Monroe County, Florida: A Local Guide for Home Buyers and Homeowners

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Monroe County runs from Key Largo down US 1 to Key West, and it’s mostly water: about 3,738 square miles in all, but only 983.04 square miles of land. About 80,000 people live here. Most of the county’s land is on the mainland, nearly uninhabited, inside Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve, so nearly every home in the county is on the islands.

This is the briefing we’d give you by phone before a Keys purchase or refinance: each stretch of the Keys by mile marker, where the loan limits are, down payment programs, the building permit rules, homestead dates, Irma’s flood lessons, and the offices you’ll need after closing.

Every source we relied on is listed at the bottom of this page.

County seatKey West
Founded1823
PopulationAbout 80,000
Land area983.04 sq mi
Main highwayUS 1, the Overseas Highway
FHA limit, 1 unit$990,150 in 2026
Conventional limit, 1 unit$990,150 in 2026
School districtMonroe County School District

Cities and areas
Homes and loan limits
Down payment help
Property taxes
Storms and insurance
Jobs, schools, commute
Parks and local favorites
Moving checklist
Buying or refinancing

The Keys, mile marker by mile marker

Monroe County has five municipalities: Key West, Marathon, Islamorada (the Village of Islands), Key Colony Beach and Layton. Key Largo, Tavernier, Big Pine Key, Cudjoe Key, Sugarloaf Key, Big Coppitt Key, Stock Island and Duck Key fall under county government, which means the county, not a city, issues building permits there.

Along US 1, Key West covers mile markers 0 to 4, the Seven Mile Bridge spans MM 40 to 46.75, Big Pine Key sits at MM 29.5 to 33 and Key Largo runs from about MM 91 to 107. The Long Key Bridge, at MM 63.25 to 65.25, divides the Upper Keys from the Middle Keys, and the Seven Mile Bridge divides the Middle Keys from the Lower Keys.

The county was established on July 3, 1823, and named for James Monroe, the fifth U.S. president.

Key West

Key West is the county seat, on an island of about 4.2 square miles. Duval Street, the main commercial corridor, runs from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic. The oldest neighborhoods, on the west end, are broadly called Old Town, and the Key West Historic District takes in Mallory Square and Duval Street.

Key West’s traditional buildings are raised wood-frame houses with porches and peaked metal roofs, and Key West Cemetery, founded in 1847, is known for its above-ground tombs. Next door, Stock Island is unincorporated, so a home there answers to Monroe County rather than the city for permits and local rules.

Big Pine Key and the Lower Keys

Big Pine Key is home to the National Key Deer Refuge. Most of the endangered Key deer live on Big Pine, and the species ranges only from Big Pine Key to Sugarloaf Key. Cudjoe Key, Sugarloaf Key and Big Coppitt Key fill in the stretch toward Key West.

Marathon and Key Colony Beach

Marathon incorporated in 1999. The city takes in Knight’s Key, Boot Key, Vaca Key and Grassy Key among others, and the city line starts at the east end of the Seven Mile Bridge, mile marker 47. Florida Keys Marathon Airport, Crane Point Museum and the Turtle Hospital are all here.

Key Colony Beach is a separate incorporated city in the Middle Keys.

Islamorada

Islamorada incorporated on December 31, 1997, and stitches together Plantation Key, Windley Key, Upper Matecumbe Key, Lower Matecumbe Key and Tea Table Key. It’s known informally as the Sportfishing Capital of the World.

The Hurricane Monument at mile marker 82 marks the 1935 Labor Day storm, and the History of Diving Museum opened here in 2005.

Key Largo and Tavernier

Key Largo’s name comes from the Spanish Cayo Largo, long key. It’s unincorporated, with its own fire district, and John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park sits at mile marker 102. Key Largo is also home to REEF Fest, four days of underwater conservation events.

Besides US 1, CR 905 and Card Sound Road (CR 905A) give North Key Largo a second route to the mainland. Tavernier is where Florida Keys Electric Cooperative has one of its two offices.

Buying in the Keys, and the loan limits

Keys homes run from the traditional raised wood-frame houses of Key West’s Old Town to Stock Island, Big Coppitt, Sugarloaf, Cudjoe and Big Pine in the Lower Keys, Marathon and Key Colony Beach in the Middle Keys, and Islamorada, Tavernier and Key Largo up top. Whether the address is in one of the five municipalities or under county government decides who issues the permits and enforces the local rules, so we check that on every Keys file.

