Florida Logistics & Warehousing 2026 — Florida

Florida's logistics and warehousing industry is one of the largest and most structurally distinct in the southeastern United States. Three geographic advantages set it apart from other major logistics states: a peninsula configuration that places 16 active deep-water seaports within a single day's trucking range of 22 million residents; persistent population growth that continuously expands the consumer base for last-mile delivery; and trade corridors connecting the state to Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, and Asia.

The Florida Department of Commerce 2024 Labor Market Industry Profile counted more than 720,000 jobs in the state's Logistics and Distribution industry cluster in 2023. The cluster as defined by the Department of Commerce encompasses Wholesale Trade, Warehousing and Storage, Truck Transportation, Support Activities for Transportation, Air Transportation, Water Transportation, Pipeline Transportation, and Courier and Messenger services. Wholesale Trade alone accounted for 389,449 positions — 54.1 percent of total cluster employment — followed by Warehousing and Storage at 98,366 jobs (13.7 percent) and Support Activities for Transportation at 76,058 jobs (10.6 percent). Together those three subsectors represented 78.4 percent of cluster employment. The Florida Supply Chain Summit estimates that more than 550,000 Floridians work specifically in trade, transportation, and logistics-related roles, situating the industry as a primary driver of the state's fourth-largest economy in the nation.

The Florida Department of Transportation Seaport Office administers the Florida Seaport System, which covers 16 active port facilities distributed along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and on the St. Johns River. Alongside these ports, Florida hosts 20 Foreign Trade Zones — situated near major seaports and airports statewide — that allow importers and exporters to defer, reduce, or in some cases eliminate federal customs duties on goods moving through the state.

To connect seaport capacity with inland distribution networks, the Florida Legislature authorized the Intermodal Logistics Center Infrastructure Support Program, which draws up to $15 million per year from the State Transportation Trust Fund for the five-year period beginning in FY2024-25 and extending through FY2029-30. Eligible expenditures include roads, rail facilities, and other infrastructure linking seaports to inland logistics centers. In 2025, FDOT also completed a Florida Seaport Transportation and Logistics Educational Needs Assessment — a formal state acknowledgment that workforce pipeline constraints represent a binding limit on sector growth, not merely a capital infrastructure gap. Port Canaveral on the Space Coast has been identified by FDOT as a facility that handles specialized project cargo for the aerospace and commercial space industries, connecting maritime logistics directly to one of Florida's fastest-growing technology sectors.

The two ports that define South Florida's logistics identity — PortMiami and Port Everglades — are governed by separate county entities and serve complementary roles in the state's supply chain.

PortMiami, operated by Miami-Dade County, handled 1,089,443 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in Fiscal Year 2024, making it the eleventh-largest container port in the United States and the first in Florida by international containerized cargo volume, according to the Florida Ports Council. In Fiscal Year 2025, Miami-Dade County reported that PortMiami reached 1,115,058 TEUs — a 2.35 percent year-over-year increase and the eleventh consecutive year in which the port exceeded one million TEUs. All five of the largest international shipping companies — CMA CGM, COSCO, Hapag-Lloyd, Maersk, and MSC — operate regular services through PortMiami. The port's trade mix in 2024 was 48 percent Latin America and the Caribbean, 31 percent Asia, and 20 percent Europe, a composition that reflects Florida's structural role as the principal North American gateway for hemispheric commerce.

Port Everglades, a self-supporting enterprise fund of Broward County located within the cities of Dania Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and Hollywood, generated $28.1 billion in total economic activity in Fiscal Year 2024 — a 6 percent increase over the prior year. The port supports more than 192,000 Florida jobs in total, including nearly 11,000 direct service positions, and contributes more than $1.1 billion annually to state and local taxes. Because Port Everglades operates as an enterprise fund, it generates this fiscal contribution without drawing on Broward County property tax revenues. The port has direct rail access via a 43-acre intermodal container transfer facility operated by Florida East Coast Railway immediately adjacent to the terminal — among the shortest seaport-to-rail distances of any southeastern U.S. facility. A $3 billion capital improvement program spanning 20 years is underway at Port Everglades, encompassing bulkhead replacements and an in-progress Master/Vision Plan Update.

The Florida Department of Commerce's Bureau of Workforce Statistics and Economic Research documented 720,000-plus jobs across the Logistics and Distribution cluster in 2023, a total that encompasses a predominantly non-degree workforce: approximately 10.2 percent of cluster employment is concentrated in occupations requiring at least a bachelor's degree, according to the 2024 Industry Profile. This blue-collar composition means that wage trends, training access, and post-secondary credentialing pathways carry particular civic weight for the working families the sector employs.

