This year, Myrtle Beach July 4th tourism is expected to reach new heights, drawing in visitors eager to celebrate the holiday in their 2nd homes, and staying with family members in neighborhoods like Carolina Forest, Longs, Conway, Burgess, etc.
Families vacationing with families in local neighborhoods is another reason local highways are so busy.
Horry County has an estimated 237,830 housing units as of 2025. That is a big, round, impressive number — and it is easy to misread. It does not mean 237,830 families are throwing open their doors to visiting relatives this Fourth of July.
The increase in tourists during this season highlights the significance of Myrtle Beach July 4th tourism for the local economy.
Not every one of those homes is even lived in year-round. The gap between how many homes stand here and how many are actually occupied by year-round residents is the real story of tourism season on the Grand Strand — and it explains a lot about the week you’re living through right now.
What 237,830 Actually Counts
Myrtle Beach July 4th Tourism Trends
Start with the distinction that matters. A “housing unit” is any place built to be lived in — a house, a condo, an apartment, an oceanfront rental. A “household” is a housing unit with people actually living in it as their home. Those are not the same number, and in Horry County they are not even close.
The county has roughly 237,830 housing units (2025) [Florence News Journal, 2025]. But it has only about 176,000 occupied households [American Community Survey, 2024]. That leaves a spread of roughly 60,000 units — homes that stand on the tax rolls but are not somebody’s year-round address.
Some of that gap is ordinary vacancy. Most of it is not. It is the physical infrastructure of the tourism economy: condos, beach houses, and second homes that exist to be rented, visited, and left empty for stretches of the calendar until holiday beach season arrives. When you hear “237,830 homes,” a large share of them are, by design, homes for other people’s vacations — not resident family homes.
The Vacation-Home Surplus That Powers the Economy
Horry County holds one of the highest shares of seasonal and second homes of any county in the country. The most detailed federal look at this counted 73,800 units set aside for seasonal, recreational, or occasional use back in 2010 — up about 83% from just a decade earlier [HUD Comprehensive Housing Market Analysis]. That figure is old now, and the county has only grown since, but the direction is clear: tens of thousands of Horry “homes” were never meant to house a permanent resident.
The county’s own tax code marks the line. Primary residences are assessed at 4%. Second homes, investment properties, and vacation rentals are assessed at 6% [Horry County Assessor]. That higher rate is, in effect, an official headcount of how many local “homes” belong to someone who lives somewhere else.
This is worth sitting with before the fireworks start. The surplus of vacation homes is not a distortion in the housing numbers — it *is* the tourism economy, standing in brick and drywall. Those units are where a large part of the 18.2 million annual visitors sleep. So when the working title says the county’s homes “take in family tourists,” the honest version is narrower and more interesting: many of these homes exist specifically to take in visitors, because that is the business the coast is in.
The July 4th Peak, By the Numbers
Which brings us to this week. The Fourth of July falls inside the single busiest travel week of the Grand Strand’s May-to-September season, and July is the busiest month [Visit Myrtle Beach CVB]. If the coast is going to be full, it is full now.
The scale of the visitor economy behind that peak is large. In 2024, the Grand Strand drew 18.2 million visitors, who spent $13.2 billion directly and generated more than $26 billion in total economic impact once indirect spending is counted [Tourism Works for the Grand Strand / DK Shifflet, 2024]. That activity supports more than 82,000 tourism-related jobs across the area [JobsEQ, 2024]. Those are not abstractions to a resident — they are paychecks at the restaurant, the hotel front desk, the landscaping crew, and the county tax office.
Lodging fills up to match. Summer 2025 ran near 70% occupancy across hotels and short-term rentals, and the local chamber projected roughly 70% for the peak window [Visit Myrtle Beach CVB, 2025]. Seventy percent occupancy over a region with this much rental inventory is a lot of visiting bodies — and a lot of cars.
