Florida Logistics and Warehousing 2026

Private transportation and warehousing companies in Florida averaged 411,378 jobs at 21,962 establishments in 2025, and wholesale trade added 397,389 more.

Both figures are annual averages from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages for Florida (BLS QCEW 2025, Florida statewide file). Transportation and warehousing paid $70,344 on average and grew by 6,134 jobs, or 1.5 percent; wholesalers paid $105,377 and grew 0.4 percent. Federal transportation and warehousing employment was 37,960, with 36,604 of those jobs in postal service establishments.

FloridaCommerce uses a wider net. Its Logistics target industry, renamed in the 2025 report from Global Logistics and Trade, is primarily composed of wholesale trade (NAICS 42) and portions of transportation and warehousing (NAICS 48-49), and counts 731,724 jobs at 62,603 establishments with a GDP of $169.2 billion (FloridaCommerce Target Industry Report 2025). The agency forecasts 42,832 more jobs by 2028, a 6.0 percent rise. The report gives the sector's 2024 average wage as $89,537 in its key indicators table and $81,924 in its Logistics graphic.

Warehousing and storage is the largest private transportation and warehousing segment in Florida at 105,401 jobs, and freight transportation arrangement pays the most of the segments below at $78,379 a year.

The table lists the main private segments in the 2025 Florida wage file (BLS QCEW 2025, Florida statewide file).

Within warehousing, general warehouses hold 100,530 of the 105,401 jobs at $53,164 on average, refrigerated warehouses 1,969 at $68,196, and other specialized storage 2,828 at $76,578 (BLS QCEW 2025). On the wholesale side, durable goods distributors employed 217,554 at $110,318 and nondurable goods distributors 155,777 at $96,831.

Florida trucking employment shrank in 2025: truck transportation lost 927 jobs statewide, led by a 2.7 percent drop in general freight hauling.

General freight trucking fell by 1,157 jobs to 41,902 (BLS QCEW 2025, Florida). Local general freight carriers dropped 4.4 percent to 14,229 jobs, long-distance truckload carriers 2.3 percent to 17,072, and less than truckload carriers held near steady at 10,601 jobs with the highest trucking pay, $76,482. Specialized freight trucking grew 1.0 percent to 23,134.

Local delivery moved the other way. Local messengers and delivery services added 903 jobs, up 7.3 percent, though they paid the lowest average in the table at $41,188 (BLS QCEW 2025, Florida). In the 2025 file, warehousing and local delivery added jobs while general freight trucking lost them.

Polk County leads Florida in general warehouse employment with 18,828 jobs, ahead of Duval, Miami-Dade, Orange and Hillsborough counties.

Polk's 49 warehouse establishments added 898 jobs in 2025, up 5.0 percent, at an average of $50,404 (BLS QCEW 2025, NAICS 493110 by county). Duval County had 14,679 warehouse jobs at 84 establishments, Miami-Dade 12,230 at 176 establishments, the most sites of any county, Orange 11,906, up 6.7 percent, and Hillsborough 11,661 at the highest average pay of the five, $55,751. Broward County reported 5,492 and Palm Beach County 3,279.

Average warehouse pay across the five largest counties ran from $50,404 in Polk County to $55,751 in Hillsborough County, while Broward County's 5,492 warehouse jobs paid $59,534 on average (BLS QCEW 2025, NAICS 493110).

Florida freight moves through 16 publicly owned seaports, about 2,700 miles of freight rail, 21 commercial service airports and 19 active foreign trade zones, according to state agencies.

The FDOT Seaport Office coordinates planning and infrastructure funding with the 16 ports (FDOT Seaport Office). Its port profiles describe distinct cargo roles: Port Everglades is a leading container port and South Florida's main receiving point for gasoline, jet fuel and other petroleum products; the Port of Fernandina serves more than ten pulp and paper producers and handles steel exports; Port Canaveral handles space industry project cargo such as rockets; and JAXPORT, which owns three cargo facilities and a cruise terminal, is credited with supporting 132,000 jobs in northeast Florida.

FloridaCommerce counts 2,700 miles of freight rail, 130 public use airports, three active spaceports and the second largest foreign trade zone network in the country, with 19 active zones (FloridaCommerce Target Industry Report 2025). FDOT's Freight and Rail Office develops the Florida Rail System Plan and the Freight Mobility and Trade Plan, and its page links to railroads including CSX, Norfolk Southern, the Florida East Coast Railway, the Florida Central Railroad, the Florida Northern Railroad and the Seminole Gulf Railway (FDOT Freight and Rail Office).

The state's highest priority for transportation capacity investments is the Strategic Intermodal System, which the Governor and Legislature set up in 2003 to aim limited transportation resources at the facilities most important for interregional, interstate and international travel (FDOT Strategic Intermodal System). Port trade is covered in the separate Florida trade and ports guide.

Logistics is on the Florida target industry list, which identifies sectors eligible for state economic development programs, and FloridaCommerce reports facilitating 11 logistics projects from 2022 to 2024.

Those 11 projects, out of 29 opportunities the agency worked, accounted for an estimated 2,543 new and retained jobs and $467.9 million in projected capital investment (FloridaCommerce Target Industry Report 2025). The report ties the sector to trade: Florida-origin exports were nearly $72.2 billion in 2024, up 4.7 percent, and merchandise trade, exports plus imports, reached $196.9 billion, up 3.1 percent. It also counts nearly 60,000 exporting companies, second among the states.

The report says the 16 seaports collectively generate 1.2 million jobs and that port operations account for 12.2 percent of Florida's total GDP, about $196 billion (FloridaCommerce).

Last verified: October 18, 2026, against the BLS 2025 wage files for Florida and for general warehousing by county, the FloridaCommerce 2025 target industry report, and the FDOT seaport, freight and rail, and Strategic Intermodal System pages.