How many Brits are there in Florida? This is the question I am asked hundreds of times a year by reporters, agencies, Brits and curious Americans. Nobody can know for certain because nobody can track it. Britons move in and out of Florida every day, setting up businesses, emigrating here or going back to UK for good. Some die and insist on being buried in the UK--nobody tracks that number either. Brits are not required to register officially with anybody in Florida, so even if you wanted to headcount them you couldn't. When I interviewed the British Ambassador to the USA in 1993, the top British official here, he said "Frankly, Patricia The British Government has no idea how many Brits are in Florida. And that's on the record." That has not changed. Tony Blair's UK Government Think Tank asked me again [in May 2006 via email] to provide figures for their research, on the number of Brits in Florida. In Feb. 2006 The British Consulate in Orlando also tried to set up a system whereby they could track the British community in Florida, in case of distress in hurricanes etc, but I expained they would have the same problem. But only the British Bureau keeps any statistics at all. We can safely estimate there are 400,000 Brits living in Florida permanently or temporarily, spread across every part of Florida. This is based on our vast database of Brits in all areas, British businesses and professionals, FABB members and the entire Florida circulation and subscription list of the Union Jack Newspaper. ----Patricia Kawaja BRITISH BUREAU MIAMI
-----1.5 million British tourists visit Florida each year--official figures fro State Tourism Department.
---Florida is the most popular state for property buyers from the UK.
----Since 1990 Britain has owned more of corporate America than any other country. The UK is the largest foreign investor in the USA.
BRITISH IMMIGRANTS ..excerpt from my October 2006 column in Union Jack Newspaper: " The United States Citizen and Immigration Service
[USCIS] recently announced its 2005 figures for official immigration to the
USA. So herewith some key statistics I've selected, relevant to
Brits: 1] Florida came second to California as the most
popular state for Brits to settle in, but showed a 100% rise in immigrants since
2004. That year, 1416 Brits settled officially on US visas.
In 2005 it was up to 2396. 2] The most popular Florida cities Brits chose to settle in were Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, second Orlando, third Tampa. 3] In 2005 the USA granted visas to 1,122, 373 new
immigrants from 192 countries. These settled in all 50
states and 19,800 were Brits. South Dakota was the least popular state but
still gained 7 new Brits I was fascinated to see. [The Brokeback Brits, tee
hee?] 4] Most UK Brits came here on family visas [marriage to
Americans etc] rather than E2/B1/B2 work/business
visas. 5] Of European immigrants into Florida, Ukrainian
immigrants beat the Brits into second place.
-----Amazing. I don't hear many Russian accents yet in
Florida, do you? "
From a NEWS REPORT from Washington DC by McClatchy News Service September 16, 2006. [I've edited it for relevance--PK] The US Government still has no means of tracking foreign travellers arriving in America, even though Congress passed a bill and approved $900 million dollars to create a tracking system called US-VISIT. But it never got off the ground properly and there is still no system to track foreigners when they leave, Homeland Security officials said. The article said the US Government has a partial system to track SOME foreigners on arrival, but no system to headcount if/when they leave. All of which adds to the reason why nobody can provide an official figure on the number of Brits in America.
JULY 2006. The UK's Institute for Public Policy in London, working with the Foreign and Commonwealth contacted me for their Brits Abroad reserach project. They were conducting the UK's largest survey ever on British expats living abroad. They asked me for statistics and an overview of Brits in Florida.
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Statistics: Brits In Florida 
