State of South Florida Seawalls 2026
20 of 33 South Florida coastal cities publish a minimum seawall elevation, and they disagree by two feet. The codes, the permit clocks and 1,476 DERM records, with citations.
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South Florida does not have a seawall code. It has
33 of them. This report sets out what each coastal
jurisdiction actually requires, what the new permitting clocks are, and what
the county enforcement record looks like underneath all of it — with the
citation for every claim.
Key findings
- 20 of 33
coastal jurisdictions reviewed publish a minimum seawall elevation.
13 do not, and fall back to
the county standard. - Among those that do, the minimum ranges from
4.00 ft to 6.00 ft NAVD88 — a
two-foot spread between neighboring cities on the same
waterway. - Miami-Dade now holds itself to a 90-calendar-day decision
window on Class I seawall permits, measured from the Completeness Summary. - Broward’s minimum steps up to 4.00 ft NAVD88 for applications before
January 1, 2035 and 5.00 ft NAVD88 thereafter, with
substantial repair defined at a 50% threshold. - The Florida Building Code 9th Edition (2026) takes effect December
31, 2026, statewide, with no county phase-in. - Souffront’s pull of Miami-Dade DERM records returned
1,476 coastal-construction cases, of which
897 carry a violation document.
1. The minimum seawall elevation is not one number
Every conversation about a South Florida seawall eventually arrives at a
height. Owners ask what the number is, and the honest answer is that it depends
which side of a city line the property sits on.
We maintain the table below because we need it to write inspection reports.
It lists the minimum seawall or tidal flood barrier elevation for
33 coastal jurisdictions across four counties, in feet
NAVD88, with the ordinance or code section each figure comes from. Where a
municipality has not adopted its own seawall elevation, that is stated rather
than guessed — the county standard governs in those places.
Two patterns are worth naming. First, the distinct values in use are
4.00, 5.00, 5.70, 6.00 ft NAVD88 — a
small set of numbers, but spread across a two-foot band. Second, the highest
requirement in the region belongs to City of Miami, and a
property a short distance away can be held to a foot less.
Miami-Dade County
Broward County
| Jurisdiction | Minimum seawall elevation | Authority |
|---|---|---|
| Dania Beach | 5.00 ft NAVD88 | Broward County Code of Ordinances, Chapter 39, Article XXV (Resiliency Standards for Flood Protection) — county-wide tidal flood barrier standard |
| Deerfield Beach | 5.00 ft NAVD88 or 4.00 ft if built to be raised to 5.00 ft later |
City of Deerfield Beach Code of Ordinances Ch. 34 (Environment) adopting Broward County Code Chapter 39, Article XXV |
| Fort Lauderdale | 5.00 ft NAVD88 | City of Fort Lauderdale Unified Land Development Regulations (ULDR) §47-19.3 — Tidal Flood Barriers; revised ordinance 2022/2023 |
| Hallandale Beach | 5.00 ft NAVD88 or 4.00 ft if built to be raised to 5.00 ft later |
Hallandale Beach Code of Ordinances, adopting Broward County Code Chapter 39, Article XXV (Resiliency Standards for Flood Protection) |
| Hillsboro Beach | 5.00 ft NAVD88 | Broward County Code of Ordinances, Chapter 39, Article XXV (Resiliency Standards for Flood Protection) — county-wide tidal flood barrier standard |
| Hollywood | 5.00 ft NAVD88 or 4.00 ft if built to be raised to 5.00 ft later |
City of Hollywood Code of Ordinances §150.30 (Tidal Flood Protection), adopted via Ord. O-2022-01 (Feb 2, 2022); mirrors Broward County Chapter 39 Article XXV |
| Lauderdale-by-the-Sea | 5.00 ft NAVD88 | Broward County Code of Ordinances, Chapter 39, Article XXV (Resiliency Standards for Flood Protection) — county-wide tidal flood barrier standard |
| Oakland Park | 5.00 ft NAVD88 | Broward County Code of Ordinances, Chapter 39, Article XXV (Resiliency Standards for Flood Protection) — county-wide tidal flood barrier standard |
| Pompano Beach | 5.00 ft NAVD88 | City of Pompano Beach Code of Ordinances §151.05 (Tidal Flood Barriers) |
