Trunk or Treat in Jacksonville: 2026 Dates and Locations

Illustration of a lively trunk-or-treat event in an urban riverfront park at dusk. Costumed children collect candy, with the Jacksonville, FL city skyline, palm trees, and autumn leaves in the background under a crescent moon.

Highlights

  • Most Jacksonville trunk or treat events land in the last two weekends of October.
  • The two big clusters are October 23 to 25 and October 28 to 31.
  • Almost all of them are free. A few ask you to register first.
  • Halloween falls on a Saturday in 2026, so the last weekend is stacked.

Trunk or treat events in Jacksonville run through Halloween night. Most land on the weekends of October 23 to 25 and October 28 to 31. Nearly all are free. They happen in church, school, and business parking lots, where decorated car trunks hand out candy in one place instead of across a neighborhood.

Jacksonville has more land than any other city in the lower 48, which means trick-or-treating here can involve merging.

That is the whole appeal. One lot, one loop, twenty minutes, and nobody has to cross Atlantic Boulevard in a costume.

What Is a Trunk or Treat?

Cars park in a row. Owners open the trunks, decorate them, and hand out candy as kids walk the line. The format started with churches in the 1990s as an alternative to door to door.

It solved a real problem and then kept solving it. No driveways, no dark stretches between houses, no dogs, no guessing which porch lights are on. Every car is a house and the parking lot is the street.

Most Jacksonville events now bundle in food trucks, bounce houses, and a costume contest. The candy is the reason kids come. The bounce house is the reason they stay for ninety minutes.

Trunk or Treat in Jacksonville: October 23 to 25

Friday, October 23

  • First Baptist Trunk of Treats, Downtown, First Family Park, 5:30 to 8:30 PM. Free. Park at 717 North Laura Street and take the crosswalk from the garage to the second floor check in. Photo booths, carnival games, a petting zoo, free snow cones and popcorn, and food trucks selling meals.
  • BOOval Trunk or Treat, 601 Palmetto Street, 5:00 to 8:30 PM. Free. Food trucks and prizes.
  • Kiddie Academy St. Johns, 14975 Walden Springs Way, 5:30 to 7:30 PM.
  • Rosecastle at Deerwood, 8929 R.G. Skinner Parkway, 5:30 to 7:00 PM. Free. Wizard of Oz theme.
  • Bold City Health Trunk or Health, 8110 Blanding Boulevard, 5:00 to 7:00 PM.

Saturday, October 24

  • Post 9 Jeep Brigade Trunk-N-Treat, 6242 Old Soutel Court, 2:00 to 4:00 PM. Free.
  • Auxiliary Post 88 Trunk or Treat and Fall Festival, 3662 Spring Park Road, 2:00 to 6:00 PM. Free.
  • Forever Vets Trunks N Treats, 11030 Baymeadows Road, 4:00 to 7:00 PM. Free.
  • River City Martial Arts, 4194 St. Augustine Road, 5:00 to 8:00 PM. Free.
  • Hilliard Trunk or Treat, 15865 West County Road 108, Hilliard, 5:00 to 8:00 PM. Free.
  • Nightfall Festival, 5900 Secluded Avenue, begins at dusk. Ticketed. Custom car show trunk-or-treat.
  • Isle of Faith Trunk or Treat, 1821 San Pablo Road South, starting at 7:00 PM. Free, at the church's pumpkin patch. Candy and a pumpkin in one stop.

Sunday, October 25

  • Church of Hope Fall Festival, 8950 Crystal Springs Lane, 3:00 to 5:00 PM. Free.

Look at Saturday the 24th again. A 2:00 PM start on the Northside, a 4:00 PM start in Baymeadows, a 5:00 PM start in Mandarin, and a 7:00 PM start on San Pablo. None of those overlap. We are not telling you what to do with that information.

