County guide · Palm Beach
Palm Beach County property appraiser search (PAPA): reading a PCN
PAPA is the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser's site at pbcpao.gov. Search it by address, owner or the parcel's 17-digit Property Control Number (PCN), and read the PCN as five groups: municipality, range-township-section, subdivision, block and lot. The first two digits matter most, because they name the city and with it the tax district whose millage sets the bill.
Three ways into PAPA
- The search box on pbcpao.gov takes an address, an owner's name or a PCN, for real or tangible property.
- More search options searches by subdivision, condo complex, municipality, use type, market value range, range-township-section or book and page, when you do not have an address.
- The map search is for a lot you can see but cannot name.
The PCN in five groups
Every one of the 657,490 Palm Beach parcels on the state's 2026 roll has a 17-character PCN, digits on all but 1,915 of them. PAPA's PCN page splits it like this:
| Digits | Group | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| 1-2 | Municipality | 00 is unincorporated; any other pair is a city, and it ties the parcel to its tax district |
| 3-8 | Range, township, section | The square mile on the survey grid, direction letters left out |
| 9-10 | Subdivision | Numbered as developments were platted; 00 for unplatted acreage |
| 11-13 | Block | A platted block, or in a condominium the floor or the building; 000 when unused |
| 14-17 | Lot | The parcel; the last digits track splits and part lots |
The first ten digits together, the SUBID, pick out a whole development: useful when you want every lot in one subdivision rather than one house.
What the numbers say about Palm Beach
- Most land is outside any city. 286,955 PCNs start with 00, 43.6% of the county; the rest spread over 40 first pairs.
- More than a quarter are condo units. 186,449 parcels, 28.4%, against 386,009 single-family homes. 130,675 of those units carry a block other than 000, which in a condominium is the floor or the building, so the PCN alone often tells you which tower and which floor.
- The tax district changes with the city. The appraiser's millage sheet lists 123 districts for 2025, adopted, from 14.87 to 22.81 mills, and 128 for 2026 as proposed. Two houses of the same taxable value can owe noticeably different bills. How to estimate one.
- Owners move between rolls. 19,757 parcels have a different owner on the state's October final roll than on July's preliminary. Read the owner on PAPA's current record, not on an older printout.
| Palm Beach, measured on 31 October 2026 | Value |
|---|---|
| Parcels on the 2026 roll | 657,490 |
| Share with a homestead exemption | 55.7% |
| Median qualified sale, one parcel, Sep 2025 to Aug 2026 (30,273 deeds) | $535,000 |
| Single-family home (18,216 deeds) | $620,000 |
| Condo unit (9,064 deeds) | $275,000 |
| Parcels whose owner matches a Florida company filing | 61,325 |
| Parcels with their own outline in FEMA's Special Flood Hazard Area | 29,814 of 461,391 (6.5%) |
Where PAPA stops
- Zoning is not on the record. The appraiser values property; the county and each city zone it. On our map the zoning of both comes from one county layer, Palm Beach County Planning, Zoning & Building's: 282,016 unincorporated parcels under 39 codes and 359,960 city parcels under 425. Inside a city, the city's own map and code are the authority. Zoning maps by county.
- The deed and anything recorded against it sit with the Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller, not the appraiser.
- A company owner is a name on PAPA. The people behind it are on Sunbiz: tracing a company to its managers.
The same parcel in Map Views
Type the address or the PCN's 17 digits. The report shows the owner, with its Sunbiz filing when it is a company, the sales, the values, the zoning code, the flood zone, the storm surge and evacuation zones, and your notes. It flags a parcel whose owner changed on the final roll, and from the owner one tap lists every parcel that owner holds, in Palm Beach and the other 66 counties.
PAPA's own record, as of the day you read it, outranks any copy, ours included: the roll we load is a snapshot taken on a set date. Zoning answers belong to the county or the city that adopted the code.