| Wilton Manors | 5.00 ft NAVD88 | Broward County Code of Ordinances, Chapter 39, Article XXV (Resiliency Standards for Flood Protection) — county-wide tidal flood barrier standard |
| Lighthouse Point | 4.00 ft NAVD88 | City of Lighthouse Point Code of Ordinances Ch. 42, Art. IV, Div. 5, §42-381 (Seawall height and raising or capping seawalls); subject to Broward Chapter 39 Article XXV |
Palm Beach County
Collier County
| Jurisdiction | Minimum seawall elevation | Authority |
|---|---|---|
| Marco Island | No dedicated minimum published County standard applies |
City of Marco Island Code of Ordinances Chapter 54 (Waterways and Beaches); City Seawall Owner’s Manual |
| Naples | No dedicated minimum published County standard applies |
City of Naples Code of Ordinances Chapter 52 (Reef Protection / Submerged Lands) and Chapter 56 (Supplemental Standards) |
2. What turns a repair into a rebuild
The elevation standard is not retroactive. An existing wall below the current
minimum is not automatically illegal. What matters is the trigger — the point at
which work on the wall is treated as new construction and has to meet today’s
number.
Broward County Code Chapter 39, Article XXV defines
substantial repair as a modification to the shoreline or a
shoreline structure along more than 50% of the length of the
property’s shoreline, or a modification, alteration or installation of an
appurtenant structure exceeding 50% of the cost of a tidal
flood barrier along that shoreline. The standard also reaches new construction,
major renovation and new licenses, and applies where a property is identified as
the source of tidal flood water trespassing onto a neighbor.
The practical consequence is a sequencing problem. Two repairs that each sit
under the threshold are a different project, legally and financially, from one
repair that crosses it. That judgement should be made before the scope is
written, not after the permit is filed.
Miami Beach runs the same concept at its own number — Chapter 54, Article II,
§54-62 applies to new and substantially rehabilitated coastal infrastructure,
with a 730-day cure period where a failing seawall is flooding adjacent property
and daily penalties after that.
3. Miami-Dade put a clock on seawall permits
In 2025 the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners took up an ordinance
amending Code sections 24-48, 24-48.2, 24-48.3, 24-48.5, 24-48.9, 24-48.13 and
24-48.18. The County Attorney’s memo accompanying the substitute item sets out
what the County committed to:
“the County may request additional information from applicants for Class I
seawall and bulkhead permits up to two more times after the initial request and
must respond to each submission of additional information within 10 calendar
days of receipt… within 90 calendar days after the Completeness Summary for a
Class I seawall or bulkhead permit application is issued, the County is required
to conduct all necessary assessments for the issuance of the permit and exercise
its authority to issue permits on behalf of the Florida Department of
Environmental Protection and the United States Army Corps of Engineers, when
applicable.”
The same ordinance widened eligibility for short-form permits for seawalls
and bulkheads, moved short-form and standard-form class permit applications to
administrative approval with defined exceptions where a public hearing is still
required, and created an expedited administrative authorization for placing
biodiversity enhancement tiles on an existing seawall or bulkhead. It also
clarified that natural limerock boulder riprap is required for construction and
repair of seawalls and bulkheads to the extent the County’s Comprehensive
Development Master Plan requires it.
For an owner, the useful part is that the clock starts at the Completeness
Summary, not at submission. A complete, correctly engineered application is now
worth real calendar time.
4. The code edition changes on December 31, 2026
The Florida Building Code 9th Edition (2026) takes effect
December 31, 2026, replacing the 8th Edition (2023) on the
Florida Building Commission’s standard three-year cycle. It applies statewide
with no county-by-county phase-in.
