Florida Propane Price 2026: Cost Per Gallon, Suppliers & Delivery

Florida residential propane runs $4.71/gal in 2026, +76% versus the $2.67 national average and +44% versus the $3.26 South regional average. Florida is a unique propane market: almost no winter heating demand, but heavy use for hurricane-season generators, pool heaters, water heating, and mobile-home communities. This is the no-spin breakdown, fill-cost math, FDACS-licensed dealer search, the snowbird seasonal-account model, and where Florida sits versus the rest of the South.

Latest EIA residential propane price

Source: EIA Florida residential propane price survey. Current data is the final release of the 2025/26 heating season (week ending 30 March 2026). EIA pauses weekly publication April-September; next release expected October 2026. Refreshed 26 May 2026.

Florida Propane Pricing Snapshot (2026)

Florida residential avg

$4.71/gal

EIA 2026 survey, full-service residential delivery

vs national average

+76%

National avg $2.67/gal. FL pays $2.03 more per gallon.

vs South region avg

+44%

Region avg $3.26/gal. Florida is the most expensive state in the South region by a wide margin, roughly 2x rates in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.

Hurricane-prep fill (250 gal)

$941

Top up before 1 June for generator coverage during peak Atlantic season

Pool-heater season cost (200 gal/mo)

$941/mo

Typical screened, covered in-ground pool, December-February only

500-gal commercial fill (400 usable)

$1882

Restaurants, agriculture, mobile-home parks, large hurricane reserves

The figures above are statewide retail averages from the EIA SHOPP residential propane price survey. Florida's residential propane mix is unusual: less than 5% of Florida households use propane for primary space heating (compared to 50%+ in northern propane-heat states), but a much larger share use propane for water heating, outdoor cooking, pool heaters, hurricane-prep backup generators, and seasonal RV/boat fuel. Per-gallon pricing within Florida varies by county, rural Panhandle and inland-citrus counties sit $0.10 to $0.30 above the urban Tampa-Orlando-Miami corridor due to lower route density.

Why Florida Propane Prices Sit Where They Do

Florida sits at $4.71/gal, which is +76% versus the national average and +44% versus the South regional average of $3.26/gal. That puts Florida in the same price tier as Vermont, Massachusetts, and Maine, a striking outcome for a state sitting roughly 600-900 miles from Mont Belvieu and the rest of the Gulf Coast production hub. The geographic advantage that should be making Florida cheap is being completely cancelled out by four structural demand-side and route-economics factors. None of them are winter heating, which is the single biggest factor in northern markets.

1. Thin propane customer base in urban Florida. Most of urban Florida (Tampa Bay, Orlando, Miami-Dade, Broward, Jacksonville) is served by piped natural gas for water heating and cooking, and the residential cooling and heating load runs almost entirely on electricity. That leaves propane as a niche fuel for rural North Florida, the Panhandle, the citrus belt, mobile-home and manufactured-home communities, agricultural operations, and the supplemental hurricane/pool/RV uses statewide. Less than 5% of Florida households use propane for primary space heating. A small, scattered customer base spreads supplier fixed costs (terminals, bobtails, drivers, dispatch, FDACS-licensed storage facilities) over far fewer gallons than a propane-dominant state like Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, and that overhead lands on every gallon delivered.

2. Hurricane-driven demand concentration. Atlantic hurricane season runs 1 June to 30 November, with peak storm activity August-October. Generator-driven propane demand concentrates into a narrow window: pre-season top-ups in May, then sharp pre-landfall and post-storm refill surges any time a named storm enters the basin. Suppliers carry inventory, fleet capacity, and overtime crews to serve those surges, then face flat demand the rest of the year. The whole cost structure is built around peak preparedness rather than steady volume, which removes the deep summer discounts seen elsewhere in the South and gets priced into the per-gallon rate year-round.

3. Rural-route economics outside the natural-gas corridors. Because urban Florida is on natural gas, the actual propane customers are spread across the rural Panhandle, North Florida, citrus-belt counties, and inland agricultural areas. Bobtail delivery routes there look more like rural Vermont or Maine than like dense propane-heat counties in Texas: long miles between drops, low gallons per stop, and a high share of 100 to 250-gallon residential tanks rather than the 500 and 1,000-gallon tanks that make rural Northeast routes economic. Those route mechanics show up as $0.10-$0.30/gal county-level premiums above the urban averages and several times that gap above Gulf-neighbour state rates.

