Orlando apartment operating costs are rising most visibly in city-set utility charges: sewer rates increased on October 1, 2026, with further steps scheduled through fiscal 2030, the stormwater fee per square foot of impervious area is climbing each year, and solid waste rates follow their own multi-year plan. Property taxes, insurance and the city’s energy benchmarking rule for larger buildings round out the list of local line items that owners of five-plus-unit buildings need to budget for.
This guide goes through each of those costs using City of Orlando, Orange County and State of Florida sources, and then shows how they fit into an operating budget. Rates change often, so each figure is tied to the year it applies to.
The Orlando rental market behind the expense lines
Orlando is an incorporated city and the county seat of Orange County. According to Orange County Government’s history page, the Town of Orlando was incorporated on July 31, 1875, with a population of 85. Census QuickFacts estimated 333,888 residents on July 1, 2025.
It is also a renter-majority city. QuickFacts reports an owner-occupied housing rate of 39.5% for 2020 to 2024, which means roughly six in ten occupied homes are rented. The median gross rent for those years was $1,747, and median household income was $72,336.
That matters for operating costs in two ways. First, a large share of Orlando’s housing stock is apartments, so many city fees have separate multifamily rates rather than one residential rate. Second, with median rent around $1,747, a $10 or $15 monthly increase in a per-unit utility charge is a meaningful share of what an owner collects, especially when the lease structure does not pass that cost through to residents.
Electricity and water from OUC
Most Orlando properties buy electricity and water from the Orlando Utilities Commission. According to OUC’s own description, it is a municipally owned, not-for-profit public utility that has served Central Florida since 1923. Because it is owned by the city, its rates are set locally rather than by an investor-owned utility, though rate structure filings still go to the Florida Public Service Commission.
In July 2026, OUC filed an electric rate restructuring with the Public Service Commission. According to the filing, the change is designed to be revenue-neutral. It adds a tiered demand-based charge and lowers the non-fuel energy charge, and OUC stated that a residential bill for 1,000 kilowatt-hours would decrease by 15 cents, from $134.00 to $133.85. The filing said the base changes would take effect November 1, 2026, once approved, and that they also apply to general service non-demand customers, the category that often covers common-area meters at smaller properties.
For apartment owners, the practical question is which meters are in the owner’s name. In buildings where each unit is separately metered and residents pay OUC directly, the owner’s electric exposure is mostly common areas, exterior lighting, pools and vacant units. In older master-metered buildings, the owner carries the whole bill, and any shift in how demand is priced deserves a closer look at the property’s load profile.
City sewer rates rose October 1, 2026
Sewer service inside the city is provided by the City of Orlando and billed on the OUC statement. According to the city’s page on sewer billing rates, new fees took effect on October 1, 2026 after City Council approved them on June 8, 2026, with further increases scheduled each fiscal year through 2030.
Multifamily units inside the city pay a flat monthly charge per unit, which the city lists as:
- Studio or one-bedroom units: $50.20 per month in fiscal 2027, rising to $54.96 in fiscal 2028, $60.17 in fiscal 2029 and $64.69 in fiscal 2030.
- Units with two or more bedrooms: $61.03 per month in fiscal 2027, rising to $66.81, $73.15 and $78.64 over the following three years.
The city notes that the owner must certify the units and that there are no retroactive credits, so an owner whose unit mix is recorded incorrectly should fix it promptly. Buildings served through a master meter are billed under commercial rules instead, which the city lists as a $28.03 base charge for each 7,000-gallon unit plus $6.77 per 1,000 gallons in fiscal 2027.
To put the flat rates in perspective, a hypothetical 24-unit building with 12 one-bedroom and 12 two-bedroom units would pay about $1,334 a month, or roughly $16,000 a year, in sewer charges at fiscal 2027 rates. At the fiscal 2030 rates, the same mix would cost about $1,720 a month. Whether the owner or residents bear that cost depends on how the building is metered and how leases handle utilities.