Trunk or Treat in Jacksonville: October 28 to 31

Wednesday, October 28

  • First Baptist Trunk of Treats, Nocatee, 1770 Valley Ridge Boulevard, Ponte Vedra, 5:30 to 7:30 PM. Free. Nearly 40 trunks, costumes, sweet treats, and food trucks. Register at the Welcome Tent when you arrive.

Thursday, October 29

  • Reaching Milestones, 6816 Southpoint Parkway, Building 500, 5:00 to 7:00 PM. Free. Trunk or treat, open house, and an autism community celebration.

Friday, October 30

  • Atlantic Beach Haunts and Treats, 800 Seminole Road, 5:00 to 7:30 PM. Free. Trunk-or-treat, a haunted house, and Ghostbusters 2 outdoors.
  • First Baptist Trunk of Treats, Green Cove Springs, 1055 County Road 226, 5:30 PM. Free. Snow cones, hot dogs, popcorn, carnival games, a cake walk, and a hayride.
  • Fernandina Beach Main Street Trick or Treat, downtown Fernandina, 10:00 AM to noon. Free. A morning event, which is unusual and useful.
  • 4CHI Pets Woof-o-Week, 37149 Cody Circle, Hilliard, 5:00 to 8:00 PM. Dogs welcome.

Saturday, October 31

  • Jax Parks Treats at the Plaza, 2 West Independent Drive, 1:00 to 5:00 PM. Free. Costume contests, a haunted house, and food trucks.
  • Harvest and Hope, 10370 Philips Highway, 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM. Free.
  • Christ Is The Answer Church, 6959 Torres Drive, 5:00 to 8:00 PM. Free.
  • Treats No Tricks, 610 East Bay Street, 6:00 to 9:00 PM.
  • Conner's A-Maize-Ing Acres Trick or Treat at the Farm, Hilliard, 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM. Ticketed.
  • Sykes Family Farms Tractor Treating, Elkton, 6:00 to 10:00 PM.

Treats at the Plaza wraps at 5:00 and most neighborhoods get going around 6:00. That hour is exactly enough time to drive home and change into the costume you are more committed to.

The Three First Baptist Campuses

First Baptist runs Trunk of Treats at three locations on three different nights, which is the closest thing Jacksonville has to a trunk or treat tour. Downtown on Friday the 23rd, Nocatee on Wednesday the 28th, Green Cove Springs on Friday the 30th.

All three are free and open to anyone. They collect candy donations through Sunday, October 18, and the stated goal is 500 gallons of it. That is a unit of measurement nobody uses for candy until they have to.

What to Bring

  • A bag with handles. Plastic pumpkin buckets tip over in a car and lose half their contents under the seat.
  • Water. It will be in the low 80s. It is always in the low 80s.
  • Cash. Food trucks at these things are hit or miss on card readers.
  • A phone charger. You will take more photos than you planned.
  • Patience at check in. The bigger events run registration tables, and the line moves slowest right at opening.

Costume choice here is a thermal decision before it is anything else. Anything with a foam head is a commitment. If you are stacking two or three events, keep something in the car for the drive between stops, like our Jacksonville coloring book, because the ten minute drive from Baymeadows to Mandarin feels a lot longer in a costume.

How to Host a Trunk

Most events will take you. Churches and schools post volunteer signups a few weeks out, and they are usually short on trunks, not short on kids.

  • Battery lights only. Most lots ban open flame, so leave the real candles at home.
  • Tape everything down. An open parking lot near the river moves air in ways your cardboard gravestones will not survive.
  • Buy more candy than you think. A busy lot moves several hundred kids in two hours.
  • Pick one idea and finish it. A fully committed single theme beats four half-built ones every time.

Quick Win

Check event pages the week of, not the month before. Church and school trunk or treats get added to local calendars through mid-October, and rain dates get announced two days out. Fun 4 First Coast Kids updates its trick or treating list almost daily through October.

Then buy more candy than you planned. The lot will thin out around 7:15, and you will want something left for the kid who shows up at 7:14 in a costume you spend the whole drive home trying to identify.

We publish a new Jacksonville guide most weeks. In October they come faster.

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