4. Supplier consolidation and seasonal-overhead pricing. Florida's residential propane market is dominated by a handful of national chains (the Suburban / AmeriGas / Ferrellgas tier) plus a thinner layer of regional and county-level independents than you find in propane-heavy states. Less local competition means the statewide average sticks closer to the chains' posted rates. Layered on top, Florida's 800,000+ October-April seasonal residents force suppliers to price service contracts assuming partial-year occupancy, which adds account-level overhead per gallon delivered. Year-round residents who shop two or three FDACS-licensed quotes can claw back $0.30-$0.60/gal versus the headline statewide average, but the average itself reflects the full overhead load.

Florida Propane Fill Costs by Tank Size (at $4.71/gal)

Propane tanks fill to 80% of stated capacity (the "80% rule") to allow for thermal expansion, a particularly important rule in Florida summer heat, where ambient ground temperatures around buried tanks can exceed 95F. Florida's residential propane footprint skews smaller than northern states: most homes use 100 or 250-gallon tanks rather than 500 or 1,000-gallon. The larger sizes show up in commercial restaurants, agricultural operations, mobile-home park bulk supply, and homes with whole-home generators sized for multi-week outage coverage.

Tank size	Usable gallons (80%)	Fill cost at $4.71/gal	vs national ($2.67/gal)	Typical FL use
100 gal	80 gal	$376	+$163	Portable / mobile-home
250 gal	200 gal	$941	+$406	Most common FL residential
500 gal	400 gal	$1882	+$813	Pool heater + generator
1000 gal	800 gal	$3765	+$1626	Commercial / restaurant / agriculture

Compare to the national refill cost guide or check pricing in other states.

Florida's Hurricane-Season Propane Demand Cycle

Propane sits at the center of Florida hurricane preparedness because it is the only residential fuel that stores indefinitely, runs whole-home standby generators reliably, and remains accessible when grid-tied appliances fail. The annual demand cycle has four distinct phases.

May (pre-season top-ups). Wholesale propane sits at seasonal lows; supplier delivery routes are uncongested. This is the cheapest, fastest window to top up. Schedule a fill that brings you to 80% by 1 June.

June-July (active monitoring, low storm activity). Atlantic basin generally quiet. Use the window for pool heating, outdoor cooking, water heating, and any pre-school-year RV trips. Refill if you drop below 50%.

August-October (peak storm window). Statistically the most active part of Atlantic hurricane season. Major storm cones trigger 24-72 hour pre-landfall delivery surges; routes pause 24-48 hours before landfall and may stay paused 3-7 days after. Maintain 60%+ tank levels through this window. Per-gallon spot prices can spike 10-15% in immediate post-storm refills.

November-April (off-season + snowbird ramp). Storm risk drops to near zero by mid-November. Seasonal-resident inflows lift water-heating and pool-heater demand from November through March. Year-round residents shopping for new contracts get the best per-gallon rates in February-March, after winter peak and before hurricane prep.

Practical generator-sizing math: a 20kW standby generator burns 1.0-1.6 gal/hr at 50% load. A 250-gallon tank (200 usable) covers 60-100 hours of half-load run-time, refill cost $941. A 500-gallon tank (400 usable) covers 120-200 hours, closer to a realistic 5-7 day post-storm outage, refill cost $1882. If your generator was sized after a recent storm, double-check that the fuel tank can actually cover your worst realistic outage window.

How to Find an FDACS-Licensed Propane Supplier in Florida

Florida licenses propane dealers at the state level through the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS), Bureau of LP Gas Inspection. FDACS inspects facilities where LP gas is sold or stored and investigates accidents involving LP gas equipment. Buying from an unlicensed dealer is both a safety risk (no FDACS-inspected storage, no NFPA 58 compliance verification) and a consumer-protection risk (no state recourse if the contract goes bad). Three reliable starting points:

FDACS LP Gas Licenses page, fdacs.gov/Business-Services/LP-Gas-Licenses outlines the licensing categories and links the AES Licensing Portal at aeslicensing.fdacs.gov for licensee search.
Florida Propane Gas Association (FPGA), floridapropane.org publishes a member directory of dealers, dispensers, contractors, and supplier companies doing business in Florida. FPGA members are bound by the association's industry standards in addition to state licensing.
National Propane Gas Association (NPGA), npga.org member directory for cross-referencing nationally active suppliers serving Florida zip codes.

