Race and Ethnicity in Vero Beach — Vero Beach, Florida

The 2020 census found that Vero Beach is predominantly non-Hispanic White, with a Hispanic or Latino population of about one in eight residents. According to the Census Bureau's 2020 Redistricting Data table P2 for Vero Beach city, 12,741 residents (77.91 percent) were White and not Hispanic, 1,937 (11.84 percent) were Hispanic or Latino of any race, 681 (4.16 percent) were Black and not Hispanic, 508 (3.11 percent) reported two or more races, and 360 (2.20 percent) were Asian. American Indian, Pacific Islander and other single-race groups together made up less than 1 percent of the city.

The Census Bureau treats Hispanic origin and race as two separate questions. Its race topic page states that people who identify as Hispanic, Latino or Spanish may be of any race, and that federal standards require five minimum race categories. The 2020 figures above for Vero Beach use the non-Hispanic convention, so each resident is counted once.

Across the three most recent censuses, the non-Hispanic White share of Vero Beach fell by about eleven percentage points while every other major group grew. Table P004 of the 2000 census recorded 15,695 non-Hispanic White residents, 88.65 percent of the city. By the 2010 count that group had fallen to 12,394, or 81.43 percent, and in 2020 it stood at 12,741, or 77.91 percent. The decade from 2000 to 2010, when the city's overall count dropped, accounts for most of the shift.

The Hispanic or Latino population of Vero Beach grew in both decades: 1,025 residents (5.79 percent) in 2000, 1,634 (10.74 percent) in 2010 and 1,937 (11.84 percent) in 2020. The share nearly doubled between 2000 and 2010 even as the total city population fell. Non-Hispanic Black residents numbered 581 in 2000, 676 in 2010 and 681 in 2020, a share that moved from 3.28 to 4.44 and then 4.16 percent. The Asian population rose from 213 to 279 to 360 people, reaching 2.20 percent of Vero Beach in 2020.

Vero Beach residents reporting two or more races (and not Hispanic) numbered 133 in 2000 and 180 in 2010, then 508 in 2020, a rise from 1.18 to 3.11 percent of the city in one decade. Part of that jump reflects how the census was taken rather than only who lived in the city. In an August 2021 analysis, the Census Bureau attributed nationwide shifts to improvements in the design of the race and ethnicity questions, processing and coding, and reported that the national Multiracial population was up 276 percent while the White alone population declined by 8.6 percent since 2010.

The bureau described the 2020 results as different but reasonable and expected compared with 2010. For Vero Beach, this means the 2010 to 2020 movement in the White and multiracial shares mixes real population change with a change in measurement, and the 2000 to 2010 shift (before the new coding) is the cleaner comparison of who moved in and out of the city.

The most visible difference between Vero Beach and Indian River County is the size of the Hispanic and Black populations, both of which are proportionally larger in the county. The 2020 county table shows Indian River County as 73.49 percent non-Hispanic White, 13.04 percent Hispanic (20,832 people) and 8.19 percent non-Hispanic Black (13,079 people), against 4.16 percent non-Hispanic Black inside the Vero Beach city limits. The county's Hispanic share has grown fastest over the long run, from 2.31 percent in 1980 to 6.53 percent in 2000 and 11.20 percent in 2010.

Census Bureau QuickFacts for Indian River County shows the same pattern in its current estimates: Hispanic or Latino residents make up 15.1 percent, the Black alone population 8.9 percent, and the White alone, not Hispanic or Latino group 72.1 percent. The county figure for Two or More Races is 3.1 percent, and 14.1 percent of county residents age 5 and older speak a language other than English at home. Because unincorporated communities such as Gifford, Florida Ridge and Vero Beach South lie outside the city, county averages describe a wider area than the Vero Beach city limits.

The county record reaches back two decades further than the Vero Beach city tables and shows how recent Hispanic growth is in the area. The 1980 census report for Florida counted 1,382 Hispanic residents in Indian River County, and the 1990 census report counted 2,704. The figure then grew to 7,381 in 2000, 15,465 in 2010 and 20,832 in 2020, a fifteenfold increase over forty years while the county population as a whole less than tripled.

The Black population of Indian River County followed a different path. Non-Hispanic Black residents numbered 7,768 in 1980, 12.97 percent of the county, and 7,552 in 1990, when rapid growth elsewhere in the county pushed the share down to 8.37 percent. Counts rose again to 9,143 in 2000, 12,074 in 2010 and 13,079 in 2020, with the share holding between about 8 and 9 percent. The non-Hispanic Asian population of the county, only 154 people in 1980, reached 2,341 in 2020.

Several groups in Vero Beach are small enough that a few dozen people move their shares noticeably. Non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native residents numbered 34 in 2000, 26 in 2010 and 32 in 2020, about 0.2 percent of the city each time. Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander residents numbered 4, 14 and 7 across the same three counts. Residents reporting some other race alone, and not Hispanic, rose from 20 in 2000 and 17 in 2010 to 88 in 2020, a jump that coincides with the revised 2020 coding of written-in responses described by the Census Bureau. At these sizes, annual survey estimates for Vero Beach carry wide margins, and the decennial counts give the clearer picture.

The Vero Beach QuickFacts table (Vintage 2024 page) lists the city as 73.1 percent White alone, 9.2 percent Black alone, 2.0 percent Asian alone and 1.1 percent American Indian and Alaska Native alone, with 11.2 percent reporting Two or More Races. It shows 11.6 percent of Vero Beach residents as Hispanic or Latino and 71.7 percent as White alone, not Hispanic or Latino. The same page reports that 13.4 percent of residents age 5 and older speak a language other than English at home.

These Vero Beach shares come from survey samples and use race alone categories that include Hispanic residents, so they do not line up exactly with the 2020 census count. QuickFacts itself cautions that some estimates come from sample data and have sampling errors that can make apparent differences between places statistically indistinguishable. The Black alone estimate of 9.2 percent, for example, is more than double the 4.16 percent non-Hispanic Black share counted in 2020, a gap within a small city where survey margins are wide. For a stable benchmark of Vero Beach composition, the decennial census tables remain the firmer source.