If you’re paying rent in Key West or Marathon, call 888-601-8344 and we’ll show you what the same money could carry as a Keys mortgage payment.

The FHA and Conventional limits for Monroe County are in the table below. HUD and FHFA reset them every January, and the table follows HUD’s published figures. HUD and FHFA treat Monroe as a high-cost area, so its limits run above most of Florida’s.

Loan limits in Monroe County for 2026	Maximum loan
FHA, single-family home	$990,150
FHA, two-unit home	$1,267,600
FHA, three-unit home	$1,532,200
FHA, four-unit home	$1,904,150
Conventional, single-family home	$990,150

HUD sets the FHA limits and FHFA sets the Conventional limits for every county, and both change each January. This table refreshes itself from HUD's published figures.

On a $600,000 purchase, FHA’s 3.5% minimum down payment is $21,000, and down payment assistance can cover part or all of it if the house fits the program caps. Call or text us at 954-816-8820 with the listing you’re watching and we’ll price the FHA and Conventional options on that exact house.

If the plan is to buy a vacant lot and build, ask about the permit before you ask about the price. State law ties new building permit allocations in the Keys to hurricane evacuation time, which we cover in the storms section below.

Down payment help that reaches the Keys

Keys buyers can draw on the county’s state-funded SHIP plan and Florida Housing’s statewide programs. Each one has income and purchase price caps, and at Keys prices those caps are the first thing we check against the house.

Monroe County SHIP

Monroe County’s Local Housing Assistance Plan is on file with Florida Housing; it’s how state SHIP dollars reach Keys buyers and homeowners, and the county decides which strategies the money goes to.

The strategies, award amounts and price caps in the Monroe plan change from one plan to the next, and on a Keys price the cap decides whether a house qualifies at all. Call 888-601-8344 before you sign a contract and we’ll find out from the county which SHIP strategies are funded and whether your Keys address qualifies.

Monroe County SHIP plan

Florida Hometown Heroes (statewide)

Florida Hometown Heroes gives a Keys buyer a Florida Housing 30-year fixed first mortgage plus a 0% second for down payment and closing costs. You make no monthly payment on the second, and it’s repaid rather than forgiven when you sell, refinance, pay off the first or stop living in the home. At least one buyer works full time for a Florida-based employer in health care, K-12 schools, first response, public safety, the courts or licensed child care. FHA, VA, USDA and Conventional firsts all work with it.

Active-duty military qualify with any employer, which takes in personnel stationed at Naval Air Station Key West, and veterans, Reserve and National Guard members qualify working full time for any Florida-based employer. You apply through a participating lender or broker, and Florida Housing help is once in a lifetime, so use it on the right Keys home with the right lender. Call 888-601-8344 first and we’ll confirm Hometown Heroes is reserving funds and that your Keys price falls under the county’s purchase limit.

Official program page

FL Assist, HFA Preferred and the FL HLP second (statewide)

FL Assist is a 0% deferred second mortgage with a Florida Housing first, no monthly payment, repaid when you sell, refinance, transfer the home or move out. With HFA Advantage PLUS, a Keys buyer gets a Freddie Mac Conventional first and a second that’s forgiven over 5 years while living in the home. The FL HLP second carries a small fixed payment over 30 years.

Florida Housing reserves these one loan at a time, and the caps change. Text us at 954-816-8820 with the address and price, and we’ll run them against the limits that apply to a Monroe County purchase.

Official program page

There’s also FHA 100% financing, which stacks a 96.5% FHA first mortgage on top of a down payment assistance second so the 3.5% can come from the second instead of your savings. On a Keys price, that second has to clear the program caps, so call us the day you find the house and we’ll tell you which combination works on it.

Homestead and your Monroe County tax bill

On a primary residence, the Florida homestead exemption takes up to $50,000 off the taxable value, caps future assessment increases under Save Our Homes, and lets you port some or all of the savings to your next Florida homestead.

Eligibility depends on who owns and lives in the home on January 1, so the filing date is March 1 of the following year. The Monroe County Property Appraiser accepts homestead applications online.

Monroe County tax bills are payable from November 1 and turn delinquent on April 1; with an escrow account, your lender pays them from your monthly payment.

