Go an hour before sunset and the walk from the roundabout to the rail takes you past craft tables, a busker or two and a steady stream of people from the hotels, all heading the same way. Clearwater Beach Pier 60 is a 1,080-foot concrete fishing pier at the foot of the Memorial Causeway, with a park, a big playground and a nightly street festival bolted onto its landward end. Fees, hours and fishing rules for it disagree from one website to the next, partly because the 2024 hurricanes closed much of the pier for almost a year, so this page settles them from the City of Clearwater and the reporting on the reopening.
What Pier 60 is
Pier 60 is the public fishing pier and park where the Memorial Causeway lands on Clearwater Beach, and Pier 60 Park is the green space that ties the pier, the playground and the sunset festival together. The name is literal: the original pier extension was named for its spot at the end of State Road 60.
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The pier itself is concrete deck on concrete pilings, running straight out into the Gulf to a wider "T" at the far end. The structure you walk on today came from a city design contest in the early 1990s: WTSP dates the rebuild to 1990, while 83 Degrees Media puts the current concrete version at 1994. The city estimated about 250,000 visitors a year when it renovated the bait house in 2018.
Location is the real reason to come. Walk north past the Hilton and the hotels thin out toward the quieter north beach; walk south and the towers of S Gulfview Blvd start, so the pier sits at the hinge of the busiest stretch of sand on Clearwater Beach. Expect crowds, and pick your side of the pier based on whether you want them.
Pier 60 fees and hours
The park and beach are free, and you pay only to fish from the pier, at the bait house on the deck. Here is the City of Clearwater's fishing price list as published when the pier reopened in September 2025:
- Daily pass: $12 adults, $10 seniors 65 and over, $8 children 15 and under
- Weekly pass: $65 adults, $55 seniors, $45 children
- Monthly pass: $130 adults, $110 seniors, $90 children
- Yearly pass: $400 adults, $350 seniors, $300 children
- Rod rental: $12 a day; frozen bait $6
Treat those as a starting point, because WFLA reported $10 to fish all day on the same reopening day, so the adult daily pass has been reported at $10 to $12 since the 2025 reopening; check the board at the bait house. Walking out just to look used to cost $1 past the bait house; FOX 13 reported that the walk-on stretch was free while the gate was being rebuilt and would cost $3 a person once it was back up.
Hours run on two clocks. The city's park page lists Pier 60 Park at 7am to 9pm, and the city's pier schedule runs 7am to 10pm from the first Saturday in March to the day before Labor Day, then 7am to 9pm through the end of February. The beach itself never closes, and lifeguards are on duty from 10am to 5pm daily.
Ignore anything that says the pier is open 24 hours. That figure comes from an FWC survey dated 2010, long before the current schedule. Old blog posts quoting a flat walk-on price are out of date for the same reason.
Hurricane repairs: what's open
Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024 tore away railings, cut utilities and shifted concrete slabs, and the bait house and the pier beyond it stayed closed for nearly a year. On Labor Day 2025 the repaired bait house reopened along with the deck out toward the T. The T itself stayed barricaded, and in June 2025 the city council asked staff to study storm hardening for it over 12 to 18 months. No finish date has been published, so check the city's Pier 60 page before you plan to fish the very end.
The city's park page also flags sidewalk repairs near the park, with some sidewalk sections closed while the pier, beach and park stay open.
Sunsets at Pier 60
Sunsets at Pier 60 is a free festival of artisans, street performers and food that runs every night from two hours before sunset to two hours after, weather permitting. It started in 1995, modeled on the sunset gathering at Key West's Mallory Square.
Vendors set up tables along the park walkways and the start of the pier, and the buskers work the crowd in between: fire jugglers, musicians and break-dancers are the regulars reviewers mention. Because the clock is tied to the sun, the whole thing shifts with how the sunset hour slides from winter to summer, so a June evening runs much later than a December one.
So, is it worth it? Yes, if you treat it as a free warm-up to the sunset rather than the main event. Walk the tables, grab something cold, then claim a spot on the sand just north or south of the pier for the last of the light, where the crowd thins and the view is the same. If you hate crowds, skip the festival nights in spring break and come on a weeknight in the off season.
The same organizers run the Pier 60 Sugar Sand Festival, a 17-day event in which more than 18 sculptors carve 1,000 tons of sand inside a 24,000-square-foot walk-through structure. Dates change each year, so check the festival's own site.
