United States · North America
Moving to Fort Lauderdale
Fort Lauderdale quick facts
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Cost of living in Fort Lauderdale
Can you move to United States?
Pick your passport to see whether you can enter United States — and what it takes to stay.
Entry rules come from github.com/imorte/passport-index-data, updated 17 February 2026. They change without notice — confirm with the official immigration service before booking.
Getting set up in United States
Status, Social Security number and a Florida licence
There is no post-arrival registration in the US: your I-94 record is your status. In the first weeks you need a Social Security number if work-authorised, or an ITIN if not. Florida's pressure point is speed: 30 days to obtain a driver licence and, separately, Florida insurance in place before a vehicle can be titled. Most licensing here is delivered by the Broward County Tax Collector as an agent of the state rather than by a state office, so the appointment system you need is the county's. Non-citizens are issued a licence valid only to the end of their authorised stay, which means repeat visits.
Read the full step-by-step guideThirty days, no-fault insurance, and drawbridges on the commute
New residents must obtain a Florida licence within 30 days and, separately, hold insurance from a Florida-licensed agent before a vehicle can be titled and registered. Florida is a no-fault state: personal injury protection is mandatory and the minimum liability limits are among the lowest in the country, which is a genuine trap for anyone used to higher cover. The one-off initial registration fee on a first Florida plate is much larger than the annual renewal. Locally, the Intracoastal drawbridges and the two seasonal traffic peaks — winter residents and the boat show — shape a commute more than distance does.
Read the full step-by-step guideOpening a bank account, and the insurance question underneath every property here
You can open a US account without a Social Security number: federal rules let a bank use your passport number and country of issuance, or an ITIN, as the identifying number, and South Florida branches deal with non-resident customers constantly, so staff here are less likely to refuse than in most of the country. The credit problem is the standard American one. What is genuinely local is the property side: a mortgage in a mapped flood zone requires flood insurance, an older waterfront condominium may be facing a structural special assessment, and lenders here underwrite both far more carefully than a national app does.
Read the full step-by-step guideHealthCare.gov, no Medicaid expansion, and two public hospital districts
Coverage comes from an employer or from HealthCare.gov, the federal marketplace. Florida did not expand Medicaid, so childless adults are generally ineligible regardless of how low their income is, and adults earning below the federal poverty level can fall into a gap where they qualify for neither Medicaid nor a subsidy. Florida nonetheless has the largest marketplace enrolment of any state, which tells you how much of the workforce is buying its own cover. In Broward the provider landscape is two taxpayer-supported public hospital districts — Broward Health in the north and Memorial Healthcare System in the south — plus Cleveland Clinic Florida, and your plan's network decides which of them you use.
Read the full step-by-step guideGetting a US phone number without a credit file
The US has no SIM registration requirement, so getting connected is trivially easy: buy a prepaid SIM or eSIM and it works immediately. The friction is postpaid contracts, which run a credit check you cannot pass on arrival. Start prepaid, switch later once you have a file, and port the number rather than cancelling. The local addition is preparation: hurricane season runs 1 June to 30 November, mobile networks degrade when the power goes, and knowing how to receive Wireless Emergency Alerts and how long your handset lasts on a battery pack is a practical rather than theoretical concern here.
Read the full step-by-step guideNo income tax, a homestead cap, and insurance as the real levy
Florida's constitution prohibits a personal income tax, and no Florida city levies one either — a genuine difference from Pittsburgh, Philadelphia or New York, where local wage taxes stack on top. The revenue comes from sales tax and property tax. Sales tax is 6% statewide plus a county discretionary surtax — 1% in Broward, for 7% here. Property tax is where the local variation lives: the homestead exemption reduces taxable value on your permanent residence and, more importantly, the Save Our Homes cap limits how fast that assessment can rise, with the accrued benefit portable to your next Florida home. And a Florida-specific cost that is not a tax but behaves like one: windstorm and flood insurance on a coastal Broward property.
Read the full step-by-step guideEach guide has verified costs, timelines, required documents, and the non-obvious gotchas — sourced from official government pages. Last verified August 2026.