Monroe County Property Appraiser

Online homestead filing and property search: mcpafl.org

Tax bills and payments: Monroe County Tax Collector, 1200 Truman Ave., Ste 101, Key West, (305) 295-5000

Irma, the 1935 storm and buying with water on every side

Hurricane Irma came ashore near Cudjoe Key in 2017 as a category 4. The National Hurricane Center estimated storm surge of 5 to 8 feet above ground in parts of the Lower Keys from Cudjoe Key east to Big Pine Key and Bahia Honda Key, and the highest water mark it recorded, 6.0 feet, was inside a garage on Big Pine. FEMA estimated that a quarter of the buildings in the Keys were destroyed, nearly two-thirds were significantly damaged and nine of every ten houses took some damage.

The Labor Day hurricane of 1935 killed far more people. It came ashore near Long Key late on September 2 with a pressure of 892 mb, the lowest ever officially recorded on land in the Western Hemisphere, and killed about 485 to 490 people, including about 257 to 260 veterans. It wrecked the Florida East Coast Railway’s Key West Extension, which was never rebuilt; the Overseas Highway was laid on its roadbed and surviving bridges.

Storms shape the housing rules, too. Florida law treats the Keys as an Area of Critical State Concern and requires local plans to hold hurricane evacuation clearance time for permanent residents to 24.5 hours or less. State law also caps the new building permit allocations tied to that clearance time, spreads them over a period of years, divides them by each jurisdiction’s vacant buildable lots, and puts owner-occupied, affordable and workforce housing first.

Run any Keys address through the FEMA Flood Map Service Center before you write an offer. In a high-risk zone the flood policy is mandatory on a federally backed mortgage, and its premium rides in your monthly payment.
Get windstorm and flood quotes in the first week of your contract and send them to us so we can rebuild your payment around them. Roof age moves the price, and a wind mitigation inspection can earn credits that bring it down.
In the Keys, use Florida’s Know Your Zone lookup to find your evacuation zone, and remember that every road out runs through Miami-Dade, on US 1 or Card Sound Road.

Work, schools and getting on and off the islands

Naval Air Station Key West trains U.S. Naval Aviation personnel, using the year-round flying weather and its aerial ranges. Up the chain, Islamorada bills itself as the Sportfishing Capital of the World, and Pennekamp’s reef draws divers and snorkelers to Key Largo.

Schools and college

Public schools are run by the Monroe County School District, headquartered at 241 Trumbo Road in Key West, (305) 293-1400; the district can tell you which school serves an address.

The College of the Florida Keys has its waterfront campus at 5901 College Road in Key West and an Upper Keys Center.

Roads

The Overseas Highway, US 1 (SR 5), is the main road through the Keys; its Keys section runs 127 miles, and the county has no interstate. By road you reach the Keys only through Miami-Dade County, on US 1 or Card Sound Road (CR 905A) into North Key Largo. In Key West, SR A1A follows Roosevelt Boulevard.

Airports

Key West International Airport is at 3491 South Roosevelt Boulevard and carries the county’s scheduled airline service. Florida Keys Marathon Airport (MTH) is in Marathon.

Reefs, refuges and the Keys calendar

John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park

Pennekamp was established in 1963 as the country’s first undersea park and covers 70 nautical square miles off Key Largo, at 102601 Overseas Highway. See the reef from a glass-bottom boat, snorkel or dive it, or rent a kayak.

Bahia Honda State Park

Bahia Honda’s address is 36850 Overseas Highway, Big Pine Key. Expect sandy beaches with little shade, camping, kayak and snorkel rentals and reef trips. Henry Flagler’s railroad to Key West ran through the island, and the Old Bahia Honda Bridge trail looks out over the water below.

Seven Mile Bridge and Pigeon Key

The current Seven Mile Bridge opened on May 24, 1982, linking Knight’s Key in Marathon to Little Duck Key. The old railroad bridge beside it, built from 1909 to 1912, is restored for walking and biking, and cars have been barred since 2008 from its 2.2-mile stretch to Pigeon Key, once a railroad work camp. The Seven Mile Bridge Run closes the bridge on a Saturday each April.

National Key Deer Refuge

The refuge was established in 1957 for the endangered Key deer. Its visitor center is at 30587 Overseas Hwy on Big Pine Key, and alligators are at Blue Hole year-round.

