How to Take Direct Bookings for a Florida Vacation Rental

On Airbnb or Vrbo you're a supplier inside someone else's shop. The platform charges the guest, adds the taxes it has agreed to collect, holds the guest to its terms and sends you what's left. On your own website you're the shop. In Florida that puts four jobs on your desk: holding the state license, collecting and paying the taxes, taking the money and putting your own rental agreement in front of the guest.

None of the four is hard. Each one is a registration or a setting that you do once and then keep current. What catches owners out is doing them in the wrong order, or assuming the platform's tax collection follows them to their own site. It doesn't.

The license row surprises people. Florida's test has nothing to do with the booking channel. Section 509.013 of the Florida Statutes looks at how often the home is rented for short stays and whether it is "advertised or held out to the public" for them. A website with a calendar and a Book button is about as clear a case of holding a home out to the public as you can build.

The order matters too. Get the license first, the tax accounts second and the booking page third. A site that takes money before the tax accounts exist leaves you holding tax you collected with nowhere to file it.

Florida licenses vacation rentals at state level through the Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR), in its Division of Hotels and Restaurants. The statute calls a home a vacation rental when it is a condominium or cooperative unit, or a house or dwelling of up to four units, that is also a "transient public lodging establishment" and is not a timeshare.

Who Needs a License

That definition of a vacation rental sits in section 509.242 of the 2026 Florida Statutes. The part that decides whether your home is one is the meaning of "transient public lodging establishment" in section 509.013: a unit or dwelling "which is rented to guests more than three times in a calendar year for periods of less than 30 consecutive days or which is advertised or held out to the public as a place regularly rented to guests for periods of less than 30 consecutive days."

So there are two ways in. One is frequency: a fourth short rental in a calendar year. The other is advertising, and it doesn't wait for a booking. If your website offers nightly or weekly stays, plan on needing the license from the day the site goes live. The same section lists what falls outside, including small places rented only for a month or longer and never advertised for shorter stays.

The duty itself is in section 509.241 of the same chapter. Each public lodging establishment "shall obtain a license from the division", you apply for and receive it before you start operating, and licenses are renewed every year. Operating without one is a second-degree misdemeanor. If your home sits near one of those lines, ask DBPR for its reading before you publish anything.

Single, Group and Collective Licenses

The three license types come from DBPR's licensing rule, 61C-1.002 of the Florida Administrative Code, last amended on October 20, 2024. The rule also sorts every vacation rental into one of two classes, condominium or dwelling.

Read that as an owner with three houses on three streets who manages them alone, and the answer is three single licenses, because a single license covers one house or the units in one building. That's my reading of the rule's wording, so confirm it with DBPR when you apply.

If a management company runs your home, look at whose name is on the license. A collective license belongs to the agent, and the statute says a license "may not be transferred from one place or individual to another". Leave that manager to run the home yourself and take direct bookings, and you'll need a license of your own before the first stay.

What the License Costs

I'm not going to print a dollar figure for your home, because DBPR's fee table would not open for me in November 2026 and a wrong fee is worse than none. What I can give you is the frame the law sets. Under section 509.251 of the Florida Statutes, license fees are set by rule and "based on the number of rental units in the establishment". The total per establishment "may not exceed $1,000". On top of that sit an application fee of up to $50 for a new license and a late-renewal fee of up to $50.

Two details save money. Apply six months or less before your area's renewal period and the statute halves the license fee for that first stretch. And homes at separate addresses that one licensed agent manages can share one application, which is the collective license above.

To apply, and to see the current fee table, go to DBPR's own vacation rental licensing guide. Have the property address, the owner's legal name and your tax identification number ready.

Inspections and Where the Number Goes

Hotels are inspected on a schedule. Vacation rentals are treated differently: section 509.032 of the statutes says units classified as vacation rentals "are not subject to this requirement but shall be made available to the division upon request." Keep the home ready for a visit and keep your paperwork where you can find it.

On display, the statute says a license "shall be conspicuously displayed in the office or lobby of the licensed establishment", and the rule adds that where there is no office or lobby it must be readily available on request. I looked for a statewide rule that makes you print the license number on your website and did not find one in section 509.241. The only advertising line there is about caterers. Print the number on the site anyway. Guests, cities and county tax offices look for it, and a city may have its own rule for its own registration number, so ask yours.

Three taxes sit on a short Florida stay, and on your own site all three are yours to collect: the state sales tax, the county's discretionary sales surtax and the county's local option transient rental tax, which most people call the tourist development tax or the bed tax.

The Three Taxes

The state tax comes from section 212.03 of the Florida Statutes: 6% "of and on the total rental charged" for living or sleeping accommodations. The statute says the tax "shall be charged by the lessor or person receiving the rent" and is due when the rent is received. It does not apply to someone with a bona fide written lease for longer than six months, and it exempts full-time students and military personnel on active duty.

The surtax is a county add-on to the sales tax. The Department of Revenue's sales and use tax page says many counties have one, and that "sales tax and discretionary sales surtax on transient rentals are always reported and remitted to the Department." The same page lists renting short-term accommodations among the activities that require you to register with the Department.

Surtax rates sit in the Department's form DR-15DSS. The edition posted at that address when I opened it on November 12, 2026 was the table for calendar year 2025. It ran from no surtax in Citrus and Collier to 2% in Hamilton, with most counties at 0.5%, 1% or 1.5%. Each surtax has a start date and many have an end date. Palm Beach County's 1%, for one, was listed to expire on December 31, 2026. Check the new table every January.

