Driver License Exchange Reports for Sarasota and Manatee

Florida REALTORS® has provided driver license exchange reports from out of state for Sarasota and Manatee counties. These reports compare the annual totals for 2023 in driver license exchanges to the average annual totals from the pre-pandemic period of 2016-2019. They serve as a useful tool for evaluating the current rate and source of domestic in-migration to Florida's counties, relative to the pre-pandemic period.

Driver license exchanges from a U.S. Territory or Foreign was ranked No. 1 across all comparisons for both counties. New York ranked No. 2 and Illinois ranked No. 3 for the largest number of exchanges in 2023 for Sarasota and Manatee. When comparing the largest percent change in annual exchanges, Washington ranked No. 2 in Sarasota County with a 178% increase and Utah ranked No. 2 in Manatee County with a 148% increase.

Sarasota County Report  Manatee County Report

ABOUT THIS DATA

• New Florida residents must obtain a valid Florida driver license within 30 days of establishing Florida residency.
• The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (FLHSMV) tracks the state of origin of these applicants.
• FLHSMV provides the number of total exchanges by origin state and destination county.
• These statistics do not necessarily lend insight to the number of in-migrating home buyers versus renters, but they do give us a better sense of recent patterns of migration to Florida than many other data sets can.
• The tables in these documents compare the annual number of license exchanges over the past year (2023) to the average annual number of license exchanges observed during the pre-pandemic years 2016-2019.