Foreign-Born Residents of Vero Beach

Roughly one Vero Beach resident in eight was born outside the United States.

ACS table B05002, from the American Community Survey 2020-2024 five-year estimates, counts 2,223 foreign-born residents among 17,042 people in Vero Beach, 13 percent, with a margin of error of 679. That share is about 1.3 times the 10.0 percent rate in the Sebastian-Vero Beach-West Vero Corridor metro area, about three-fifths of the Florida rate of 21.9 percent and about 90 percent of the national rate of 14.1 percent. With a sample this small, the safest reading is that roughly one in eight Vero Beach residents was born abroad, give or take several hundred people.

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 collects data from all foreign born who take part in its surveys regardless of legal status, but it does not collect data on legal status, so the Vero Beach counts cover all of these groups together. Unauthorized migrants are included in the Bureau's estimates of the total foreign-born population, but it is not possible to tabulate separate estimates of them or of any other legal status category. What the surveys do record for Vero Beach residents is country of birth, U.S. citizenship status and year of entry into the United States.

Latin America is the largest source region for foreign-born Vero Beach residents, with 1,293 of the 2,223 in 2020 to 2024.

ACS table B05006 shows that 1,058 of those Latin American-born Vero Beach residents 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.

Canada-born residents are a small group in the Vero Beach census population, 145 people in 2020 to 2024.

ACS table B05006 counts those 145 Canada-born residents as the entire Northern America category for Vero Beach, with a margin of error of 74. Of them, 92 were naturalized U.S. citizens and 53 were not, according to table B05002.

Seasonal homes show up in the housing tables rather than the population tables. 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. Another 386 were for rent, 107 for sale only and 413 in the other vacant group.

The Census Bureau's housing definitions explain how such Vero Beach units are classified. 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 of the year and are found primarily in resort areas, while a unit held for weekends or occasional use throughout the year is counted as held for occasional use. Units occupied by persons with a usual residence elsewhere are further classified as seasonal vacant or year-round vacant, and in resort areas a unit usually occupied on a year-round basis is considered a year-round unit. The other vacant group covers year-round units held vacant for reasons such as settlement of an estate, personal reasons or repairs, which describes the 413 Vero Beach units in that column.

Most are: 1,443 of the 2,223 foreign-born residents of Vero Beach, about 65 percent, were naturalized U.S. citizens in 2020 to 2024.

ACS table B05002 counts the other 780 foreign-born Vero Beach residents as 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, 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 native-born Vero Beach residents, 5,378 of 14,819 in 2020 to 2024.

Table B05002 counts 9,102 native-born Vero Beach residents who 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.

Last verified: October 15, 2026, by re-reading the Census Bureau's ACS 2020-2024 place of birth, citizenship, year of entry and vacancy tables for Vero Beach, its foreign-born topic page and its housing vacancy definitions.