As is the case with all Florida roads with American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) route numbers, the entirety of US 17 has a hidden Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) designation: Concurrencies include US 98 between Fort Meade and Bartow, and a notably long one with US 92 between Lake Alfred and northern DeLand, which itself includes concurrencies with US 192 in Kissimmee, US 441 between Kissimmee and Orlando, SR 50 in Orlando, and SR 46 in Sanford.

After a brief jog east, it travels roughly northeast along the Peace River into DeSoto County, where it goes through Fort Ogden, Nocatee, and Arcadia.

Descending as it passes Chain of Lakes Park, SR 540 leaves US 17 at Cypress Gardens Boulevard to continue eastward, but this intersection is also for Southwest Avenue R, which also leads to Winter Haven station.

US 17 and US 92 join at the south end of Lake Alfred in Polk County and thus the new hidden state road is SR 600 which carries US 92 west into Auburndale, Lakeland, Plant City, Tampa, and St. Petersburg.

Just south of East Thelma Street, US 17/US 92 splits onto two different roadways while CR 555 ends on the west side of the intersection.

It enters downtown Haines City on Hinson Avenue after crossing under US 27 at a cloverleaf interchange, meeting the north end of SR 17.

Right after crossing under a 14-foot-5-inch (4.39 m), narrow railroad bridge with arch-shaped pedestrian tunnels on both sides, it turns north onto 17th Street where it meets CR 580, which runs east to Poinciana.

The OBT name temporarily ends at Pleasant Hill Road (former SR 531) in southern Kissimmee, where it becomes John Young Parkway (formerly Bermuda Avenue) to Vine Street (US 192/SR 530).

It crosses Lake Estelle on the Andrews Causeway before reaching the border between Orlando and Winter Park.

Just before the intersection with Orange Boulevard, and an at-grade crossing with the Sanford Subdivision, US 17/US 92 curves to the northeast as it approaches part of the interchange with I-4.

Still within the vicinity of this interchange, the road turns left onto West Seminole Boulevard only to curve north where it crosses the St. Johns River into Volusia County via the Benedict Bridge, which replaced the Lake Monroe Bridge, running parallel to the very Interstate it had just passed under.

Within DeLeon Springs, the road runs straight north again and serves as the southern terminus of CR 3, a scenic detour off US 17.

Momentarily curving east in Satsuma, the road crosses one creek before entering San Mateo where it begins at yet another concurrency, in this case with SR 20/SR 100.

From here, SR 20 breaks away onto South 9th Street and heads west toward Gainesville and the Florida Panhandle, and then US 17/SR 100 pass by historic Palatka station, originally known as the Old Atlantic Coast Line Union Depot, which now serves as the Palatka Railroad Preservation Society and the David Browning Railroad Museum,[6] where it encounters a grade crossing.

After US 17 curves northwest, SR 100 breaks away onto Reid Street heading toward Lake City, while US 17 takes a turn to the direct north.

South of Green Cove Springs it goes over the same Amtrak line it ran parallel to between Palatka and Bostwick and becomes the northern terminus of CR 209, only to later intersect with eastbound SR 16, where it forms a concurrency and becomes Orange Avenue.

Most of this segment runs through preserved wetlands with no structures whatsoever, except for a local Elks Lodge until it reaches Oak Street.

SR 16 turns west at Ferris Street while US 17 continues north along part of the Green Cove Springs Historic District, then past various Clay County government buildings.

US 17 turns northwest and continues into Becker where it intersects CR 108 to the west, then a truck weigh station on the east side and finally as it enters the former turpentine making village of Gross, encounters the last interchange with I-95 in the state, a partial cloverleaf interchange on both the northwest and northeast corners of the I-95 bridge over both the road and CSX Transportation's Kingsland Subdivision.

The "shield" for US 17 was yellow until the state was forced by the federal government to conform to standards that required consistent black-and-white signs in 1993.

In 1980, US 17 was realigned and elevated slightly at the southern end in Punta Gorda to accommodate the construction of I-75, which also included splitting the route into the current one-way pairs along Marion Street and Olympia Avenue.

[8] Much of the widening has incorporated a parallel abandoned Florida Southern Railway/Atlantic Coast Line Railroad corridor between Bowling Green and Arcadia, which was removed in the early 1980s.

[9] In 2006, a short segment was realigned to the east along this rail corridor just north of Arcadia, bypassing Brownville.

In late 2013, FDOT began an $80-million (equivalent to $103 million in 2023[12]) project to construct a flyover interchange with US 17/US 92 traveling over SR 436 in Casselberry.