Orlando Market Commentaries are a series of timely analyses produced by the Orlando Economic Partnership’s Research & Strategy team. Commentaries are typically associated with a major data release or cover areas key to advancing the Partnership’s goal of Broad-based Prosperity®.
| ✓ | New GDP estimates suggest the Orlando region’s economy reached $233 billion in 2024. |
| ✓ | Orlando was the eighth fastest-growing large economy in the U.S., with all but one local county also seeing growth above the national rate. |
| ✓ | GDP remains an imperfect measure of economic health that can nevertheless help identify opportunities for strengthening our economy. |
Delayed federal estimates released on February 5 indicate that the Orlando MSA added another $15 billion to its GDP in 2024, marking the fourth straight year the region grew at a faster rate than the national economy.
Orlando remained the 24th largest regional economy in the U.S in 2024, registering a current-dollar GDP of more than $233 billion – now bigger than 18 U.S. states, after overtaking Kansas.
Florida’s Fastest-Growing Economy, Again
In growth terms, the Orlando MSA’s real GDP (adjusted for inflation) expanded by 3.5% in 2024 – considerably higher than the 2.8% growth experienced by the wider U.S. economy.
It was the region’s fourth consecutive year of above-average growth following a pandemic-related decline in 2020, leaving the economy some 24% larger than in 2019 and 55% larger than a decade ago.
Many of the nation’s 387 metropolitan areas saw GDP growth slow in 2024 as economic conditions continued to normalize following the pandemic.
Orlando was once again the fastest-growing region among Florida’s ‘Big 3’ in 2024, outperforming both Tampa (3.3%), and Miami (2.7%). Jacksonville’s economy grew at the same pace as Orlando’s (3.5%) but is approximately 40% smaller.
Among the 30 most populous regions in the country, Orlando was the eighth fastest-growing economy and the sixth fastest-growing in nominal terms (inflation in Florida was again higher than in the U.S. in 2024).
The list of fastest-growing large economies in 2024 broadly reflects the ongoing migration of people and businesses to the Sun Belt, as well as growth of the tech industry in Seattle.
At the county level, all but Seminole County experienced growth in 2024 above the national rate of 2.8%. Osceola and Lake saw the fastest growth among large counties in Florida (those with populations greater than 100,000) after neighboring Sumter County.
Outpacing the Nation
All but three industries (information, manufacturing, and wholesale trade) saw stronger growth in Orlando than in the U.S. in 2024.
Ongoing investment in infrastructure drove particularly strong local performance in construction, while a series of corporate expansions (BNY, JPMorgan, and Charles Schwab) ensured continued strength in the region’s finance sector.
A record-breaking 75 million visitors helped maintain momentum in the region’s headline tourism industry.
A Manadate for Action
With a stated mission of advancing Broad-based Prosperity®, the Orlando Economic Partnership recognizes that true economic health is measured by the ability of all residents to share in growth, not simply by the total value of all goods and services produced in the region (the technical definition of GDP).
Still, analysis of a region’s GDP allows us to assess local productivity: a key enabler of an economy’s ability to pay higher wages. Regions with high productivity are often home to highly innovative industries, such as aerospace, technology, finance and life sciences, that trade in high-value goods or services and can pay higher wages.
Orlando’s productivity levels in 2024 (measured by GDP per job), long shaped by the region’s large service economy, still trail those of most major metros.
The Orlando 2045 Regional Vision seeks to change this by building a global creative capital and Top 10 Innovation Hub, anchoring future growth in innovative industries capable of raising productivity and wages. The outcomes of this vision will play a central role in boosting the region’s economic performance in 2026 and beyond.