Always get a written quote that itemises per-gallon price, delivery fee, tank rental (if applicable), minimum-delivery surcharge, hurricane-priority service fees (some Florida suppliers charge a separate annual fee for guaranteed pre-storm delivery priority), and any monthly tank fee. Compare two or three quotes before committing. Per-gallon spreads of $0.30-$0.50 within the same Florida county are common, the highest spreads we see are between national chains and local independents in the rural Panhandle. If a company quoting you does not appear in the FDACS licensee search, do not sign and report the company by calling 1-800-HELP-FLA (1-800-435-7352).

Tier-1 supplier list coming. A hand-curated list of named Florida propane suppliers (with HQ, coverage area, and notes on contract types) is in our editorial pipeline. We publish supplier lists only once each name has been verified against the FDACS Bureau of LP Gas Inspection licensee search and the supplier's active service-area page. We do not generate supplier names from training data; that is a hallucination risk we treat seriously.

Florida LIHEAP: Heating and Cooling Assistance

Florida's LIHEAP program is administered by FloridaCommerce (formerly the Department of Economic Opportunity), with federal funds distributed through a network of local Community Action Agencies and nonprofit providers. Critically, Florida LIHEAP is structurally different from northern-state LIHEAP variants: it covers both heating assistance (the federal core program) and a meaningful summer cooling-assistance component, reflecting the reality that Florida households face their highest energy bills in July-September from air conditioning, not in January from heating.

Propane-heated households (more common in rural North Florida, the Panhandle, and the citrus belt) can apply the heating benefit toward propane delivery costs. Eligibility is generally tied to household income (typically under 60% of state median income), with priority for households containing elderly members, young children, or persons with disabilities.

How to apply. Apply online at the official statewide portal FloridaLIHEAP.com (available in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole). To find your county's designated provider, call 850-717-8450. Processing takes up to 15 business days; life-threatening energy crises are addressed within 18 hours.

Florida vs Other South Region States (2026)

State	Price/gal	500-gal refill (400 usable)	vs national ($2.67)
Florida (this page)	$4.71	$1882	+76%
Maryland	$3.74	$1496	+40%
Virginia	$3.56	$1426	+33%
Alabama	$3.52	$1406	+31%
South Carolina	$3.51	$1405	+31%
West Virginia	$3.51	$1405	+31%
North Carolina	$3.45	$1380	+29%
Tennessee	$3.25	$1299	+21%
Georgia	$3.16	$1266	+18%
Mississippi	$3.05	$1221	+14%
Texas	$2.99	$1196	+12%
Kentucky	$2.94	$1174	+10%
Louisiana	$2.93	$1172	+10%
Arkansas	$2.37	$947	-11%
Oklahoma	$2.27	$909	-15%
South regional avg	$3.26	$1304	+22%
National avg	$2.67	$1070	0%

Florida is the most expensive state in the South region by a wide margin and sits in the same price tier as Vermont, Massachusetts, and Maine, even though the rest of the South region (averaging $3.26/gal) is the cheapest cluster in the country. Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas run cheapest nationwide thanks to Gulf Coast production proximity and high propane-customer density; Florida pays roughly 2x those rates despite the same supply geography. The reason is demand-side: urban Florida runs on natural gas and electricity, so propane is a niche, scattered, high-overhead service split between rural North Florida, mobile-home parks, hurricane backup, and seasonal residents. The full South region averages $3.26/gal, but Florida at $4.71/gal is a clear outlier above both the regional and the $2.67 national mark.

Florida Propane FAQ

When should I top up my propane tank for hurricane season in Florida?

Top up before 1 June, the official start of Atlantic hurricane season. Florida propane suppliers see a sharp run on tank fills every May as homeowners prep generators, and again in any 72-hour window when a named storm enters the Gulf or Atlantic basins. Two practical rules: (1) keep the home tank above 50% from June through November so a four-day power outage on a generator does not strand you, and (2) do not wait until a storm cone forms, supplier delivery routes shut down 24 to 48 hours before landfall and may not resume for 3 to 7 days after. At the current Florida average of $4.71/gal, a precautionary top-up of a 250-gallon tank from 30% to 80% costs roughly $588; cheap insurance versus running dry mid-outage.

How long will a 250-gallon tank run a whole-home generator during a hurricane outage?

Depends on generator size and load. A typical 20kW residential standby generator burns roughly 2.0 to 3.4 gallons per hour at full load and 1.0 to 1.6 gallons per hour at 50% load. A 250-gallon tank holds about 200 usable gallons (the 80% rule), which gives you 60 to 100 hours at half load, roughly 3 to 4 days of continuous run time. A 500-gallon tank (400 usable) doubles that to 6 to 8 days, which is closer to the realistic outage window after a major Florida storm. At $4.71/gal, refilling a 250-gal tank costs $941 and a 500-gal tank costs $1882. If you bought a generator after Hurricane Ian without sizing the tank, you almost certainly under-sized your fuel supply.