Fishing Clearwater Beach Pier 60
You don't need your own Florida fishing license on Pier 60, because the pier holds a saltwater pier license that covers everyone fishing from it. You still follow state size and bag limits, so look up what you catch before it goes in the cooler.
The bait house sells bait and tackle, rents rods, and stocks drinks, snacks, T-shirts and souvenirs, which makes the pier a decent first try for anyone who flew in without gear. FWC's pier listing adds a fish-cleaning table, fresh water and monofilament recycling bins.
Go at 7am when the pier opens, before the sunset crowd and the sightseers fill the rail. The pier closes at 9pm or 10pm depending on the season, so night fishing here ends earlier than older guides suggest.
If you want deeper water than a pier can reach, the charter and party boats at the Clearwater Beach Marina, just east of the roundabout, are the next step. The city also runs a yearly adult fishing tournament on the pier in November.
The playground and park
The Pier 60 playground is the reason a lot of families come back: Visit St Pete Clearwater calls it one of the largest beach playgrounds on Florida's west coast, and it's shaded. It sits right by the sand, so one parent can watch the climbing frame while the other watches the water.
Around it you get covered pavilions with picnic tables, paved paths and telescopes on the pier for watching the boats come and go through the pass. Restrooms are open during park hours, and a snack shop covers the basics.
One honest note from a parent on Google: the water in front of the park can be choppy for small swimmers, so the playground often gets more use than the surf. Swim near a staffed lifeguard tower if you have kids in the water, since towers are staffed by season and weather.
Parking and getting there
The Pier 60 lot (city Lot 31, 160 S Gulfview Blvd) is right beside the park and charges $3.50 an hour with no time limit from 6am to 11pm; it's closed overnight. The city lists 141 spaces, but repairs have cut the usable count to as few as 70, so don't count on it at sunset.
Backups within a few blocks: the Hyatt Regency Clearwater Beach garage on S Gulfview has more than 500 public spaces with a three-hour minimum, and the Surf Style garage at 311 S Gulfview Blvd has 300 spaces with the first hour free. City Lot 32 at Devon and Hamden drives adds 65 more at the same $3.50 rate.
Parking on Clearwater Beach beyond the pier lot mostly follows that $3.50 city rate, with on-street meters at $4 an hour for up to five hours, all payable by card or the ParkMobile app.
Skipping the car is often easier. PSTA's Suncoast Beach Trolley stops at Pier 60 and runs south along the beaches every 20 to 30 minutes for $2.25 cash. Local operator Jolley Trolley runs its trolleys seven days a week between the beach, downtown Clearwater and towns up the coast, and its passes also work on the county bus system. A Sand Key hotel guest on Google says it ran within a minute of schedule and could be tracked on the app.
Eat, drink and stay near Pier 60
For a room within sight of the pier, the Hilton Clearwater Beach Resort & Spa is the pick, because it's on the sand about 0.1 miles north of the park.
Across Coronado Dr on the marina side, Pier House 60 Clearwater Beach Marina Hotel is about 0.1 miles from the pier, with water-view rooms, a pool and free breakfast.
For dinner with the sunset, walk about half a mile north to Crabby's Beachside Pavilion at 10 Bay Esplanade, a deck-and-picnic-table seafood spot right on the beach. It opens at 8am for breakfast and runs to 10pm, or 11pm on Friday and Saturday, with live music on the patio. Reviewers point to the peel-and-eat shrimp, the fried hogfish and the gluten-free fries, and one notes it rarely has the long wait you get at Frenchy's.
On the water, Pier 60 Watersports works the beach directly behind the Hilton, renting jet skis from $70 for 30 minutes plus banana-boat rides at $25 a person, paddleboards and kayaks. Add 7% sales tax and a 15% service charge to those prices.
For the view from above, Pier 60 Parasail boats leave from 455 East Shore Dr on the harbor side, about 0.3 miles northeast of the pier, with flights of about 10 minutes at 800, 1,000 or 1,200 feet for $79 to $99. Riders must be 5 or older, and reviewers keep saying the photo package was worth the extra $45.
Pier 60 is one evening, not a whole trip, and the dolphin boats, golf carts and mini golf make up the rest of a Clearwater Beach day away from the pier.
Frequently asked questions
Published August 24, 2026
