Foreign-Born Residents of Vero Beach — Vero Beach, Florida

Roughly one Vero Beach resident in eight was born outside the United States. Census Reporter, using the American Community Survey 2024 five-year estimates (2020 to 2024), counts 2,223 foreign-born residents, 13 percent of the city's population, with a margin of error of 679. That share is about 1.3 times the 10 percent rate in the Sebastian-Vero Beach-West Vero Corridor metro area, but only about three-fifths of the Florida rate of 21.9 percent and about 90 percent of the national rate of 14.1 percent.

The prior five-year release reported a lower share. The Census Bureau QuickFacts table for Vero Beach city listed foreign-born persons at 9.4 percent for 2019 to 2023, and recorded that 13.3 percent of residents aged 5 and over spoke a language other than English at home. With a sample this small, the move from 9.4 to 13 percent sits largely inside the margin of error, so the safest reading is that between roughly one in ten and one in eight Vero Beach residents were born abroad.

The Census Bureau uses foreign born to mean anyone who is not a U.S. citizen at birth. That includes naturalized citizens, lawful permanent residents, temporary migrants such as students, refugees and asylees, and unauthorized migrants. The Bureau does not collect data on legal status, so the Vero Beach counts cover all of these groups together.

Latin America is the largest source region. ACS table B05006 counts 1,293 Latin American-born residents of Vero Beach in 2020 to 2024, of whom 1,058 were born in the Caribbean. Cuba is the largest single country of birth with an estimated 448 residents, followed in the Caribbean by Jamaica with 91, the Bahamas with 60 and the Dominican Republic with 40, while another 414 were born elsewhere in the Caribbean. Mexico accounts for 185 residents and South America for 50.

Europe is the second source region for Vero Beach, with 471 residents. The same table lists 163 residents born in Ukraine and 156 born in the United Kingdom, including England and Scotland, along with 48 born in Poland and 37 born in Germany. Asia accounts for 234 residents, led by India with 109, and smaller groups come from Thailand, Burma and the Philippines. Africa and Australia each account for fewer than 60 residents.

These country counts carry wide margins of error in a city the size of Vero Beach. The Cuban-born estimate of 448, for example, carries a margin of plus or minus 454 in the 2020 to 2024 release, so the rankings are a rough guide to origins rather than precise counts. Regional totals, such as Latin America and Europe, are more reliable than any single country.

Canadians are a visible winter presence in Vero Beach but a small share of its census population. ACS table B05006 counts 145 Canada-born residents in 2020 to 2024, the entire Northern America category for the city, with a margin of error of 74. That figure is far smaller than the seasonal Canadian community described in local reporting, because the place-of-birth tables count people who live in Vero Beach, not visitors whose usual home is elsewhere.

The seasonal side shows up in housing rather than population. ACS table B25004 counts 2,891 vacant housing units in Vero Beach in 2020 to 2024, and 1,888 of them, about two in three, are classified as held for seasonal, recreational or occasional use.

The Census Bureau's housing definitions explain why winter homes land in that column. A housing unit is vacant if no one is living in it at the time of the interview, and a vacant unit may be one entirely occupied by persons who have a usual residence elsewhere; seasonal units are those intended for occupancy only during certain seasons and are found primarily in resort areas. Under those rules a Vero Beach condominium rented each winter by a household whose usual home is in Canada counts as a vacant seasonal unit, not as a Canadian-born household.

Local reporting documents the Canadian seasonal community and its recent strains. Vero Beach 32963 reported in the week of April 3, 2025 that dozens of Canadian snowbirds who had wintered in the Vero Beach area for years were preparing to head home, and that some said they might not return the following winter because of the tariff dispute between the United States and Canada. The same story quoted a seasonal rental agent on Beachland Boulevard who said new leases had already been signed with some Canadian tenants for the 2025 to 2026 season.

Most are. ACS table B05002 counts 1,443 naturalized U.S. citizens among the 2,223 foreign-born residents of Vero Beach in 2020 to 2024, about 65 percent, and 780 residents who were not citizens. Latin American-born residents make up the largest part of both groups, with 907 naturalized citizens and 386 non-citizens. Among Northern American-born residents, almost all of them Canadian, 92 are naturalized citizens and 53 are not, while European-born residents divide almost evenly, with 246 naturalized and 225 non-citizens.

Arrival dates split into two waves. ACS table B05007 shows that 1,104 foreign-born Vero Beach residents entered the United States in 2010 or later, about half of the total, while 638 arrived before 1990, 277 in the 1990s and 204 between 2000 and 2009. The recent arrivals are concentrated among Caribbean-born residents, 615 of whom entered in 2010 or later; by contrast, 219 of the city's 471 European-born residents arrived before 1990, and 195 of those long-settled European arrivals are naturalized citizens. Europe also shows a newer group: 181 European-born residents of Vero Beach arrived in 2010 or later, and 180 of them were not U.S. citizens at the time of the 2020 to 2024 survey.

Florida natives are a minority even among the native-born. Table B05002 counts 14,819 native-born Vero Beach residents in 2020 to 2024, but only 5,378 were born in Florida, while 9,102 were born in another state. The Northeast is the largest source by far, with 4,354 residents, followed by the Midwest with 2,124, other Southern states with 1,694 and the West with 930. Another 66 were born in Puerto Rico and 273 were born abroad to American parents.

That pattern means a Vero Beach resident is more likely to have been born in another state than in Florida, and about twice as likely to have been born in the Northeast as abroad. In the 2020 to 2024 estimates, residents of the Indian River County seat who were born in other states outnumber the foreign-born by about four to one, and the foreign-born group itself is mostly Caribbean and European in origin.