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What to know before you go
There is no state income tax — and the property insurance is where the money goes instead
CriticalFlorida's constitution prohibits a personal income tax, which is the headline reason people move here. The offsetting cost is property insurance, and in coastal Broward it is the single largest surprise in anyone's budget: a windstorm-exposed house here is insured very differently from an inland one, and premiums have run into thousands of dollars a year even for modest homes. The market has improved — the state regulator approved a rate decrease for Citizens for 2026 and a series of new insurers have entered — but 'improved' is from a very high base. Get an actual quote on the actual address before you commit to anything, buying or renting.
Flood insurance is a separate policy, and here it is not optional
CriticalA standard homeowner's or renter's policy excludes flood. In a mapped FEMA high-risk zone — which covers a very large share of Fort Lauderdale, a city averaging around nine feet above sea level — flood cover is a condition of any federally backed mortgage, and renters need their own contents policy because the landlord's covers the building, not your possessions. Look the specific address up on FEMA's flood map service before you sign, not the neighbourhood.
Your 'Fort Lauderdale' address may be in a different city entirely
CriticalBroward County has 31 incorporated municipalities plus unincorporated areas, and the postal service uses 'Fort Lauderdale' for addresses in several of them. Wilton Manors, Oakland Park, Lauderdale Lakes and Lauderdale-by-the-Sea are separate cities with their own mayors, police arrangements, building departments, rental rules and municipal property tax rates. The county handles schools, the property appraiser, the tax collector and the courts for all of them — but everything municipal turns on which city you are actually in.
You have 30 days to get a Florida licence, and 10 days to get Florida insurance
CriticalNew residents must obtain a Florida driver licence within 30 days of establishing residency, surrendering the out-of-state one. Separately, Florida requires you to hold insurance from a Florida-licensed agent before you can title and register a vehicle, and the statute frames that as within 10 days of establishing residency — so the insurance step comes first, not last. Florida is a no-fault state requiring personal injury protection, which is not how most of the country works.
Apply for your Social Security number about ten days after arriving
CriticalThe Social Security Administration verifies your status against DHS records that lag entry by one to two weeks, so going in on day two usually wastes the trip. Only work-authorised people qualify; everyone else files IRS Form W-7 for an ITIN. The card is free.
If you are looking at a condo, ask for the milestone inspection and the reserve study
CriticalAfter the 2021 Surfside collapse, Florida required milestone structural inspections for condominium buildings three storeys and higher at 30 years — 25 years within three miles of the coast — plus a structural integrity reserve study, and it banned boards from waiving those reserves. Fort Lauderdale's beachside and Intracoastal stock is exactly the age and location that regime targets, and special assessments running from five figures to well over a hundred thousand dollars per unit have followed. A cheap older condo near the water is frequently cheap for this reason. Ask for the inspection report, the reserve study and the last two years of board minutes before you offer.
Top industries & employers
Marine & yachting
Broward Shipyard, Lauderdale Marine Center, Derecktor, Rybovich Superyacht Marina, MarineMax, the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show
This is the genuinely distinctive Fort Lauderdale sector and it is not small: the regional marine industry supports well over a hundred thousand jobs in Broward County alone, at wages measurably above the state average, spanning refit yards, brokerage, crew agencies, marine engineering and insurance. Yacht crew work is its own labour market with its own visa questions — take advice before assuming a foreign qualification transfers.
Port Everglades, cruise & logistics
Port Everglades, Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Princess, Broward County Aviation, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport
Port Everglades is one of the busiest cruise ports in the world and also South Florida's petroleum gateway — it is a fuel and passenger port far more than a container one, which is the opposite of Tampa's profile. The cruise lines' shoreside offices are a real professional employer here, not just seasonal work.
Finance, wealth management & family offices
Templeton legacy operations, Bank of America and JPMorgan regional offices, a dense private-banking and family-office layer along Las Olas
The no-income-tax pull relocated a meaningful amount of capital and its managers to South Florida. Fort Lauderdale's share is smaller and quieter than Miami's Brickell, but it is real, and it clusters within a few blocks of Las Olas Boulevard.
