Start with the Pinellas County Flood Elevation Certificate page if you need a building’s elevation certificate. It links a map for available documents and gives Flood Information Services at 727-464-7700 for help. First decide whether the property is in unincorporated Pinellas or a municipality. The County describes its own copies as covering unincorporated floodplain buildings constructed since 1992; a blank County result for a city address is a custodian question, not proof no certificate exists.
Follow the address to the certificate attachment
Open the County’s linked Elevation Certificate Map. Its on-screen instructions direct an address search: enter the property address in the upper-left search bar and use the magnifying glass. If a certificate or FEMA letter is available, select the map icon for the location, then look at Attachments in the bottom of the pop-up for a download link. Save the document itself, not just the map pin. The map is a route to records; a point on it is not a survey or a current flood-status determination.
Compare the downloaded document’s site address, date, building description and preparer with the property you are checking. A parcel can have more than one structure or a later improvement, and an old certificate may describe an earlier configuration. Keep the certificate date and the permit number if the document shows one. A permit search and an elevation certificate answer different questions: our Pinellas permit-search guide helps trace construction, while the certificate is the particular surveyor-prepared record to inspect here.
The County page also links a viewer for previously submitted certificates. If the first map has no attachment, follow that second official link. Save any document you find with its title, site address and date, then compare it with the building and period you need. A copy in either viewer does not establish that it is the latest certificate for the site.
Know when the County file is unlikely to hold the document
The County collects certificates through its building-permit process and says it does not hold those made solely for flood insurance. For an older building or an insurance-only document, ask about custody before treating the map as the complete file.
If the address lies inside a Pinellas municipality, the County directs readers to contact the city for flood information. Check the property’s issuing jurisdiction before using the County map as a final answer. The city-versus-county records guide explains why a permit or certificate may be filed under a different local office even when the mailing address says “Pinellas County.”
Use a small record worksheet before calling:
- Identity: property address, municipality or unincorporated status, parcel identifier if you have it, and the building or unit involved.
- Search result: which County map you used, any attachment title and date, or the exact point where the route produced no document.
- Requested item: the elevation certificate for a specific building and approximate construction or improvement period, not a generic flood-zone conclusion.
The County page lists Flood Information Services for copies and questions. Give staff those identifiers and ask whether a certificate is held in the County file, whether a different dated copy exists, or whether the city is the relevant custodian. If the county has no copy, a property owner, surveyor or other recipient may hold a privately prepared certificate; that possibility is different from a County-issued record. Preserve the agency’s answer rather than treating an empty map as a definitive historical finding.
A missing map attachment does not prove that no elevation certificate was prepared. It also says nothing conclusive about the property’s present flood risk or an insurance requirement. Use the actual dated certificate and current official flood information for those separate questions.
Check the state’s elevation certificate search too
Florida keeps its own collection. The Pinellas County Flood Elevation Certificate page notes that copies of certificates must go to the Florida Division of Emergency Management under Florida Statute 472.0366. The FDEM Elevation Certificates page says surveyors must submit a digital copy within 30 days of completing a certificate, and that the public can search a property to see whether one exists. That makes the state search a useful second check when the County map comes up empty.
- Open the FDEM Elevation Certificates page and follow its link to the public property search.
- Search the property. A property profile can show parcel and building information, flood data from FEMA’s National Flood Hazard Layer, and any certificate on file.
- Don’t worry if the owner’s name is blank. FDEM allows the owner name to be redacted, and the filed copy doesn’t need to be signed and sealed; the surveyor keeps the sealed original.
- If nothing turns up, FDEM says to contact the local government where the property is. For unincorporated Pinellas, that’s Floodplain Management at floodplain@pinellas.gov or (727) 464-7700.
FDEM says it makes no warranty about the accuracy of the certificates it posts, so check the address, date and building description on a state copy just as you would on a County one. The County page also limits its own holdings to completed buildings: if construction was never finished, there’s no County certificate to find.
Official Pinellas County Flood Elevation Certificate and Florida Division of Emergency Management pages checked October 20, 2026. If the County’s older certificate viewer asks you to sign in, use the Elevation Certificate Map or the state search instead.