How much propane does a Florida pool heater use per month?

Heating an in-ground pool with propane is one of the highest-demand residential uses in Florida. A 400,000 BTU pool heater (the standard size for a 15,000 to 30,000 gallon pool) burns about 4.4 gallons per hour at full output. Real-world use depends on starting water temperature, ambient air temperature, wind exposure, whether the pool has a solar cover, and target temperature. Practical ranges: a screened, covered pool used 3-4 times a week burns 80 to 200 gallons per month in winter (December-February) and very little April through October. An uncovered pool in north Florida heated to 86F year-round can burn 400 to 700 gallons per month in winter. At $4.71/gal that is $941 to $3294 per winter month for the high-use case. A solar cover cuts heat loss roughly 50 to 70% and is the single highest-ROI upgrade.

How does propane work in Florida mobile-home and manufactured-home communities?

Mobile-home and manufactured-home parks are one of the largest residential propane markets in Florida. Two models exist: (1) park-supplied, where the community owns a central bulk tank and meters propane to each home, you pay the park monthly based on metered usage; (2) individually-supplied, where each home has its own 100 or 120-gallon tank serviced directly by a licensed propane dealer. In park-supplied setups, you cannot shop suppliers, the rate is set by the park's contract with their fuel vendor and may run $5.11 to $5.51 per gallon (a $0.40 to $0.80 premium over the FDACS-published statewide average of $4.71). In individually-supplied setups, you can request quotes from any FDACS-licensed dealer serving your county. Florida HOA and park rules sometimes restrict tank placement; check the lot agreement before requesting a tank install.

How do I find a licensed propane dealer in Florida?

Florida licenses propane dealers at the state level through the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS), Bureau of LP Gas Inspection. FDACS inspects facilities where LP gas is sold or stored and investigates accidents involving LP gas equipment. Two reliable starting points: (1) the FDACS LP Gas Licenses page at fdacs.gov/Business-Services/LP-Gas-Licenses lists requirements and links the licensee search portal at aeslicensing.fdacs.gov; (2) the Florida Propane Gas Association (FPGA) member directory at floridapropane.org lists dealers, dispensers, contractors, and suppliers doing business in Florida. If a company quoting you does not appear in the FDACS licensee search, do not sign and report the company by calling 1-800-HELP-FLA (1-800-435-7352). Unlicensed propane delivery is a safety risk (no FDACS-inspected storage, no NFPA 58 compliance verification) and a consumer-protection risk (no recourse if the contract goes bad).

Does LIHEAP help with propane in Florida and is it really only for winter?

Florida LIHEAP is administered by FloridaCommerce (formerly the Department of Economic Opportunity), with funds distributed through a network of local Community Action Agencies and nonprofit providers. The official online application portal is FloridaLIHEAP.com (available in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole). Critically, Florida LIHEAP differs from northern-state LIHEAP variants: it covers both heating assistance (the federal core program) and a meaningful summer cooling-assistance component, reflecting the reality that Florida households face their highest energy bills in July-September from air conditioning, not in January from heating. Propane-heated households (more common in rural North Florida and the Panhandle) can apply the heating benefit toward propane delivery costs. Eligibility is generally tied to household income (typically under 60% of state median income), with priority for households containing elderly members, young children, or persons with disabilities. To find your county's provider, call 850-717-8450 or apply at FloridaLIHEAP.com. Processing takes up to 15 business days; life-threatening crises are addressed within 18 hours.

How do snowbird seasonal-resident propane accounts work in Florida?

Florida's seasonal-resident population (typically October through April) creates a propane usage pattern most suppliers outside the state never see. Two account structures: (1) seasonal will-call, where you suspend automatic delivery between May and September and call for a fill when you return; (2) year-round automatic delivery with a tank-monitoring device, useful if you rent the property out summer or want pool/water-heater service to continue. Most Florida suppliers waive the standard "winter minimum delivery" surcharge for verified seasonal accounts because the route economics still work, they have you for the high-demand months. Practical advice: schedule your top-up fill in late September or early October before the first northern arrivals push demand up, and never let a seasonal account drift below 30% before you leave in spring (a stranded tank in summer Florida heat is a documented cause of pressure-relief-valve venting that wastes propane and triggers a service call).