The Florida Keys property management — Airbnb, short-term & long-term rentals

Key West City Code §18-601 requires a city business tax receipt to lease a residential property for less than 30 days or one calendar month, and §122-1371 states that owners who never used a home transiently no longer have the chance to start under the city's rate of growth ordinance. In Islamorada, the Village Code defines a vacation rental as a stay of 28 days or less, caps licensed units at 331, and retires a license when the home is sold at arm's length.

Marathon's Code §8-12 licenses rentals of 7 to 28 nights and prohibits renting a private residence for fewer than seven. In unincorporated areas such as Key Largo, Monroe County Code §134-1 requires an annual special vacation rental permit and a licensed vacation rental manager, and §130-83 prohibits vacation rentals in Improved Subdivision districts except IS-V districts and qualifying gated communities.

Every rental of six months or less in Monroe County carries Florida's 6% sales tax, the county's 1.5% discretionary sales surtax for 2026 and the county's 5% tourist development tax. The Monroe County Tax Collector collects the tourist tax and says Airbnb, VRBO and similar platforms do not remit it, so the owner or manager must file.

The Tax Collector also requires a local business tax for every rental property, however long the lease. Key West adds its own city business tax receipts, one category for transient rentals and another for non-transient residential rentals.

Islamorada's code requires every vacation rental to be evacuated when a hurricane warning is posted for any part of the Florida Keys, and Marathon's requires evacuation under a non-resident evacuation order. Marathon's vacation rental training explains why: visitors are asked to leave ahead of residents because the Keys have a single highway out. Our guest communication includes those departures.