Healthcare
Broward Health, Memorial Healthcare System, Holy Cross Health, Cleveland Clinic Florida in Weston, Nova Southeastern University
Two large public hospital districts — Broward Health and Memorial — plus Cleveland Clinic's Florida campus make healthcare the county's steadiest employer. Nova Southeastern is the largest private university in Florida and anchors the health-professions training pipeline.
Technology & remote work
Citrix's long-standing Fort Lauderdale campus and its successor operations, Chewy in Plantation, JM Family Enterprises, Ultimate Kronos Group in Weston
The tech layer here is more established than the Miami start-up noise suggests — Citrix built a substantial engineering base in Fort Lauderdale over decades, and Chewy and UKG are large west-Broward employers. It is also a heavily remote-working county, with people employed elsewhere and taxed nowhere by the state.
Aviation & MRO
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport, Spirit Airlines headquarters, JetBlue's Fort Lauderdale operations
Spirit is headquartered in the county and both airports carry substantial maintenance, repair and overhaul activity. FLL's growth is one reason the north-Broward labour market has held up even as the county's population growth slowed.
Where to go in Fort Lauderdale
Las Olas Boulevard & the Riverwalk
Neighborhood · Downtown to the beach
The city's spine — a mile of galleries, restaurants and boutiques running from the New River downtown out to the Atlantic, with a landscaped riverside path connecting the museums at the western end.
Local tip: The eastern blocks are for eating and the western ones for the Museum of Discovery and Science and the art museum; between them the Riverwalk is a genuinely pleasant walk that visitors skip. Parking on Las Olas itself is a losing game — use a garage off SE 1st Avenue.
Fort Lauderdale Beach & A1A
Nature · Barrier island, east of the Intracoastal
Seven miles of public beach with a famous wave-patterned promenade wall, a deliberately reinvented seafront that spent the 1980s shedding its spring-break identity and mostly succeeded.
Local tip: Go north past Sunrise Boulevard for the quieter stretches and actual parking. The southern end near Las Olas is the busy, restaurant-lined one. Lifeguard flags are worth reading — rip currents here are a genuine hazard, not a formality.
The New River & the water taxi
Landmark · Downtown and the Intracoastal
A working river running through the middle of downtown, with a water taxi that operates as actual transport rather than a tour — a hop-on service linking downtown, Las Olas, the beach and Hollywood.
Local tip: A day pass is the cheapest way to understand the city's geography, and it is the only sensible way to reach the beach on a Saturday. Watch for the railway bridge downtream — it drops for trains and the whole river queues behind it.
Wilton Manors & Wilton Drive
Nightlife · Wilton Manors — a separate city, two miles north of downtown
A half-mile strip of bars, restaurants and shops at the heart of one of the highest concentrations of same-sex couples of any US city, in a small municipality entirely surrounded by Fort Lauderdale.
Local tip: It is a distinct city government, so its rental rules, parking enforcement and municipal tax rate are its own — worth knowing if you are signing a lease there. Stonewall Pride in June closes the Drive entirely.
Bonnet House Museum & Gardens
Culture · Barrier island, off Sunrise Boulevard
A 1920s plantation-style house on 35 acres of preserved barrier-island land between the beach and the Intracoastal — orchid houses, a swan pond and monkeys, held back from development by its owners for a century.
Local tip: Adjacent Hugh Taylor Birch State Park covers the rest of that undeveloped strip and has a canoe trail and a tunnel under A1A to the beach. Together they are the only place left that shows what the barrier island looked like before the condominiums.
The Caribbean and Latin food belt
Hidden gemFood · Lauderhill, North Lauderdale, Oakland Park and Lauderdale Lakes
West and north of the tourist city is where Broward actually eats — Haitian griot and legume, Jamaican patties and oxtail, Cuban ventanitas, Trinidadian doubles and Colombian bakeries, mostly in unglamorous plazas on Oakland Park and Commercial Boulevards.
Local tip: This is where the county's genuine food culture is and almost no visitor guide goes there. Go on a Sunday after church for the Haitian places; the queue is the recommendation.
Emergency numbers in Fort Lauderdale
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