax bill — commonly $1,200 to $3,000 a year in the newer parts of Florida. It is in no millage, it is not in any figure here, and it is the first thing to check on a new-build address. Nothing here is a listing, a lender quote or financial advice. Millage is set every September, exemptions are claimed by 1 March, and flood maps and insurance in this metro are moving faster than either. Confirm anything you plan to act on, and read the research and sourcing methodology for how the line between a fact and an assumption is drawn on this site.