What wind speed does a pergola have to be designed for in Florida?

Reviewed 2026-08-26 · Built Roster LLC, Florida · Sources

What is the HVHZ?

The High-Velocity Hurricane Zone is a region defined in the Florida Building Code, Chapter 2 (Definitions), § 202, with its technical provisions in FBC § 1620 (HVHZ — Wind Loads) and in Chapter 44 of the Florida Building Code — Residential. Structures inside it are designed to a stricter set of provisions than the rest of the state.

§ 1620 sets the scope plainly: buildings and structures, and every portion thereof, shall be designed and constructed to meet the requirements of Chapters 26 through 31 of ASCE 7.

Which Florida counties are in the HVHZ?

Miami-Dade County and Broward County. Those two, and no others.

Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie, Monroe and Collier counties are not in the HVHZ. This trips people up constantly, because parts of those counties are subject to demanding wind provisions for a different reason — see the debris region below.

HVHZ design wind speeds by risk category

These are the values in FBC § 1620, as 3-second gust speeds. A single-family residential pergola falls in Risk Category II.

If you see a Florida pergola page quoting a vague “170 to 200 mph” range, it is rounding. The code gives specific values per county and per risk category, and a plans examiner reads the number printed on your drawing against them.

HVHZ is not the same as the wind-borne debris region

These two get conflated more than any other pair of terms in Florida construction, including by contractors who should know better.

Practically: a Palm Beach County address is not in the HVHZ, but it may well sit in a wind-borne debris region. Both facts can be true at once, and neither one answers the other question. Ask your building department which provisions apply at your address rather than inferring from the county name.

What this means for your drawing set

The design criteria block on a sealed pergola drawing is the first thing a plans examiner reads. It has to state the code edition in force, the risk category, the design wind speed, and the exposure category for your site — and the member sizes, connections and anchorage on the sheets have to be the ones those inputs actually produce.

This is also why an open structure is not the easy case people assume. A pergola has no enclosure to resist wind, so the load path runs through the rafters into the beams, into the posts, into the anchorage and into whatever the posts land on. Uplift on the connections, not the size of the timber, is usually what governs.

Who is supposed to run this calculation?

The engineer. A homeowner does not need to derive a design wind speed, and a contractor does not need to size a rafter — but both of them need to know that these numbers exist, because they are what turns a sketch into a structure someone can take responsibility for.

• The homeowner supplies the site: address, where the structure goes, what it attaches to, what the posts land on.
• The contractor supplies the real dimensions, the material and the construction method, and needs those settled before quoting, because a span is a structural decision with a price attached.
• The engineer selects the risk category and exposure, derives the design pressures, sizes members and connections, and signs and seals the result. Who is allowed to do that in Florida.