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

Every stay of six months or less in South Florida carries Florida’s 6% sales tax under §212.03, plus a county tourist tax under §125.0104 and a county discretionary sales surtax. DOR form DR-15TDT lists a 6% local transient rental tax in each of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, with Miami-Dade’s rate shown as 7% in Miami Beach and 4% in Surfside and Bal Harbour. All three counties collect their tourist taxes themselves rather than through the state.

The surtaxes differ. DOR form DR-15DSS for 2026 lists 1% in Miami-Dade, 1% in Broward and 0.5% in Palm Beach, where a new school surtax replaced the county’s 1% infrastructure surtax at the start of 2026. In Palm Beach County, the Tax Collector says online platforms do not remit the tourist development tax, so hosts must file it themselves every month.

Florida law requires a DBPR license for any unit rented more than three times a year for less than 30 days, and it bars cities from banning vacation rentals or regulating their duration unless the rule was adopted on or before June 1, 2011. Within those limits, South Florida cities regulate heavily through registration, inspections, occupancy caps and response-time rules. Fort Lauderdale caps overnight guests at two per sleeping room and requires a responsible party who can reach the house within an hour; Hollywood expects most complaints resolved within 30 minutes.

Some places restrict short stays outright. Miami Beach prohibits short-term rentals of less than six months and one day in all single-family homes and many multi-family buildings. Delray Beach presumes a prohibited transient use when a home in single-family zoning turns over more than six times a year. The Town of Palm Beach classifies occupancy of less than three months, more than three times a year, as a commercial use. For homes like these, we manage seasonal, mid-term or annual rentals instead.

Three international airports, Miami, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood and Palm Beach, and two cruise ports, PortMiami and Port Everglades, keep guests arriving year round, and Brightline links Miami, Aventura, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton and West Palm Beach by rail. Events such as Art Basel Miami Beach and the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, and spring training for the Cardinals and Marlins in Jupiter, add peaks to the calendar.

Hospitals and universities bring longer stays, from Memorial Regional Hospital and Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood to Florida Atlantic University’s main campus in Boca Raton. Those guests often want a furnished home for 30 days or more, which is outside Florida’s vacation rental definition but still taxed as a transient rental when six months or less.