The stormwater fee on the property tax bill
Orlando also charges a stormwater utility fee, and it is easy to overlook because it does not arrive as a separate bill. According to the city’s stormwater utility fee page, the charge is billed annually in the fall as a non-ad valorem assessment on the Orange County property tax bill.
The fee is based on the square footage of impervious area on the parcel, such as roofs, parking lots and walkways, and residential, multifamily and commercial parcels pay the same rate per square foot. The city lists the annual rate as $0.08092 per square foot in fiscal 2025, $0.10115 in fiscal 2026, $0.12138 in fiscal 2027 and $0.12745 in fiscal 2028.
Garden-style apartment properties with large parking fields feel this the most. A property with 100,000 square feet of roof and pavement would pay about $12,138 at the fiscal 2027 rate, up from about $8,092 at the fiscal 2025 rate. The city offers a reduced rate for parcels with on-site stormwater facilities that meet its criteria, so owners of properties with retention ponds or similar systems should check whether they qualify.
Solid waste rates for multifamily properties
Garbage and recycling service for many Orlando apartment properties comes from the city’s solid waste division, and the city has adopted a rate plan for fiscal 2027 through fiscal 2030. According to the city’s solid waste rate adjustment page, multifamily rates per unit per month are:
- One-bedroom units: $21.02 in fiscal 2027, rising to $23.54, $24.72 and $25.96 over the next three years.
- Units with two or more bedrooms: $25.18 in fiscal 2027, rising to $28.20, $29.61 and $31.09.
For properties served by commercial containers, the city lists a $39.69 minimum charge and $9.12 per cubic yard in fiscal 2027, with compacted waste at $19.22 per cubic yard. Larger complexes often fall into the container category, and the right container size and pickup frequency can make a noticeable difference in the annual cost.
BEWES benchmarking for larger apartment buildings
The City of Orlando’s Building Energy and Water Efficiency Strategy, known as BEWES, requires larger buildings to report energy use each year. According to the city’s BEWES program page, buildings of 50,000 square feet and above must benchmark their energy consumption annually, and the city’s compliance guide explicitly includes multifamily buildings.
Key points for apartment owners:
- The submission deadline for the 2026 compliance season was May 1, 2026. Owners should check the city’s page for the deadline that applies to each new season.
- Water benchmarking is not required for compliance, though the program’s name includes water.
- The city’s materials also reference energy audit and retro-commissioning submissions for covered buildings, so owners of larger properties should read the compliance guide to see when those apply.
Benchmarking itself is mostly a staff-time cost, since owners typically gather utility data and enter it into the federal ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager tool. For mid-size properties without on-site management, many owners pay a consultant or their management company to handle it. The more significant cost is any required audit or upgrade work, which is why it is worth knowing early whether a building falls inside the program.
State rules that shape compliance costs
Two pieces of Florida law help define which compliance costs an Orlando apartment owner does and does not carry.
The first is preemption. Under section 83.425 of the Florida Statutes, the regulation of residential tenancies and the landlord-tenant relationship is preempted to the state and supersedes local government regulations on those subjects, including matters such as screening, deposits, fees and notices. For budgeting purposes, that means the rules governing leases, deposits and notices come from state law rather than a separate City of Orlando ordinance, which keeps the legal side of operations consistent with other Florida cities.
The second is the milestone inspection law that followed the 2021 Surfside condominium collapse. Under section 553.899, milestone structural inspections apply to buildings of three or more habitable stories that are under condominium or cooperative ownership. A rental apartment building owned as a single property is not covered by that statute, so owners should not budget for milestone inspections simply because a building is tall. Insurers and lenders may still ask for roof, wind mitigation or structural information, and those reports carry their own costs.
Property taxes on Orlando apartment buildings
Property tax is usually the largest fixed expense for an Orlando apartment owner. According to the Florida Department of Revenue’s comparison of adopted levies for 2025-26, the City of Orlando’s millage rate was 6.6500 and the Orange County Board of County Commissioners’ rate was 4.4347. Those are only two of several taxing authorities on a city property’s bill, which also includes the school board and other districts. In its press release on the fiscal 2026-27 budget, the city said it was maintaining its current millage rate for the 13th consecutive fiscal year.