Family Visiting Family, and a Record on the Road
The “family visiting family” part of the season is real, even if no one has counted it precisely. There is no Horry County dataset for how many local households host relatives over the Fourth, so anyone who quotes you a number is guessing. What can be verified is the national picture, and it is a big one.
AAA projects a record 72.2 million Americans will travel at least 50 miles for Independence Day 2026 — the most it has ever forecast, surpassing 2025 [AAA, 2026]. About 85% of them, roughly 61.4 million people, are going by car [AAA, 2026]. The holiday travel window runs from Saturday, June 27 through Sunday, July 5 [AAA, 2026].
A record number of Americans in their cars, in the peak week, headed toward a coast built to house them: that is the honest shape of the story. Some of those travelers are pulling into a relative’s driveway. Many more are checking into one of the tens of thousands of rental units that make up the county’s housing surplus. Either way, the Grand Strand is one of the places 61 million drivers are pointed.
What It Means for the People Who Live Here Year-Round
For the roughly 176,000 households that call Horry County home the other eleven months of the year, this week is a tradeoff, plainly stated.
The upside is not a slogan. Tourism spending funds a meaningful share of the local economy and the local government — $59.3 million in hospitality fees and more than $31 million in accommodations taxes in 2024 alone [Horry County / Visit Myrtle Beach, 2024]. That money helps pay for roads, public safety, and the beach itself, and it does it without coming out of a resident’s income. The 82,000 tourism jobs are neighbors’ jobs.
The downside is the traffic on Highway 17, the wait for a table, the crowded boat landing, and the beach access that fills by nine in the morning. None of that is imaginary, and residents are right to feel it. The county’s population — somewhere in the range of 413,000 to 428,000 depending on the source [American Community Survey, 2024 / Florence News Journal, 2025] — swells well beyond that for a few weeks each summer, and this is the biggest week of all.
The tradeoff is worth naming without spin. The same visitors who clog the roads are the ones filling the rentals, staffing the payrolls, and paying the fees that keep resident tax bills lower than they would otherwise be. You can be glad for the paycheck and annoyed at the traffic in the same breath. Most locals are.
Conclusion
So the number to remember this Fourth of July is not 237,830 families welcoming relatives. It is 237,830 housing units — roughly 60,000 more than there are year-round households — and that surplus is the coast’s tourism economy made physical. This week those extra homes fill up, a record number of Americans hit the road, and the year-round residents who actually live here get the bill and the benefit at once. When the holiday crowd thins after July 5, the tradeoff doesn’t leave with them. It just quiets down until next summer.
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## Further Reading
Myrtle Beach July 4th tourism – [Florence News Journal — Horry County growth and 2025 housing units](https://florencenewsjournal.com/horry-county-residents-feel-the-cost-of-rapid-growth-and-development-on-roads-schools-and-drainage/)
Myrtle Beach July 4th tourism – [Census Reporter — Horry County, SC (ACS 2024 1-year)](http://censusreporter.org/profiles/05000US45051-horry-county-sc/)
Myrtle Beach July 4th tourism – [U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts — Horry County, SC](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/horrycountysouthcarolina)
Myrtle Beach July 4th tourism – [HUD Comprehensive Housing Market Analysis — Myrtle Beach (seasonal-use units)](https://www.huduser.gov/portal/publications/pdf/MyrtleBeachSC-comp-16.pdf)
Myrtle Beach July 4th tourism – [Tourism Works for the Grand Strand — Economic Impact (2024)](https://www.tourismworksforthegrandstrand.com/economic-impact/)
Myrtle Beach July 4th tourism – [Myrtle Beach Area CVB — Peak Summer Tourism Season (2025 occupancy)](https://www.myrtlebeachareacvb.com/news/myrtle-beach-area-wraps-up-peak-summer-tourism-season-remains-resilient-amid-headwinds)
Myrtle Beach July 4th tourism – [AAA Newsroom — 72.2M July 4th 2026 travel forecast](https://newsroom.aaa.com/2026/06/72-2-million-americans-expected-to-travel-over-july-4th-week/)
