Cocoa Beach, Florida

Area Profile

11,377 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Cocoa Beach, in Brevard County.

58out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 40% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity2339th of 3,904 published cities51
SchoolsTop 10% of 2,668 published cities83
GrowthTop 41% of 2,973 published cities55
Housing affordability3047th of 4,223 published cities66
ClimateTop 10% of 4,223 published cities83
Physical resilience3670th of 4,182 published cities19
AccessTop 37% of 4,226 published cities95
Economic stability3858th of 4,226 published cities32
The quick read

Unemployment is 4.8% and median household income $87,990, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published city profiles.

Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by hurricane, wildfire and lightning.

A major airport is 16 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
11,377
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$87,990
Top 27% nationally
Density
2,442/sq mi
4.7 sq mi of land
Median age
59.2
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Brevard County
Florida
Metro area
Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, FL
Nearest major airport
MLB
16 mi · Melbourne Orlando Intl
Median home value
$503,200
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.8% is lower than 32% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 0.7% over the past year, to 291,399 employed residents.

50% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 88% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$9,906$87,990Top 27%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$8,139$65,811Top 8%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate9.6%Bottom 45%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute26.2 minBottom 47%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher49.7%Top 12%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment291,399Top 23%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-1.5%Bottom 25%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-0.7%Top 49%June 2026
Labor force306,250Top 22%June 2026
Labor force participation49.1%Bottom 20%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$67,210Bottom 45%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$49,030Bottom 34%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)0.7%Top 19%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.8%Top 32%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202488k74k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $87,990 in the 2024 ACS 5-Year. Consecutive releases share four years of sample, so AreaProfile shows them as a record of successive estimates and does not compute a year-over-year change from them.
Largest occupations — Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, FL
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Retail Salespersons7,670$33,430
Fast Food and Counter Workers7,630$28,660
Registered Nurses5,440$80,900
General and Operations Managers5,090$101,830
Waiters and Waitresses5,080$36,670
Cashiers5,070$30,390

Occupational employment and wages are published for metropolitan areas rather than for individual cities or ZIP areas, so these describe the wider labor market this location sits in. 2025 OEWS, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes city-level labor data only for places of 25,000 or more. This is the figure for Brevard County, FL, which contains this city.

78% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 73% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 16.5 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
4
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
16.5
across all schools here
Math proficiency
77.5%
Top 5% in Florida
Reading proficiency
73.3%
Top 7% in Florida
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
COCOA BEACH JUNIOR/SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLBREVARD1,04919.877%67%
FREEDOM 7 ELEMENTARY SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIESBREVARD40814.188%93%
THEODORE ROOSEVELT ELEMENTARY SCHOOLBREVARD27513.165%68%
PROJECT SEARCHBREVARD196.3

23.9% of students here are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. That describes the circumstances families arrive with rather than how the schools perform, which is why AreaProfile shows it and does not score it.

Public schools only, from the NCES Common Core of Data. Schools are placed by ZIP code, so this is which schools are in this place rather than which one a particular address is zoned for — district boundaries do not follow municipal ones, and enrollment zones change. Fully virtual schools are excluded: they enroll students from across the state while reporting one administrative address, and counting them here would describe a school population this place does not have. The assessment covers grades 3 through 8, so a high school shows no proficiency figure — a dash in those columns means the test was not given at that school, not that it performed badly. Proficiency is measured against Florida’s own standard, so it compares cleanly within the state and only broadly against other states; AreaProfile therefore ranks it within state. The directory is current, while the proficiency figures are from the last school year with national coverage before the pandemic interrupted testing.

Housing & affordability

How it’s calculated →

Median rent of $1,569 takes 21% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 5.7 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.

Rent as a share of income
21.4%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
5.7×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,569
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$503,200
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income5.72Top 10%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate78.8%Top 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±4039,052Top 7%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$240$1,569Top 19%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$41,186$503,200Top 12%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income21.4%Top 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate33.5%Top 10%2024 ACS 5-Year

Both affordability measures come from the same ACS release as the income they are compared with, so the comparison is like for like. They describe housing cost against local earnings and are not a cost-of-living index — transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes are not included, and a place can look affordable here and still be expensive to live in for reasons this does not capture.

Growth & development

How it’s calculated →
Development Momentum
55/ 100
Top 41% of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing, measured from 2022 to 2025.

An AreaProfile calculation combining permit volume per resident, its direction over one and three years, population change and employment growth. Permit volume alone is not the measure.

Population has been broadly flat since 2020, at 11,386 in 2024.

Permitting has turned upward after moving the other way the year before.

New construction is predominantly single-family: only 0% of permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes.

At 2.0 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
23
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
2.0
Bottom 46% nationally
Year over year
+156%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202411k11k
Census Population Estimates Program, July 1 of each year. These annual estimates are designed for year-over-year comparison, unlike the ACS five-year figure shown as this profile's population.
Housing units permitted per year
2022202320242025278.0
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was lower than 2022 (−15%).

Weather & climate

8 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 90°F and January a low of 52°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 50.8 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 40, in the Good band, and no day in the year passed 100.

40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station MELBOURNE INTL AP, 15.8 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND7.6"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index53.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation50.8"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low52°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high90°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months81991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index40.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing20°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
40
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
53
90th percentile index
Days above 100
0
unhealthy for sensitive groups

A comfortable median and a bad tail are different problems. Wildfire smoke and summer ozone show up in the worst tenth of days, not in the middle of the year.

