Florida · Fishing license · Cost
How much is a fishing license in Florida?
$17 a year if you live here, $47 if you don't.
Just passing through? Freshwater, 3 days costs $17 — the annual pays for itself from about 3 of those.
Every license price
| License | Who | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freshwater, annual | Resident | $17 |
| Freshwater, five years | Resident | $79 |
| Freshwater, lifetime (age 13 and up) Costs less if bought younger: 126.50 up to age 4, 226.50 for ages 5 to 12. | Resident | $301.50 |
| Saltwater, shoreline only Free, residents only. Covers fishing from shore or a structure attached to land — not from a boat, and not from an island you reached by boat. | Resident | Free |
| Saltwater, annual | Resident | $17 |
| Saltwater, five years | Resident | $79 |
| Saltwater, lifetime (age 13 and up) Includes the snook and lobster permits. Costs less if bought younger: 126.50 up to age 4, 226.50 for ages 5 to 12. | Resident | $301.50 |
| Freshwater and saltwater combination, annual Cheaper than buying both separately. | Resident | $32.50 |
| Freshwater, annual | Visitor | $47 |
| Freshwater, 3 days | Visitor | $17 |
| Freshwater, 7 days | Visitor | $30 |
| Saltwater, annual | Visitor | $47 |
| Saltwater, 3 days | Visitor | $17 |
| Saltwater, 7 days | Visitor | $30 |
Fees inside the price
License agents may add a 50-cent issuance fee. Buying online or by phone adds a surcharge that FWC states on its ordering page; the exact split between the flat fee and the percentage was not unambiguous at retrieval, so check the total before you pay. All sales are final and fees are non-refundable.
How long your money lasts
Valid for 12 months from the effective date you choose at purchase. The effective date cannot be set more than 90 days ahead.
What we could not pin down
Rather than fill these in from somewhere else, they stay open until FWC states them plainly.
- FWC's freshwater and saltwater pages list youth line items for ages 8 to 15 at the same price as the adult license, which sits oddly beside the confirmed exemption for anyone under 16. These were left out rather than published as fact.
- The Silver Sportsman's bundle for residents 64 and over is priced at 13.50 a year, but whether it covers saltwater as well as freshwater was not confirmed. Left out of the table.
- Only the April 2026 freshwater weekend was read as an explicit date on an FWC page. The remaining free days are published here as FWC's own recurring rule instead of as calculated dates.
