-
103,000
Floridians speak French at home
After Quebec, Florida is home to the second largest French-speaking community in North America.
Source: SelectFlorida, Canada
The corridor
What the Orlando region actually attracted over ten years, and where it came from. These figures cover the Orlando Metropolitan Statistical Area, not the whole of Florida.
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120
foreign investment projects in Orlando (2015-2025)
They account for close to 9,000 jobs and $2.7 billion invested over ten years.
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23.0%
of the region’s residents were born abroad (2026)
Nearly one resident in four, and the fastest-growing share among large U.S. regions.
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340+
foreign-owned companies in the region (2026)
From more than thirty countries, employing roughly 40,000 people.
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26
of those projects come from Canada, Belgium, France or Switzerland (2015-2025)
Canada 13, Belgium 5, France 4, Switzerland 4. The sum is ours: the Orlando Economic Partnership publishes the four figures separately.
Canada and Quebec
Canada is Florida’s second largest foreign investor, ahead of France, and its largest source of international visitors. It is the densest bridge in Florida’s French-speaking economy.
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300+
Canadian-owned companies in Florida
across more than 500 branch locations.
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54,000
jobs supported by Canadian-owned affiliates
more than 15% of all foreign-investment employment in the state.
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$11.1bn
in Florida–Canada merchandise trade (2022)
$5.3bn of exports, Florida’s 2nd market, and $5.8bn of imports.
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2nd
largest foreign direct investor in Florida (2020)
$14.5bn in gross property, plant and equipment.
Source: SelectFlorida, Canada
France
France is the state’s fourth largest foreign investor and its second largest European one. The groups present here concentrate in aerospace, industry and services.
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200+
French-owned companies in Florida
across more than 350 branch locations.
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37,000
jobs supported by French-owned affiliates (2020)
in Florida.
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$3.7bn
in Florida–France merchandise trade (2022)
$601m of exports, $3.107bn of imports.
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4th
largest foreign direct investor in Florida (2020)
$8.8bn in gross property, plant and equipment.
Source: SelectFlorida, France
These figures cover the whole of Florida and, unless stated otherwise, foreign-owned companies. They measure neither French Executive Network’s audience nor the number of French-speaking businesses in Central Florida.
Why this page exists
A young association is tempted to announce its own size. French Executive Network does not: it has no measurable audience yet, and an inflated number is expensive to whoever advances it.
What it can do is show that the link it serves exists and is measured by an official source. That is what this page is for.
What these figures do not say
They cover all of Florida and French-owned companies. None can be cut down to the Central Florida area without becoming false, and none counts French speakers: a Belgian restaurateur in Winter Park is not in them, an industrial site owned from Paris is.
They justify that a French-speaking network makes sense in Florida. They measure neither French Executive Network’s audience, nor the size of its community, nor the number of businesses in the region it covers.
What about Central Florida?
The Orlando–Space Coast corridor has no equivalent public measurement, and French Executive Network will not produce an estimate of one. Per-city counts will appear on the region map once the directory holds genuinely claimed listings, counted, not estimated.
Updating
These figures carry a year. When SelectFlorida publishes a new edition, the value, the year and the retrieval date are updated together. A 2020 figure presented as current is false data, even if it was once true.