Climate figures are thirty-year normals, not current conditions. They describe what a typical year looks like rather than what the weather is doing today. Air quality is measured rather than modelled, by EPA monitors, and published by county only where a monitor sits — roughly half the counties AreaProfile publishes have one, and the rest show nothing rather than an estimate. Air masses are regional, so a county reading describes the air over a place reasonably well, but it is still the county reading.

Physical risk

19 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are hurricane, wildfire and lightning.

HurricaneHigh
LightningModerate
WildfireModerate
Cold waveModerate

Low or minimal exposure: strong wind, tornado, inland flooding, heat wave, coastal flooding, landslide, drought, earthquake, hail.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA publishes at county level. City values are the population-weighted mean of the counties the city overlaps, using AreaProfile place-to-county land-area weights. FEMA does not endorse this presentation. Higher physical resilience means lower exposure.

These are deaths, not offences. AreaProfile does not publish reported crime, and this is not a substitute for it — it says nothing about burglary, theft or assault.

Brevard County records 2.8 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, near the middle of counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 14.4 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 27.3 per 100,000 residents in Brevard County.

Homicide
2.8
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
14.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
27.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
20.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths

Firearm deaths count every intent together, and nationally the majority are suicides rather than homicides. The two columns overlap and should not be added.

Age-adjusted rates from provisional death certificate records, published by the CDC for Brevard County as a whole — these rates are not published below county level. A county can hold both a dense city centre and a suburb whose experience of it is nothing alike, so this describes the county around Cocoa Beach rather than Cocoa Beach itself. That is why AreaProfile shows these figures and does not put them in the Area Score. Where fewer than ten deaths were recorded the count is suppressed at source, and a rate built on single figures moves sharply between releases. What this measure has that reported crime does not: a death certificate is filed whether or not the local police agency submitted a return that year, so the figures stay comparable between places and over time.

What this profile does not cover

Three things people look for are missing from every AreaProfile page, and each is missing for a reason rather than by oversight. The Area Score is calculated without them and the weighting is documented on the methodology page.

Reported crime
The FBI’s Crime Data Explorer is the only source for reported offences with national coverage and a published method, and it requires an API key AreaProfile does not hold. Arrest counts, news volume and commercial “safety scores” are not substituted in the meantime. What is published above under Safety is a different measurement — deaths rather than offences, from death certificates rather than police returns — and it covers no property crime at all.
Taxes
No tax dataset has met the source admission test for coverage, transparent methodology and update cadence. Nothing here is individualized tax advice.
Full cost of living
No public source publishes one with national coverage and a documented method. Housing affordability above is computed from published rent, price and income, and excludes transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes — commuting cost in particular tends to offset suburban housing savings.

Access

4 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 16 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Melbourne Orlando IntlMLB16 mi10,181 ft
Orlando IntlMCO42 mi10,000 ft
Orlando Sanford IntlSFB48 mi11,002 ft

Airport identity, position and runway data come from the FAA. “Major airport” is an AreaProfile classification — a public-use civil airport with a paved runway of at least 8,000 feet — not an FAA hub designation. Distances are straight-line, not driving distance.

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Area Score
58
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Other cities in Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, FL

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
Palm BayBrevard County130,13255vs Cocoa Beach
MelbourneBrevard County86,57653vs Cocoa Beach
TitusvilleBrevard County49,38549vs Cocoa Beach
Merritt IslandBrevard County34,992vs Cocoa Beach
RockledgeBrevard County29,13359vs Cocoa Beach
West MelbourneBrevard County28,79561vs Cocoa Beach
Port St. JohnBrevard County25,120vs Cocoa Beach
CocoaBrevard County19,55451vs Cocoa Beach
Viera WestBrevard County17,984vs Cocoa Beach
Viera EastBrevard County12,570vs Cocoa Beach
Satellite BeachBrevard County11,31363vs Cocoa Beach
Cape CanaveralBrevard County10,00649vs Cocoa Beach

Every city here is measured on the same scale from the same source releases, so the comparison is like for like. A higher Area Score reflects AreaProfile’s standardized weighting rather than a judgment about which is the better place to live.

Data & methodology

Used forSourceSource periodUpdated
AccessFederal Aviation Administration
Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service
NASR current cycle28-day NASR cycle
Physical riskFederal Emergency Management Agency
National Risk Index
National Risk Index December 2025 (v1.20.0)Periodic dataset versions (v1.20.0 current)
ClimateNOAA National Centers for Environmental Information
U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020 (Monthly)
1991-2020 NormalsEvery ten years (next release follows the 2001–2030 period)
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Local Area Unemployment Statistics
June 2026Monthly
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
2025 OEWSAnnual (spring release)
DemographicsU.S. Census Bureau
Population Estimates Program
July 1, 2024 estimateAnnual (vintage released each spring)
DevelopmentU.S. Census Bureau
Building Permits Survey
12 months ending July 2026Monthly, roughly three weeks after the reference month
Demographics, Housing, Income, JobsU.S. Census Bureau
American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (Table-Based Summary File)
2024 ACS 5-YearAnnual (5-year estimates released each December)
safetyU.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics
Provisional county-level mortality by intent
April, 2025 to March, 2026Quarterly, with a rolling twelve-month window alongside complete calendar years
schoolsU.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
Common Core of Data and EDFacts assessments
2019-20 school year; 2024-25 school yearDirectory annually; assessment results as EDFacts releases them
ClimateU.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Air Quality System
Daily Air Quality Index by county
2024 calendar yearAnnually, once a calendar year is complete

Profile recalculated August 30, 2026. Recalculation is not the same as new source data — each figure above shows the period its source actually covers. Read the full methodology or browse every source.

ZIP codes in Cocoa Beach

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
3293114,174$89,45758