The 2022-to-2023 period revealed post-pandemic normalization pressure within the cluster. The Warehousing and Storage subsector — the largest by employment — shed 3,954 positions (-3.9 percent) as pandemic-era inventory buildup unwound. Support Activities for Road Transportation lost 488 jobs (-6.5 percent) and General Freight Trucking lost 283 jobs (-0.6 percent) in the same period. The correction extended into early 2024: the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that Florida's transportation and warehousing sector posted a net loss of 9,621 jobs in Q1 2024 — the single largest net sector loss in the state that quarter — as gross job gains of 5.8 percent of private-sector employment were offset by concurrent separations.

On the training side, the Florida Department of Commerce administers Quick Response Training (QRT) and Incumbent Worker Training (IWT) programs that serve logistics employers. The Florida Supply Chain Summit identifies the state's bilingual, multicultural workforce as a structural competitive advantage for Latin American trade operations — a factor particularly evident at PortMiami and Port Everglades, where more than two-thirds of containerized cargo originates from or is destined to non-English-speaking markets.

Florida's logistics and warehousing activity is concentrated in three primary corridors, with secondary capacity distributed across the Gulf Coast and Panhandle.

South Florida — Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties — forms the dominant hub for international containerized cargo, cold-chain distribution, pharmaceutical and life sciences logistics, and Foreign Trade Zone activity. PortMiami and Port Everglades together anchor the region's role as the primary North American gateway for Latin American and Caribbean trade, while a growing cold chain specialty has developed around pharmaceuticals, seafood, produce, and perishables, as documented by the Florida Supply Chain Summit.

Northeast Florida, centered on Jacksonville, hosts the state's largest concentration of speculative industrial warehousing. According to Cushman & Wakefield data cited by the Jacksonville Daily Record, 7.4 million square feet of industrial space was delivered in Jacksonville in 2023 alone — approximately 44 percent more than the combined total for 2021 and 2022. West and North Jacksonville accounted for approximately 89 percent of new industrial leasing deals in that market. Goods distributed from Jacksonville facilities include food, clothing, construction materials, and consumer merchandise for local, regional, national, and international markets.

Central Florida (the Orlando and I-4 corridor) functions as the principal inland distribution spine, benefiting from proximity to the state's population center and cargo operations at Orlando International Airport. Tampa Bay supports active maritime trade through Port Tampa Bay. On the Space Coast, Port Canaveral handles both conventional cargo and specialized aerospace project cargo — including rocket components — linking the port directly to Florida's commercial space economy. The Florida Panhandle supports Gulf Coast maritime trade through the ports of Panama City and Pensacola.

Industrial real estate demand in Florida followed the post-pandemic supply chain cycle with particular intensity in the Jacksonville and South Florida markets. In Jacksonville, CBRE recorded 11.3 million square feet leased in 2023 — an 18.4 percent increase over 2022 — while vacancy rates in the Northeast Florida industrial market ranged from 3.1 to 4.6 percent, according to the Jacksonville Daily Record. Up to 7 million square feet of largely speculative industrial space entered the Jacksonville market in 2025; by early 2026, analysts from Colliers, NAI Hallmark, and CBRE characterized the market as stabilizing and normalizing, per the Jacksonville Daily Record.

In South Florida, a two-building warehouse complex in Doral — constructed in 2024 — sold to a California-based buyer for $130 million in September 2025, representing the second-largest commercial real estate transaction in the region that quarter, according to WLRN. Despite that headline transaction, the median price per square foot for industrial space in South Florida was flat to lower through Q3 2025, with the Miami Association of Realtors attributing softness in part to uncertainty surrounding federal import tariff policy.

Fiscal Year 2025 produced the highest annual container volume in PortMiami's history: 1,115,058 TEUs, a 2.35 percent increase over FY2024 and the eleventh consecutive year exceeding one million TEUs, per a Miami-Dade County press release. The South Florida Container Terminal cargo yard improvement project at PortMiami — which incorporates electrified rubber tire gantries, new concrete runways, and refrigerated container racks — is scheduled for completion in late 2026 and is projected to increase TEU handling capacity by approximately 40 percent, according to the Florida Ports Council.

At Port Everglades, FY2024 economic activity reached $28.1 billion — a 6 percent year-over-year increase — and Broward County is advancing an updated Master/Vision Plan to guide capital investments beyond the current $3 billion program. FDOT's Intermodal Logistics Center Infrastructure Support Program began its authorized five-year funding cycle in FY2024-25, committing up to $15 million annually through FY2029-30 to improve road and rail connections between Florida's 16 seaports and inland distribution centers. In the same period, FDOT published its 2025 Florida Seaport Transportation and Logistics Educational Needs Assessment, formalizing state recognition that workforce development — not only physical infrastructure — is a critical constraint on sector capacity growth through the remainder of the decade.