Seawall work is governed less by a single chapter than by the combination of
FBC Building Chapter 18 (soils and foundations, lateral earth pressure, pile
design), Chapter 31 (marine and waterfront special construction), ASCE 7 load
provisions, and FBC Existing Building Chapters 5–6, which classify repair and
alteration work and determine when an existing structure must be brought up to
current code. Projects near the year-end boundary should be sequenced with the
filing date in mind.
5. What the enforcement record actually shows
Codes describe what should happen. The permit record describes what did.
Souffront pulled Miami-Dade DERM’s electronic case records and filtered them
to the County’s own Class I, II and III coastal-construction case types — the
classes that cover work in or over tidal water. That filter matters: a raw DERM
pull also returns marine operating permits and pollution-prevention cases that
have nothing to do with the structure of a wall.
- 1,818 DERM records retrieved in total
- 1,476 carry a Class I, II or III
coastal-construction case - 897 of those carry a violation
document - 159 are marine operating permits only, and
were excluded as non-structural - Records span 2000-03-08 to
2026-06-29
The activity is not evenly spread. The twelve ZIP codes below account for the
largest share of coastal-construction records in the pull, and they track the
barrier islands and the Intracoastal almost exactly.
| ZIP | Area | Coastal-construction records |
|---|---|---|
| 33140 | Miami Beach (mid-Beach) | 178 |
| 33141 | Miami Beach (North Beach) | 164 |
| 33160 | Sunny Isles Beach / Golden Beach | 164 |
| 33139 | Miami Beach (South Beach) | 160 |
| 33181 | North Miami / Keystone Point | 130 |
| 33154 | Bal Harbour / Surfside / Bay Harbor Islands | 79 |
| 33138 | Miami Shores / Belle Meade | 79 |
| 33133 | Coconut Grove | 62 |
| 33156 | Pinecrest / Palmetto Bay | 60 |
| 33149 | Key Biscayne | 53 |
| 33180 | Aventura | 35 |
| 33137 | Edgewater / Morningside | 28 |
6. What this means if you own waterfront
Three things follow from the data above.
Your number is local. With a two-foot spread across the
region and 13 jurisdictions carrying no
dedicated standard of their own, a figure you heard from a neighbor, a
contractor or a different city is not evidence about your property. The elevation
that governs is the one in your city’s code, compared against a surveyed cap
elevation in NAVD88.
Scope decides cost more than price per foot does. Because the
substantial-repair triggers are written as percentages of length and cost, the
same wall can be a maintenance item or a full replacement depending on how the
work is scoped. That decision belongs at the engineering stage.
The permit record is part of the asset. With
897 coastal-construction cases carrying a violation
document in a single county, an open DERM case is not an exotic problem. It
surfaces in due diligence, and it is far cheaper to find before a closing than
during one.
Methodology and sources
Municipal elevation standards. Compiled and maintained by
Souffront Contractors Inc. for use in its own inspection reports; each entry
carries the ordinance or code section it derives from, and entries without a
published municipal standard are recorded as such rather than inferred. Table
last reviewed 2026-07-06.
Enforcement data. Miami-Dade DERM electronic case records,
filtered to Class I/II/III coastal-construction case types. Counts are of
records, not of distinct owners, and a single property may carry more than one
case. Data pulled through 2026-06-29.
Regulatory citations. Broward County Code of Ordinances
Chapter 39, Article XXV; Miami-Dade County Code §§24-48 to 24-48.18 and the
County Attorney memorandum accompanying Substitute to Agenda Item 1(G)1
(June 11, 2025); City of Miami Beach Code Chapter 54, Article II §54-62; Florida
Building Commission code-cycle schedule; Florida Statutes Chapter 161 and FDEP
Rules 62B-33 and 62-330, F.A.C.
