We’re based in Port St. Joe, so this one’s close to home. Most pages about Gulf County demographics are aimed at people thinking about moving here. This is the version for people already running a business here.
Figures below come from the Florida Legislature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research county profile for Gulf County, published May 2026, with the year noted on each one.
The population fell, then came back hard
Gulf County counted 15,863 residents in the 2010 Census and 14,192 in 2020 — a 10.5% decline over the decade. Florida grew 14.6% in the same span.
Then it reversed. The 2025 estimate is 16,621, up 17.1% since 2020, against 8.5% growth statewide. The county is now above where it stood in 2010, and the projection for 2030 is 17,582.
That’s an unusual shape for a Florida county: a full decade of loss followed by five years of growth at roughly double the state rate. If your sense of this market was formed before 2020, it’s out of date.
It’s an older county, and getting older
Median age is 48.8, against 43.0 for Florida (2020 Census). Nearly a quarter of residents — 24.6% — are 65 or over, compared with 21.2% statewide. Only 16.7% are under 18, against 19.5%.
Labor force participation among adults was 45.7% in 2025, well under Florida’s 59.2%. That isn’t weakness so much as demographics: a retirement-heavy population participates less by definition.
For anyone marketing here, that’s a real signal about channel and tone. This is not a young audience.
A small business community
Gulf County had 536 establishments across all industries in 2024 — for scale, Bay County next door had 6,848.
The largest categories by count were Trade, Transportation and Utilities (95) and Construction (95), followed by Professional and Business Services (78) and Leisure and Hospitality (77). Information — the category most technology and media businesses fall into — had 10.
Small enough that in most categories you can count your competition on your fingers. That cuts both ways: less competition for attention, and a smaller pool of customers.
The number that surprised us
28.7% of Gulf County workers commute outside the county for work. Statewide the figure is 17.0%.
That is nearly the opposite of Bay County, where only 5.7% leave. Gulf County exports a sizable share of its workforce every morning; Bay County keeps almost everyone inside its own lines. The source reports the share, not the destination.
If you sell to residents here, a meaningful slice of your audience spends their working day in another county. Being findable when they search from wherever they happen to be is worth more here than a billboard on Highway 98.
More than a third of the housing sits empty
Of 8,796 housing units counted in the 2020 Census, 3,225 were vacant — about 36.7%. Bay County’s vacancy rate was just under a third.
Combined with Leisure and Hospitality accounting for 17.1% of average annual employment in 2024, that’s a vacation-rental economy showing up in the data. Demand here has a season, and a marketing plan that assumes twelve even months will misfire.
Worth noting alongside it: 19.2% of the county’s land area is conservation land, and 98.7% of that is state or regionally owned. A meaningful share of the county’s land is not available for development.
Incomes run below the state
Median household income is $61,179, against $74,568 for Florida. The average annual wage across all industries in 2024 was $51,113, against $69,492 statewide. Poverty stands at 16.0% of all ages, against 12.1%.
Government is the largest single employer category at 22.1% of average annual employment in 2024 — nearly double Florida’s 11.3% — followed by Leisure and Hospitality at 17.1%, where the average wage was $28,961.
That’s the honest picture: a small, older, seasonal, lower-wage county that is nonetheless growing faster than the state.
What we’d take from it
- The market is growing again after a decade of decline — faster than Florida overall.
- It skews old, which changes what channels and messaging actually land.
- Nearly three in ten workers leave the county daily, so reaching them isn’t purely a local-geography problem.
- It’s seasonal and land-constrained, both of which cap how fast it can change.
We also track what’s being filed right now across Florida, updated daily — a more current view than any annual profile, and the fastest way to see whether formation here is keeping pace with the population.
Common questions
What is the population of Port St. Joe and Gulf County? Gulf County’s 2025 population estimate is 16,621. That’s up 17.1% from the 2020 Census count of 14,192, and above the 2010 count of 15,863.
Is Gulf County growing? Yes, currently. It declined 10.5% between the 2010 and 2020 Censuses, then grew an estimated 17.1% from 2020 to 2025 — roughly double Florida’s 8.5% over the same period.
What is the median household income in Gulf County? $61,179, compared with $74,568 for Florida. The average annual wage across all industries was $51,113 in 2024.
We’re headquartered here, and most of what we do is help small Gulf Coast businesses with local search visibility. If you’re trying to reach people in this market, tell us what you’re working on.
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