Florida Coastal Resilience in 2026

The Florida grant program for coastal and inland resilience is Resilient Florida, run by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), created when Governor Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 1954 on May 12, 2021 (FDEP Resilient Florida Program).

FDEP describes the law as the largest investment in Florida history to prepare communities for sea level rise, intensified storms and flooding. Its grants are available to counties, municipalities, special districts with specific responsibilities and regional resilience entities, to analyze and plan for vulnerabilities and to build adaptation and mitigation projects (FDEP). Beach and inlet work runs through a separate FDEP grant program, and other coastal grants come from the Florida Coastal Management Program (FDEP funding sources table).

The Resilient Florida office is at 3900 Commonwealth Blvd, MS 230, Tallahassee, FL 32303, phone 850-245-7600, email [email protected] (FDEP). Its web page links a public grants dashboard listing every awarded project, with no login required (FDEP).

The Fiscal Year 2026-27 Statewide Flooding and Sea Level Rise Resilience Plan puts $100 million into Year 1: the fifteen top-ranked Florida projects plus continued money for two multiyear projects (FDEP Statewide Plan, December 2025).

Demand ran far ahead of that budget. FDEP received 203 eligible and ineligible proposals from 120 entities, including 25 counties and county-associated entities and 84 municipalities; 123 implementation proposals were deemed eligible and ranked, with total project costs of $1,515,226,716 and state requests of $738,707,561 (FDEP). The fifteen funded projects total $82,039,821 in Year 1, and the two multiyear projects add $17,960,179 (FDEP). Because the plan runs on a 3-year horizon, these awards also commit $21,227,592 in FY 2027-28 and $16,527,500 in FY 2028-29 (FDEP).

Most of the Year 1 list is utility and drainage hardening rather than beach work: wastewater plants, lift stations, pump stations and stormwater systems in Lee, Duval, Pinellas, Monroe, Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, Bay and Alachua counties (FDEP). FDEP has announced the 2026-2027 Statewide Resilience Plan awards (FDEP), and the plan says all eligible proposals remain subject to further review and potential modifications based on available funding (FDEP).

Florida counties, municipalities and certain special districts can apply, and the 2026 Resilient Florida application portal was open from July 1, 2026 to September 1, 2026 for implementation projects (FDEP applicants page).

Projects submitted in that 2026 window will be funded with Fiscal Year 2027-28 allocations, and planning projects and regional resilience entities were not accepted in the 2026 cycle (FDEP). Before applying for implementation money, a local government must have a vulnerability assessment showing a risk of flooding or sea level rise to a critical asset or the project area; the statewide flood vulnerability assessment may also be used to show that risk (FDEP).

Special districts qualify when they manage airports, inlets and intracoastal waterways, potable water, seaports or wastewater, and drainage, erosion control and flood control districts, regional water supply authorities and water management districts may also submit (FDEP). Eligible projects need a minimum 50 percent local cost share, but state law waives the match for a municipality of 10,000 or fewer people or a county of 50,000 or fewer with below-state per capita income, and for any city or county at or under 75 percent of state per capita income (FDEP). Palm Beach County Water Utilities, ranked 7th and funded in Year 1, carries a 0 percent local share in the 2026-27 table (FDEP).

Last verified: October 15, 2026, on the FDEP Resilient Florida Program and Beaches Funding Program websites.

Florida restores eroded beaches through the FDEP Beach Management Funding Assistance Program, which pays up to 50 percent of beach project costs and up to 75 percent of inlet project costs for local governments (FDEP Beaches Funding Program).

The Florida Legislature adopted a comprehensive beach management planning program in 1986, and FDEP cites section 161.101, Florida Statutes, as the program's authority (FDEP). A project must be accessible to the public, sit on the Gulf of America, Atlantic Ocean or Straits of Florida, be on a beach FDEP designates as critically eroded and fit the Strategic Beach Management Plan (FDEP).

Since 1998 the Florida Legislature has dedicated more than $1.6 billion to beach management, nearly $315 million of it for hurricane recovery, cost-shared with local governments on local and federally authorized projects, with each level of government contributing about one-third of the cost of the entire program (FDEP). That money has restored and maintained more than 269 miles, or 59 percent, of the 458 miles of critically eroded beaches in Florida (FDEP). The Local Government Funding Request for Fiscal Year 2027-28 was open from June 1 through July 31, 2026 (FDEP).

Through the Coastal Partnership Initiative, the Florida Coastal Management Program passes National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration funds to the 35 Florida coastal counties and their municipalities for local coastal projects (FDEP funding sources table).

CPI grants cover four areas: Resilient Communities, Public Access, Working Waterfronts and Coastal Stewardship, and public colleges, regional planning councils, national estuary programs and nonprofit groups may apply if an eligible local government joins as a partner (FDEP). A parallel grant sends NOAA funds to Florida state agencies and water management districts for coastal resource protection projects that can be completed within 12 months (FDEP). The Clean Vessel Act grant can fund up to 75 percent of eligible costs for marinas that offer public pumpout equipment (FDEP).

For nature-based work, FDEP and Cummins Cederberg built a Living Shoreline Database that includes permit information on public living shoreline projects across Florida (FDEP living shorelines page). Examples on the FDEP page include project R1801 in Miami Beach, R1803 on Sarasota Bay, which replaced degraded seawall with sloped riprap and breakwater, R1931 along Highway 98 between Carrabelle Beach and Eastpoint, and R2117 at Floridatown Park on Escambia Bay (FDEP).

The next Florida Statewide Flooding and Sea Level Rise Resilience Plan is due December 1, 2026, because Florida law requires FDEP to deliver a ranked 3-year plan to the Governor and legislative leaders by December 1 of each year (Florida Statutes, section 380.093).

The same statute keeps the evidence base moving: FDEP must update the comprehensive statewide flood vulnerability and sea level rise data set with the best available information each year and update the statewide assessment at least every 5 years, and plans submitted since December 1, 2024 must primarily address the risks that statewide assessment identifies (Florida Statutes, section 380.093).

FDEP says implementation projects submitted in the July to September 2026 window will be funded with FY 2027-28 allocations (FDEP). The current FY 2026-27 plan already commits $21,227,592 to the FY 2027-28 plan for its own projects (FDEP). The scoring rules also keep changing: legislation in 2025 added a criterion tied to the National Flood Insurance Program Community Rating System (FDEP).

A timing tip for local staff and residents following a project: the FY 2026-27 plan was built from applications submitted between July 7 and September 1, 2025, a year before the 2026 window, and the FDEP applicants page itself was last modified September 15, 2026 (FDEP; FDEP).