Corrections. If a figure here is out of date for your
jurisdiction, tell us and we will check it against the code and update the
table. Call (877) 420-7220.
Frequently asked questions
How high does a seawall have to be in South Florida?
There is no single number. Across the 33 coastal jurisdictions in this report, 20 publish a minimum seawall elevation and those minimums range from 4.00 to 6.00 ft NAVD88. The remaining 13 have no dedicated seawall elevation of their own and fall back to the county standard. The only reliable answer for a given property is the one written in that city’s code, measured against a surveyed elevation of the existing cap.
What is NAVD88 and why is my seawall measured in it?
NAVD88 is the North American Vertical Datum of 1988, the common elevation reference every South Florida code now uses. It matters because an older seawall may have been built to a different datum, so a wall that met code when it was built can read as under-height today without anything having changed. Comparing a cap elevation to a code minimum is only valid when both are in NAVD88, which is why a licensed survey of the cap is the starting point for any compliance question.
When does repairing a seawall force me to rebuild it to the new height?
In Broward County, Chapter 39, Article XXV defines substantial repair as work along more than 50% of the length of the property’s shoreline, or work on an appurtenant structure costing more than 50% of the cost of a tidal flood barrier along that shoreline. Cross that line and the project is held to the current minimum elevation rather than the height the wall is at now. Several municipalities use the same substantial-repair concept with their own thresholds, so the sequencing of repairs has a direct cost consequence.
How long does a seawall permit take in Miami-Dade now?
For a Class I seawall or bulkhead permit, the County must issue a Completeness Summary, may request additional information up to two more times after the initial request, must respond to each submission within 10 calendar days, and must complete its assessments and act within 90 calendar days after the Completeness Summary is issued. That framework came out of the ordinance the Board took up as Substitute to Agenda Item 1(G)1 in 2025, amending Code sections 24-48 through 24-48.18.
What changes for seawalls when the Florida Building Code 9th Edition lands?
The 9th Edition (2026) takes effect December 31, 2026, replacing the 8th Edition (2023) on the Commission’s three-year cycle. It is a statewide change with no county phase-in, and the practical effect for waterfront owners is the usual one: the edition in force when the application is filed generally governs the job. Projects that are close to filing at year end are worth sequencing deliberately.
Does a seawall permit from the county cover the state and federal review?
Not automatically, but Miami-Dade’s ordinance directs the County to exercise its authority to issue permits on behalf of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers where that applies. Work in or over tidal waters can still touch FDEP’s Environmental Resource Permit program and, seaward of the Coastal Construction Control Line, Chapter 161 and FDEP Rule 62B-33.
Can I put living shoreline or biodiversity material on an existing seawall?
Miami-Dade’s 2025 amendments created an expedited administrative authorization for placing biodiversity enhancement tiles on an existing seawall or bulkhead under defined criteria, and revised the rules on seawalls and riprap boulders. Natural limerock boulder riprap is required for construction and repair of seawalls and bulkheads to the extent the County’s Comprehensive Development Master Plan requires it.
How do I find out whether my own seawall already has a county record?
Miami-Dade DERM’s coastal-construction cases are public and indexed by folio. Any Class I, II or III case on the parcel, and any notice attached to it, is part of the property’s permit history and will surface in a title or due-diligence review. Pulling that history before you buy, sell or start work is cheaper than discovering it afterwards.
About this report
Souffront Contractors Inc. inspects, engineers, permits and builds seawalls
and marine structures across Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe
counties. Reports are prepared and sealed by a Florida-licensed structural
engineer, Florida license #72462. The elevation table in this report is the same
reference our own engineers work from.
Questions about a specific property, or a figure you want checked against
your city’s code: (877) 420-7220.
Got a seawall or structural question?
Five fields. Same business day from a Florida-licensed engineer, routed into our dispatch CRM in real time.
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- Fixed-fee proposalNo hourly billing. Repair scope priced line-by-line.