Dry Tortugas National Park

Almost 70 miles west of Key West, this 100-square-mile park is mostly open water around seven small islands. You get there only by boat or seaplane, with day and camping trips by ferry from Key West. Fort Jefferson on Garden Key is the largest masonry fort in the Western Hemisphere. The waters around the whole chain belong to the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

Key West’s year

Fantasy Fest, first held in 1979, takes over Key West for 10 days each October. The Key West Literary Seminar, founded in 1983, meets every January. Hemingway Days comes every July around Hemingway’s July 21 birthday, with the Look-Alike Contest at Sloppy Joe’s.

On April 23, 1982, Key West’s mayor and city council declared the city independent as the Conch Republic. Harry Truman spent 175 days of his presidency at the Truman Little White House.

Moving to the Keys: your first-month checklist

Electric: it depends on where you land. Keys Energy Services, the public power utility for the Lower Keys, serves Key West north to the Seven Mile Bridge, (305) 295-1000. Florida Keys Electric Cooperative, member-owned and not-for-profit, serves the Upper and Middle Keys from offices in Tavernier and Marathon, (305) 852-2431.
Water and sewer: ask the seller which water and wastewater service the address has, and open the accounts before closing.
Driver license and tag: the Monroe County Tax Collector issues licenses at its Key West office (1200 Truman Ave.), the Marathon branch (3015 Overseas Hwy) and the Key Largo branch (101487 Overseas Hwy). Big Pine Key handles renewals and replacements only, and the Plantation Key branch doesn’t do licenses.
Homestead: apply online with the Monroe County Property Appraiser by March 1 of the year after your closing.
County government and hurricane prep: 1100 Simonton Street, Key West, (305) 294-4641, or monroecounty-fl.gov, which links to Emergency Management’s hurricane information.

Buying or refinancing in Monroe County with AAA Capital Funding

Buying a home

FHA carries most of our buyers, and Monroe’s high-cost limits, in the table above, give it more room here than in most of Florida. Eligible veterans can use VA with no down payment. We also close Conventional loans, Hometown Heroes, FHA 100% financing and DSCR loans for investment property.

AAA Capital Funding has been a licensed Florida mortgage broker since 1997, lending statewide in all 67 Florida counties, Key Largo to Key West included. We shop your file with multiple wholesale lenders and build the wind and flood premiums into the payment we quote you from the first call.

Refinancing the home you have

Lower your payment, pull cash out for a new roof or storm shutters, pay off higher-rate debt, or buy a co-owner out of the house. At Keys values, the equity you’ve built can carry a lot of that.

Call 888-601-8344 and we’ll put the payment you make now next to the new one, with the cash out and closing costs on the same page, so you can see exactly what a refinance does for you on your Keys home.

Monroe County questions we hear a lot

What is the FHA loan limit in Monroe County, Florida?

The FHA and Conventional limits for Monroe are in the loan limit table on this page, which fills in from HUD’s published figures. HUD and FHFA reset them every January, and because Monroe is a high-cost area, its limits sit above most of the state’s.

Is there down payment assistance in Monroe County?

Monroe County has a SHIP plan on file with Florida Housing, and Hometown Heroes, FL Assist, HFA Preferred and FL HLP all apply in the Keys. At Keys prices their caps matter, so we test each against the specific house.

When do I file for homestead in Monroe County?

File with the Monroe County Property Appraiser, online at mcpafl.org, no later than March 1 of the year after you close. Owning and living in the home on January 1 is what sets the year.

Who provides electricity in the Keys?

Keys Energy Services from Key West to the Seven Mile Bridge, and Florida Keys Electric Cooperative in the Upper and Middle Keys.

Do I need flood insurance in the Keys?

Your lender will require it if the home is in a high-risk zone on FEMA’s maps. The Hurricane Center estimated Irma’s 2017 surge at 5 to 8 feet above ground in parts of the Lower Keys, so price a flood policy on any Keys home before you commit, even where it’s optional.

Sources for this guide (38)

AAA Capital Funding, Inc. NMLS #374739. Jason J. Sarji, NMLS #374700. Licensed Florida mortgage broker serving Monroe County and all 67 Florida counties since 1997. Equal Housing Opportunity.

You work with the same person from start to finish, in every county in Florida.

We've been closing Florida loans since 1997, in all 67 counties. If you want to know what's possible in Monroe County, call 888-601-8344 or text 954-816-8820. One call, under ten minutes. No application needed to start.

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AAA Capital Funding, Inc. · NMLS #374739 · Jason J. Sarji, NMLS #374700