United States · North America
Moving to Jacksonville
Jacksonville quick facts
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North America
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World Bank · 2025Religion
% of populationCIA World Factbook / national censuses
Cost of living in Jacksonville
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 ID
There is no post-arrival registration in the US: your electronic I-94 record is your status. In the first weeks you need a Social Security number if you are work-authorised, or an ITIN if you are not, and then a Florida licence or ID. Florida's specific feature is that the driver licence and the vehicle are on separate, unequal clocks — 30 days for the licence, 10 days for the vehicle registration — and the shorter one catches almost everybody.
Read the full step-by-step guideThirty days for the licence, ten for the car, and five countries that skip the tests
You have 30 days to obtain a Florida licence and 10 days to title and register a vehicle. Florida maintains licence-exchange reciprocity with exactly five jurisdictions — Canada, France, Germany, South Korea and Taiwan — whose holders skip both the written and the road test. Everyone else takes both. Florida is also a no-fault state with an unusual minimum insurance package, and buying the legal minimum here leaves you badly exposed.
Read the full step-by-step guideOpening an account and building a US credit file from zero
You can open a US account without a Social Security number: federal rules explicitly let a bank use your passport number and country of issuance, or an ITIN, as the identifying number. The credit problem is the standard American one — no file scores worse than a bad file. In Jacksonville it bites hardest on car finance and on insurance, because Florida insurers are permitted to use credit-based insurance scores in pricing, so a thin file makes your car and home cover more expensive as well.
Read the full step-by-step guideHealthCare.gov, the Florida coverage gap, and a Mayo campus in the suburbs
Coverage comes from an employer or from HealthCare.gov. Florida did not expand Medicaid, so adults without dependent children are generally ineligible however low their income, and there is a gap between the Medicaid ceiling and the subsidy floor with nothing in it. Children are the exception: Florida KidCare covers children up to 18 on a sliding scale well up the income range. Jacksonville itself has unusually strong hospital provision for a city of its size, including one of Mayo Clinic's three destination campuses.
Read the full step-by-step guideA US number on day one, and why coverage matters in hurricane season
The US has no SIM registration requirement, so getting connected is trivial — buy a prepaid SIM or activate an eSIM and it works immediately, with no identity check at any point. The friction is postpaid contracts, which run a credit check a newcomer cannot pass. What is worth thinking about locally is what happens in a storm: Wireless Emergency Alerts and the county's own alert system are how evacuation notices reach you.
Read the full step-by-step guideNo state income tax, a 7.5% sales tax, and a homestead deadline of 1 March
Florida's constitution prohibits a personal income tax, so there is no state return, no state withholding form and no city wage tax. The revenue comes from two places instead: a 6% state sales tax plus Duval County's 1.5% discretionary surtax, making 7.5%; and property tax, softened for owner-occupiers by the homestead exemption and the Save Our Homes assessment cap. Both of those property reliefs have to be claimed, and the claim window closes on 1 March.
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.
Essential English phrases
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What to know before you go
Thirty days for the licence, ten days for the vehicle — and the vehicle clock is the tight one
CriticalFlorida gives new residents 30 days to obtain a Florida driver licence, but only 10 days to title and register a vehicle once you establish residency, and you cannot register without Florida-issued insurance from a Florida-licensed agent. People sequence this backwards, buy a car in week one, and find the registration deadline has passed while they were still shopping for cover.
Florida has reciprocity with exactly five countries
CriticalHolders of a valid licence from Canada, France, Germany, South Korea or Taiwan are exempt from the written and road tests and can exchange directly. Everyone else takes both. This is a much shorter list than most states publish and it is worth checking before you plan the week — it is the difference between one appointment and three.
Property insurance, not the mortgage, is the number that decides whether you can afford a house here
CriticalFlorida homeowners' premiums are among the highest in the country, and the hurricane deductible is a percentage of the dwelling limit — commonly 2%, 5% or 10% — rather than a flat sum. Flood is a separate policy again and is not included in any standard homeowners' policy. Get a quote on the specific address before you make an offer; two houses a mile apart can differ by thousands a year.
File the homestead exemption by 1 March or lose a year
CriticalIf you own and permanently occupy a Florida home as of 1 January, you can claim the homestead exemption and, far more valuably, the Save Our Homes cap that limits annual assessment increases to 3% or the CPI change, whichever is lower — 2.7% for 2026. The filing deadline with the Duval County Property Appraiser is 1 March. Miss it and you wait a full year, with the assessment uncapped in the meantime.
A Jacksonville postal address does not mean you live in the City of Jacksonville
ImportantFour municipalities voted out of the 1968 consolidation — Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach, Jacksonville Beach and Baldwin — and run their own councils, police departments and building codes while their residents still pay Jacksonville's county-level millage and vote for its mayor. Meanwhile a great many 'Jacksonville, FL' addresses sit in St. Johns, Clay or Nassau County entirely. Check which government you are actually moving into before you sign.
