The relationship between Gulf Stream (GS) transport and coastal sea level is investigated using monthly GS transport between 1993–2019 at Florida Straits and ten altimeter tracks. The results show that GS transport decorrelates quickly along its path, indicating it is misleading to assume that transport at a particular location represents strength of the GS as a whole. GS transport south of Cape Hatteras is significantly correlated with coastal sea level in both the South Atlantic Bight (SAB) and Middle Atlantic Bight (MAB). However, the significant correlations in MAB are due to their concurrent response wind on the shelf—the correlation becomes insignificant once the influence of local winds is removed. North of Cape Hatteras, the influence of GS transport on sea level is mostly over the deep ocean and rarely on the shelf, indicating that there is no dynamic link between the GS transport and coastal sea level in this region.