Short answer: head for the Gulf beaches known for shells.
Sanibel and Captiva are world-famous for them, sand dollars included, and at Tigertail Beach on Marco Island the sandbar is literally called Sand Dollar Island.
Go at low tide and look for the white, smooth ones.
Those are dead, and the FWC says a dead one is most likely OK to keep.
A brown or purple fuzzy one is alive.
Taking it needs a saltwater fishing license, and in Lee County (Sanibel’s county) live shells are off-limits apart from a few clams, oysters and coquinas, so I’d leave it in the water.
I rewrote this page in October 2026.
The old version told you to “take as much as you can carry” and named a northern sand dollar that doesn’t live in Florida.
Here’s the version I’d want before a beach day.
Which sand dollars you’ll find
Expect keyhole sand dollars, the flat ones with slots through them.
On the Gulf coast it’s Mellita tenuis, which ranges from Louisiana to the west coast of Florida.
The one found along the US East Coast is the five-holed keyhole sand dollar, Mellita quinquiesperforata.
The old page named Echinarachnius parma.
That’s the common sand dollar, and turns out it lives from New Jersey north, plus Alaska and Japan.
So, not in your Florida beach bucket.
Live sand dollars sit in the sand below the low tide line.
What washes up is the skeleton (the “test”), and the sun often bleaches it white.
That white disc is what you’re hunting, and honestly it’s the better souvenir anyway.
Where to look
Sanibel and Captiva
Sanibel is the obvious one, and I’d put it first.
Its Gulf beaches are world-famous for shells, and sand dollars are on the list.
Why there?
The island sits on a plateau that runs out into the Gulf for miles and acts like a shelf, and it faces east-west instead of north-south.
Both help shells pile up.
You’ll see people bending down as they look for shells, a posture known as the “Sanibel stoop.”
One warning from me: beach parking is very limited, and in high season it’s a real hunt.
I’d go early, or come in the off-season.
Not gonna lie, the parking is the hard part of shelling Sanibel.
Tigertail Beach, Marco Island
This one’s my favorite kind of beach, the kind you have to earn.
Tigertail was an offshore sandbar until Hurricane Wilma piled sand on its southern end, and today Sand Dollar Island is connected to the mainland.
Your car is on the lagoon side.
To reach the real beach, you wade across, about 50 yards, waist- to chest-deep at high tide at the buoy that marks the path.
The bottom is squishy, grassy mud.
Kinda gross, but you don’t sink.
Don’t want to wade?
You can walk around the lagoon to the south.
Plan on about 20 minutes from the far south end of the lot.
Parking is $10.
On the far side it’s three miles of beach with scads of shells, and the New York Times has pitched it as an alternative to Sanibel.
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- Live: covered in velvety spines, so it feels fuzzy. The color runs green, blue, violet or purple depending on the species, and the Anna Maria Island Sun describes live ones as brown and fuzzy.
- Dead: no spines, smooth, and usually bleached white by the sun.
If you find live ones, look around.
You’ll often find dead ones nearby, so take those and leave the living ones in the water.
The rules, by place
Here’s the line between a legal souvenir and a ticket: is anything alive in it?
FWC’s own rule of thumb: “if it’s dead, it most likely is OK to keep.”
- Statewide: a live sand dollar counts as a living organism. Taking one means a Florida saltwater fishing license (unless you’re exempt) and following state and local limits.
- Lee County, including Sanibel: the FWC rule bans harvesting or possessing any shell that contains a live organism, except oysters, hard clams, sunray venus clams and coquinas. It doesn’t name sand dollars, but I’d treat a live one as covered and leave it. Sanibel’s live-shell law dates to the late 1980s and expanded throughout Lee County in 2002. A 2010 report on Sanibel’s shell rules put the penalty at up to a $500 fine and a year in jail.
- Manatee County, including Anna Maria Island: no more than two shells per day with living organisms of any single species (oysters, hard clams, sunray venus clams and coquinas aside), and the FWC rule says that includes echinoderms such as sand dollars. You still need the license, even from the shoreline.
Honestly, there’s no reason to take a live one.
It turns from fuzzy to white only after the animal dies, so a live one isn’t even the souvenir you’re picturing.
Timing
My one timing tip: I’d go at low tide.
Check our Florida tide times before you go.
Already have a white one in your hand and wondering about the rules?
Our post on taking dead sand dollars from a Florida beach goes deeper.
For more beaches like these, see our Florida shelling hub.
Related read: Things I Wish I Knew Before Going to Japan — Instant PDF + Kindle download. Secure checkout by Stripe