The 10% assessment cap and the November ballot
Florida limits how much the assessed value of non-homestead property can rise each year for non-school taxes. Under section 193.1554 of the Florida Statutes, residential property with nine or fewer units is capped at a 10% annual increase. Buildings with 10 or more units fall under section 193.1555, which applies the same 10% limit to non-residential and other residential property. The cap resets when the property changes ownership or control, so a buyer may see a much larger jump than the seller ever did.
That cap could change soon. According to a property tax FAQ published by the Manatee County Property Appraiser, a proposed constitutional amendment on the November 3, 2026 general election ballot would lower the non-homestead cap from 10% to 5% for non-school taxes, and the FAQ lists rental property as non-homestead property. The outcome will matter for long-term expense projections on Orlando apartments either way.
Bill timing and the early-payment discount
The Orange County Tax Collector states that property tax bills are mailed by November 1 each year and become delinquent on April 1. Under section 197.162, owners who pay early receive a discount of 4% in November, 3% in December, 2% in January and 1% in February. On a $60,000 tax bill, paying in November rather than March saves $2,400, so cash timing is worth planning around.
The Live Local Act exemption
Florida’s Live Local Act created a property tax exemption under section 196.1978 for newly built multifamily projects with more than 70 units set aside for income-qualified households. Units for households at or below 80% of area median income can be fully exempt, and units for households between 80% and 120% can be 75% exempt, subject to rent limits and an annual application. It is mainly relevant to new development rather than existing older buildings.
Insurance and storm exposure
Property insurance is the line item Florida owners watch most closely, and the trend has improved after several difficult years. Citizens Property Insurance, the state-created insurer of last resort, reported in March 2026 that it had about 336,000 policies, down 76% from a peak of 1.41 million in October 2023, and that its average personal-lines homeowners rates would fall 8.8% effective July 1, 2026. Florida Realtors, citing a September 2026 release from the Office of Insurance Regulation, reported that 48 companies have filed for rate decreases and 53 for no change since January 2024.
Those figures are mainly about homeowners coverage, and commercial residential policies for apartment buildings are priced differently, based on construction type, roof age, wind mitigation features, claims history and location. Owners should not assume their renewal will follow the homeowners trend, but the broader market has more carriers competing than it did in 2022 and 2023.
Orlando is inland, but it is not free of storm risk. During Hurricane Ian in September 2022, the city reported historic flooding throughout Orlando, with many areas receiving more than 14 inches of rain. Flood exposure varies a great deal from one parcel to the next, so drainage, elevation and any FEMA flood zone designation are worth checking for each property rather than assuming an inland location means low risk.
Putting Orlando apartment operating costs into a budget
The local items above sit alongside the usual expenses every apartment owner carries, such as payroll, repairs, turnover, management and reserves. A practical way to approach the Orlando-specific pieces:
- Confirm the meter setup and which party pays OUC electric and water, city sewer and solid waste for each unit.
- Recalculate sewer and solid waste charges using the fiscal 2027 per-unit rates and the scheduled increases through 2030.
- Measure impervious area and estimate the stormwater fee at $0.12138 per square foot for fiscal 2027, and check eligibility for the reduced rate.
- If the building is 50,000 square feet or more, add BEWES benchmarking and any audit work to the compliance budget.
- Model property tax with the 10% non-homestead cap in mind, remembering that a sale resets the assessed value.
- Plan to pay the tax bill in November for the 4% discount if cash flow allows.
- Get insurance quotes well ahead of renewal, with current wind mitigation documentation.
Because utility charges are scheduled to rise each year through 2030, a budget built on fiscal 2026 rates will understate costs. Running the updated figures through our NOI calculator shows how each change affects net operating income. Owners comparing their numbers with local market conditions can also visit our page on selling an apartment building in Orlando, or see other cities on our Florida markets page.
