Melbourne, Florida Demographics Guide

Melbourne has no separate deep demographics guide, so this hub answers the headline population questions itself and the table below points each related question to the Melbourne guide that goes further.

The Melbourne profile page puts the population count beside City Hall contacts, transport and storm basics. Work, wages and the city's largest employers sit in the Melbourne economy hub, with its major employers guide naming the companies. Home prices and rents near Eau Gallie, Downtown Melbourne and the airport corridor are covered in the real estate section, and the Melbourne public schools guide covers Brevard Public Schools campuses inside the city. Last verified: October 14, 2026, on Census Bureau ACS 2020-2024 and decennial tables, the Florida EDR April 1, 2025 estimates and the City of Melbourne 2025 ACFR.

Melbourne had 84,678 residents on Census Day 2020, and state demographers estimate 88,499 for April 1, 2025, a gain of 3,821 in five years (Florida EDR).

The 2010 Census had counted 76,068 people in Melbourne city (2010 Census), so the 2020 figure of 84,678 (2020 Census) was a decade gain of 8,610. Growth has continued at a slower clip since then: the April 1, 2025 estimate from the Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research puts Melbourne at 88,499 (EDR 2025 estimates).

Melbourne is not the largest city in Brevard County. The same EDR table lists Palm Bay at 146,929 and the whole of Brevard County at 667,900 on April 1, 2025, up 61,288 since 2020 (EDR). West Melbourne, Melbourne Beach and Melbourne Village are separate municipalities with their own rows in the same EDR table.

The ACS 2020-2024 five-year estimate, 86,576 residents (ACS DP05), averages five years of survey responses, so it sits between the 2020 count and the 2025 estimate. For a single headcount the EDR estimate is the current figure; for age, origin, income and housing the ACS is the source with detail for Melbourne city.

Melbourne is younger than Brevard County as a whole, with a median age of 42.5 against 46.7 for the county in the ACS 2020-2024 estimates (Melbourne DP05, Brevard DP05).

Residents 65 and older make up 22.5 percent of Melbourne (DP05), compared with 24.5 percent across Brevard County (county DP05). Children under 18 are 17.6 percent of Melbourne residents and 18.1 percent of county residents, so the younger Melbourne median does not come from a larger share of children.

Melbourne is a university city, home to Florida Institute of Technology, and its young adult share shows it. Residents aged 20 to 24 make up 6.7 percent of the city (DP05), and 36.9 percent of Melbourne residents enrolled in school are in college or graduate school (DP02).

Most Melbourne residents were born outside Florida: 53.1 percent were born elsewhere in the United States, 32.4 percent in Florida and 10.4 percent abroad (ACS DP02).

By Hispanic origin and race, the ACS 2020-2024 estimates count Melbourne as 68.4 percent non-Hispanic White, 12.2 percent Hispanic or Latino of any race, 10.0 percent non-Hispanic Black and 3.1 percent non-Hispanic Asian (DP05). Puerto Ricans are the largest single Hispanic group named in the table at 4.2 percent of residents. The Hispanic share matches Brevard County exactly at 12.2 percent (Brevard DP05), and 10.9 percent of Melbourne residents report two or more races.

English dominates at home. A language other than English is spoken by 12.8 percent of Melbourne residents aged 5 and over, and Spanish by 7.6 percent (DP02). The foreign born share of 10.4 percent is slightly above the Brevard County figure of 9.7 percent (Brevard DP02).

Melbourne households are small, averaging 2.24 people against 2.42 for Brevard County, and 40.3 percent of occupied homes are rented (DP02, DP04).

The ACS 2020-2024 estimates count 37,041 households in Melbourne (DP02) living in a stock of 41,217 housing units (DP04). Owners occupy 59.7 percent of occupied units. The median owner-occupied home is valued at $306,400 and the median gross rent is $1,525 a month, with a rental vacancy rate of 6.2 percent (DP04). Brevard County's average household size is 2.42 (Brevard DP02).

More than a quarter of Melbourne's housing units were built before 1970. In the ACS estimates 11.0 percent of Melbourne housing units date from the 1950s and 13.9 percent from the 1960s, while only 1.5 percent were built in 2020 or later (DP04). Prices and new building near Eau Gallie, Downtown Melbourne and the airport corridor are covered in the real estate section.

Melbourne's median household income is $66,991 in the ACS 2020-2024 estimates, below the Brevard County median of $78,476 (Melbourne DP03, Brevard DP03).

The poverty rate is 15.8 percent of Melbourne residents against 10.2 percent countywide, and the unemployment rate in the survey period was 4.6 percent against 4.8 percent (DP03, county DP03). Education levels are not the gap: 34.7 percent of Melbourne adults 25 and over hold a bachelor's degree or higher, slightly above the county's 34.2 percent (DP02, Brevard DP02).

Commutes are short. Melbourne workers average 22.8 minutes to work, against 25.4 minutes for Brevard County, and 14.1 percent worked from home (DP03, county DP03). Manufacturing employs 12.5 percent of employed Melbourne residents and professional, scientific and management services 15.3 percent (DP03). Civilian veterans are 11.5 percent of Melbourne adults (DP02).

For a current Melbourne headcount the state's April 1, 2025 estimate of 88,499 is the figure to quote, while ACS 2020-2024 is the source for age, origin, income and housing (EDR, ACS).

Several Melbourne numbers in circulation come from older survey releases; the current ACS 2020-2024 release gives 86,576 residents and a median age of 42.5 (DP05). The City of Melbourne's Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for the year ended September 30, 2025 uses the 88,499 population for 2025 but lists a median age of 42.7 credited to the Economic Development Commission of Florida's Space Coast (2025 ACFR, Schedule 15), so a Melbourne figure should always be quoted with its source and year.

ACS figures for a city the size of Melbourne carry margins of error, and the five-year estimates blend responses from 2020 through 2024. Year-to-year differences of a few tenths of a percent in Melbourne figures are within that noise, so the state estimate is the better guide to growth.