Puerto Rican Day Parade — Palm Bay, Florida

The 29th Annual Puerto Rican Day Parade and Festival in Palm Bay is on Saturday, October 24, 2026, with the parade stepping off at 10:00 AM and the festival at Palm Bay City Hall running until 7:00 PM.

The October 2026 Mayor's Message announces that the 29th Annual Puerto Rican Day Parade & Festival, hosted by U.T.B. United Third Bridge, Inc., will take place on Saturday, October 24 (October 2026 Mayor's Message). The City of Palm Bay Recreation events calendar lists the same event, titled the 29th Annual Puerto Rican Day Parade and Multicultural Festival, from 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM on October 24, 2026 (City of Palm Bay events calendar).

The organizer is United Third Bridge, not the City of Palm Bay, and the Mayor's Message gives (863) 381-4858 as its contact number for event questions (October 2026 Mayor's Message). The City of Palm Bay promotes the event, lists it on the Recreation calendar and, in 2025, issued the road closure notice for the route.

In 2026 the Palm Bay parade starts at Turner Elementary School, travels north on Emerson Drive, turns west on Malabar Road and ends at Palm Bay City Hall, 120 Malabar Road SE.

That route comes from the October 2026 Mayor's Message, which says the parade steps off at 10:00 AM from Turner Elementary School and will conclude at City Hall (October 2026 Mayor's Message). After the parade, the celebration continues at City Hall with a multicultural festival of live music, cultural entertainment, food vendors and family activities through 7:00 PM. The same message names Palm Bay Gary Yeomans Ford as the 2026 sponsor.

The 2026 Emerson Drive and Malabar Road route differs from the 2025 route, so the 2025 closures below may not match it. In 2025 the city posted its road closure alert on September 23, eleven days before that year's October 4 parade (Palm Bay road closure alert, 2025).

For the 2025 parade, the City of Palm Bay closed Malabar Road in both directions between Emerson Drive and San Filippo Drive from 9AM until about noon, the closure plan the city published for that year's route.

The 2025 alert says the parade began in front of Walmart on Malabar Rd and ended at Eastern Florida State College on San Filippo Dr (Palm Bay road closure alert, 2025). Beginning at 9AM, Malabar Rd was completely closed in both directions from Emerson Dr to San Filippo Drive, and San Filippo Dr was closed between Malabar Rd and Jupiter Blvd. The estimated end of the parade was 12:00PM, with roads reopening once barriers and pedestrians were cleared.

Traffic leaving Interstate 95 in both directions was sent east on Malabar Road, and motorists were asked to use Palm Bay Road or Babcock Street as alternate routes during the parade (Palm Bay road closure alert, 2025). The October 2025 Mayor's Message repeated the same closures and the reopening by noon (October 2025 Mayor's Message).

The Palm Bay parade has moved its festival among three sites since 2023: Palm Bay City Hall, Fred Poppe Regional Park and the Eastern Florida State College Palm Bay Campus, before returning to City Hall in 2026.

The 26th Annual parade was on Saturday, September 30, 2023, beginning at 10:00am with the festival following at Palm Bay City Hall (September 2023 Mayor's Message). The Brevard County Supervisor of Elections ran a voter registration drive at that City Hall festival from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM (Brevard County Supervisor of Elections).

In 2024 the 27th Annual event was held on Sunday, October 6, at Fred Poppe Regional Park, with the parade at 10:00 AM and the festival right after (October 2024 Mayor's Message); the November 2024 message notes it rained and the celebration carried on (November 2024 Mayor's Message). For 2025 the festival followed the parade at the EFSC Palm Bay Campus, 250 Community College Parkway (September 2025 Mayor's Message), a campus address Eastern Florida State College lists as 250 Community College Parkway, Palm Bay, FL 32909 (Eastern Florida State College: Palm Bay Campus). The 2022 parade was dedicated to the late founder of United Third Bridge, Inc. (November 2022 Mayor's Message).

Census estimates count about 10,500 Puerto Rican residents in Palm Bay, roughly 8 percent of the city's population and close to two in five of all Puerto Rican residents of Brevard County.

The ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates put Palm Bay's population at 130,132, of whom 26,779 are Hispanic or Latino and 10,502 are Puerto Rican, with a margin of error of 1,242 on the Puerto Rican figure (Census ACS B03001, Palm Bay). That is about 8.1 percent of all Palm Bay residents (10,502 divided by 130,132) and about 39.2 percent of the city's Hispanic or Latino residents (10,502 divided by 26,779).

For Brevard County as a whole, the same ACS 2020-2024 table counts 26,963 Puerto Rican residents (Census ACS B03001, Brevard County), so Palm Bay holds about 39.0 percent of them (10,502 divided by 26,963).

The Palm Bay parade usually falls inside National Hispanic Heritage Month, the September 15 to October 15 observance that federal law asks the President to proclaim each year, and Mayor Rob Medina has promoted it as part of that month.

Under 36 U.S.C. 126, the President is asked each year to proclaim September 15 through October 15 as National Hispanic Heritage Month (36 U.S.C. 126). The 2023, 2024 and 2025 Palm Bay parades all fell inside that window; the 2026 date of October 24 falls after it, and the October 2026 Mayor's Message introduces the parade as Hispanic Heritage Month comes to a close (October 2026 Mayor's Message).

The October 2024 Mayor's Message paired the parade with the Viva Brevard Festival 2024 at Fred Poppe Regional Park on Saturday, October 12, 2024, as two ways to keep celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month in Palm Bay (October 2024 Mayor's Message).