Budget Explorer · City of Miami

Where the money comes from, and where it goes

Comparable revenue, spending, and debt for City of Miami, on the same Census classification used for every city, county, and state in the Library — so the figures line up with peers rather than with the government's own budget book. Latest year: FY ending Sep 30, 2023. City of Miami's own FY2026 budget, in its own structure, follows below.

Audited actuals · Census classification · 450K residents

At a glance

Total revenue

$1.42B

$3,162 per resident

Total spending

$1.58B

$3,525 per resident

Spending per resident

$3,525

46th percentile of 71

Debt outstanding

$401M

$893 per resident · 11th percentile of 70

Own-source share

81%

50th percentile of 71

Capital share

13th percentile of 71

Where the money comes from

$1.42B total

Own-source revenue (taxes, charges, interest) versus aid from other governments. Utility and trust revenue are shown alongside general revenue but run on their own books.

Property tax$611M43%
Selective sales taxes$88M6%
License & other taxes$155M11%
Federal aid$130M9%
State & local aid$139M10%
Charges & fees$166M12%
Interest, fines, other$132M9%
Utility revenue$20K0%

Own-source share of general revenue 81% · federal aid 9% · property tax is 72% of taxes

Where it goes

$1.58B total

Current operations plus capital outlay, grouped by Census function. Interest on debt and transfers to other governments are broken out so they are not hidden inside services.

General government$606M38%
Public safety$596M38%
Environment & housing$146M9%
Culture & recreation$126M8%
Transportation$81M5%
Interest on debt$16M1%
Public welfare$12M1%

Show top functions with operating vs. capital ▸

Function	Category	Operating	Capital	Total
Financial administration	General government	$420M	$6.9M	$427M
Police protection	Public safety	$332M	$4.0M	$336M
Fire protection	Public safety	$214M	$6.7M	$221M
General (unallocable)	General government	$118M	$16M	$133M
Parks & recreation	Culture & recreation	$94M	$32M	$126M
Solid waste management	Environment & housing	$53M	$2.2M	$56M
Parking	Transportation	$53M	—	$53M
Housing & community development	Environment & housing	$45M	$4.2M	$50M
Natural resources	Environment & housing	$21M	$20M	$41M
Protective inspection & regulation	Public safety	$39M	$1K	$39M
Central staff services	General government	$34M	$276K	$34M
Highways	Transportation	$4.1M	$24M	$28M
Public welfare	Public welfare	$12M	$67K	$12M
Judicial & legal	General government	$12M	—	$12M

Trend · 3 fiscal years

Nominal dollars. The Census Bureau cautions that single-government series are edited only for aggregates — read direction, not decimals.

Revenue

+23% over 2 yrs

$1.15B → $1.42B

Spending

+21% over 2 yrs

$1.31B → $1.58B

Debt outstanding

-40% over 2 yrs

$667M → $401M

How it compares · 71 cities and counties in the Library

Percentile within the cohort on each place's latest Census year. Higher is not better — the last column says what a high reading means so you can decide whether it matters here.

Measure	City of Miami	Cohort median	Percentile	Higher means
Spending per resident	$3,525	$3,741	46th	more spent per resident
Revenue per resident	$3,162	$3,548	37th	more raised per resident
Taxes per resident	$1,901	$1,328	74th	heavier own-tax load
Debt per resident	$893	$3,865	11th	more borrowed per resident
Own-source share of revenue	81%	81%	50th	less dependent on aid
Federal aid share of revenue	9%	7%	70th	more exposed to federal cuts
Capital share of spending	7%	18%	13th	more building, less operating
Interest share of spending	1%	4%	5th	more spend servicing debt
Debt ÷ annual revenue	0.28×	1.05×	5th	more leveraged

About this data

Census classification categories, not this government's own budget structure. Figures are audited actuals for the fiscal year shown, not the adopted budget.
The Census Bureau edits unit-level data only to produce state and national aggregates and advises against reading it as a precise time series for any single government; treat year-over-year moves under ~5% as noise.
Employee-retirement-system revenue is excluded (published separately by Census). Utility and insurance-trust revenue are shown separately from general revenue.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances (Individual Unit public-use files), unit 122086194757 (Miami City). Retrieved 2026-09-07. Classification manual.

Spot an error, or know a better source for this place's adopted budget? Suggest an edit on the assessment.

Adopted budget · FY2026

City of Miami's own budget, in its own structure, read from its published budget book and checked against the total the document itself prints. This is the current year — more recent than the Census series above, but only comparable to this city's own history. Totals cover 34 departments.

$1.22B total

Police$416M34%
Fire-Rescue$271M22%
Non-Departmental Accounts$107M9%
Parks and Recreation$66M5%
Solid Waste$55M4%
Building$50M4%
Resilience and Public Works$45M4%
General Services Administration$42M3%
Real Estate and Asset Management$23M2%
Innovation and Technology$18M1%
City Attorney$16M1%
Finance$15M1%
All other (22)$102M8%

Parsed from the published budget book (page 16) — General Fund only. Miami publishes no all-funds table by department; its consolidated budget is about $1.83B.
The 34 lines sum exactly to the printed General Fund total of $1,224,745,000. Figures are printed rounded to the nearest thousand dollars.
The page's text layer emits each column as a separate list in a different order from the page, so every figure was matched to its department by position on the page.
Non-Departmental Accounts is a citywide line rather than a department.
Miami had not adopted its FY2026-27 budget when this was captured; the September hearings were still under way.
Miami's site refuses a plain download, so this book was read in a browser and is refreshed by hand.
Source: FY2025-26 Adopted Budget Book (General Fund Budget by Department) (published budget book), retrieved 2026-09-13. Open the source document.

Looking for how this fits City of Miami's capacity to deliver? The fiscal dimension, binding constraint, and pathways live in the City of Miami capacity assessment.