There is no state return to file at all, and no state W-4 to fill in
ImportantFlorida levies no personal income tax and the prohibition sits in the state constitution rather than in ordinary legislation. Practically, that means one tax return a year instead of two, no state withholding form on your first day, and no city or county income tax anywhere in Florida. The money is raised through a 7.5% sales tax in Duval County and through property tax instead.
Top industries & employers
Logistics, rail and the port
CSX Corporation, JAXPORT, Landstar System, Crowley Maritime, Amazon, Southeastern Grocers
CSX and Crowley both run their North American operations from downtown Jacksonville, and JAXPORT is one of the largest vehicle-handling ports in the US. The whole sector sits on the fact that Jacksonville is the first deep-water port south of the Georgia line and has three interstates meeting in it.
Finance, insurance and fintech
Fidelity National Financial, FIS, Florida Blue / GuideWell, Deutsche Bank, Citi, VyStar Credit Union
An unusually large back- and middle-office finance cluster for a city this size — Deutsche Bank and Citi both run major operations centres here, and two Fortune 500 financial firms are headquartered in the city rather than merely present.
Healthcare and life sciences
Mayo Clinic Florida, Baptist Health, UF Health Jacksonville, Nemours Children's Health, Johnson & Johnson Vision
Mayo Clinic's Florida campus is on the city's south side and is one of only three Mayo destination campuses in the country. Johnson & Johnson's global vision-care business is headquartered here, a legacy of the Vistakon contact-lens plant.
Military and defence
NAS Jacksonville, Naval Station Mayport, Blount Island Command, BAE Systems Jacksonville Ship Repair
Three major military installations sit inside the county line, which is why the metro has one of the largest veteran populations in the US and why security-cleared work is unusually available for a non-capital city.
Distribution and consumer brands
Dun & Bradstreet, Southeastern Grocers (Winn-Dixie), Rayonier, Web.com, Fanatics
Dun & Bradstreet relocated its headquarters to Jacksonville in 2019, part of a run of corporate moves into Florida driven by the tax position rather than by any local cluster.
Tourism, golf and events
PGA Tour, Jacksonville Jaguars, Visit Jacksonville, TPC Sawgrass
The PGA Tour is headquartered at Ponte Vedra Beach just south of the county line, and The Players Championship each March is the largest single event in the region's calendar.
Where to go in Jacksonville
Riverside & Avondale
Neighborhood · Just west of downtown, on the St. Johns
The city's best-preserved historic district — Prairie School and Tudor Revival houses under live oaks, with Five Points and King Street as its two walkable commercial strips.
Local tip: The Riverside Arts Market runs under the Fuller Warren Bridge every Saturday morning and is the single easiest way to meet people in your first month. Park at the Riverside Avenue end and walk in.
Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens
Culture · Riverside
A riverfront art museum whose real draw is behind it: two and a half acres of formal Italian and English gardens running down to the St. Johns, laid out in the 1900s.
Local tip: Free admission on Tuesday evenings. The Cummer Oak in the garden is over two hundred years old and predates almost everything else standing in the city.
Big Talbot Island & Boneyard Beach
Nature · Northeast, about 45 minutes from downtown
A state park beach strewn with the bleached, salt-cured skeletons of fallen live oaks and cedars washed out of the eroding bluff behind it.
Local tip: Go at low tide — at high tide most of the driftwood is in the water and the beach itself largely disappears. Check the tide table before you drive out, not after.
Kingsley Plantation
Hidden gemLandmark · Fort George Island, Timucuan Preserve
The oldest surviving plantation house in Florida, with twenty-five tabby slave cabins standing in an arc — one of the most intact quarters anywhere in the American South.
Local tip: Run by the National Park Service and free. Most newcomers never hear of it because it is at the end of a long dirt road on an island; go on a weekday morning and you may have the site to yourself.
San Marco Square
Neighborhood · Southbank
A 1920s Mediterranean Revival shopping square built around a fountain and three bronze lions, with the city's oldest surviving cinema on one corner.
Local tip: It floods. The square sits low against Pottsburg Creek and standing water after a king tide or a heavy storm is routine — worth knowing if you are viewing a ground-floor flat here.
Mayport Village
Food · At the mouth of the St. Johns, beside the naval station
A working shrimping village older than the United States, wedged between the jetties and the navy base, with a handful of unglamorous seafood shacks on the water.
Local tip: Take the St. Johns River Ferry across from Fort George — it is part of the JTA network, runs every half hour, and is the only vehicle ferry in this part of Florida.
Emergency numbers in Jacksonville
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