The third tax is the local one. The Department's chart of local option transient rental tax rates, form DR-15TDT, revised October 2026, says counties and certain cities may tax "the rental or lease of living, sleeping, or housekeeping accommodations for a term of six months or less." Under that heading come the tourist development tax, the convention development tax, the tourist impact tax and the municipal resort tax. County rates on the chart ran from 2% to 6%, with 7% in Miami Beach, and five counties (Calhoun, Lafayette, Liberty, Sumter and Union) showed 0%.

Who You Pay

The chart shades the counties where the Department of Revenue collects the local tax. I counted 20. In the other 42 that charge one, you report and pay it straight to the county, usually the tax collector. The state tax and surtax go to the Department either way, on Line D (Transient Rentals) of the sales and use tax return, form DR-15. In most of Florida's busy rental markets that means two accounts and two returns.

Treat that table as a worked example and nothing more. The last column of numbers is my addition of three official figures read on November 12, 2026, and the surtax column comes from the 2025 table. The chart itself warns: "If the local option transient rental tax is collected by the county, contact that county to verify the tax rate. Not all counties notify the Department of changes." Confirm your own rate with your county and your accountant before you type it into any software.

What Airbnb and Vrbo Collect for You

Airbnb's Florida page, article 2301 in its Help Center, says that for reservations of 182 nights or fewer it collects the 6% Florida transient rental tax on the listing price including any cleaning fee, plus the county surtax, which it gives as 0.5% to 1.5%. It also collects the county tourist tax in the counties where the state administers it and in a list of counties that includes Orange, Pinellas, Lee and Broward. Then comes the line that matters: "Hosts located in these areas are responsible for assessing all other tax obligations, including state and city jurisdictions."

Vrbo's page on where it collects and remits lodging taxes says it has collected the state transient rentals tax and the county surtax on Florida stays under 184 nights since December 1, 2018. It lists county tourist taxes one county at a time with start dates: Orange and Pinellas from October 1, 2018, for example, and Lee from December 1, 2018.

Now look at it from the county's side. The Osceola County Tax Collector, whose county holds Kissimmee and a large share of the vacation homes near the theme parks, writes in capitals: "Osceola County is NOT CONTRACTED with Airbnb, VRBO, Evolve, or any other third-party booking platforms." Owners and agents there collect the 6% tourist tax and pay it to the tax collector on every short-term rental, platform bookings included.

Palm Beach County says the same in fewer words. Its tax collector's tourist development tax page states that "Online platforms do not remit TDT to the Palm Beach County Tax Collector" and that "The HOST must collect and remit TDT." So before you take a single direct booking, check whether you've been filing the county return you already owed.

Registering and Filing

You'll open a sales tax account with the Department of Revenue and, in a county that collects its own tourist tax, a second account with the county. County rules differ in the details, so read your own county's page. Palm Beach is a fair sample of what to expect: anyone offering transient accommodations must register an account online, every account reports monthly with the return due on the 1st and late after the 20th, and "You must file $0.00 to report no rental activity."

That last rule is the one that trips up seasonal owners. An empty month still needs a return. Put the due dates in your calendar the day the accounts open, or ask your accountant to file for you.

What Counts as Rent

The statute taxes "the total rental charged". Palm Beach County spells out its reading: tourist tax is paid on "the rental revenue including all mandatory fees such as cleaning and pet fees." Airbnb applies the state tax to the listing price including the cleaning fee. Set your booking software to tax the rent and the mandatory fees, show each tax as its own line, and ask your accountant how to treat refundable deposits and fees a guest can decline.

Here is what the change looks like on one stay. Example: a five-night stay at $250 a night with a $150 cleaning fee comes to $1,400 before tax. At a made-up combined tax rate of 12.5% the guest pays $1,575. Through a platform that keeps 15% of the $1,400, you receive $1,190. On your own site, with a 3% card fee charged on the full $1,575, you keep $1,352.75 after sending the $175 of tax where it belongs.

Income tax on what you earn is a separate subject with its own rules. Our guide to taxes for hosts covers that side, and your accountant should have the last word on both.

The state license and the taxes are the same test everywhere in Florida. What changes from one address to the next is the layer underneath: county business tax receipts, city registration programs, zoning and, in a few places, old rules that limit short stays outright.

What Local Governments Can and Cannot Do

Section 509.032(7) of the statutes, linked in the license chapter, reserves the regulation of public lodging to the state and then draws one line for vacation rentals. A local law "may not prohibit vacation rentals" and may not "regulate the duration or frequency of rental of vacation rentals." The same paragraph says this does not apply to any local law adopted on or before June 1, 2011.

That date explains why Florida looks uneven. A city with a ban or a minimum stay on its books before June 2011 can still enforce it. A city without one can't write one now, so newer local programs lean on registration, inspection and safety instead. The statute also leaves local governments free to inspect for building and fire code compliance.

Three Local Examples

Fort Lauderdale runs a registration program. The city's vacation rental registration page says every vacation rental must first be licensed with the state and the county before it applies to the city. The listed fee is $880 for registration of up to four units under one folio, first inspection included, and $100 for each inspection after that. A Certificate of Compliance is issued within three business days of a passed inspection.

Osceola County ties its receipt to the state license. The tax collector's instructions for the short-term Local Business Tax Receipt open with this: "A copy of the State Hotel License or application must accompany the Local Business Tax Receipt application." They add that rental units inside city limits "may also require a City Occupational License" and that failing to maintain the receipt "may result in loss of Zoning approval."

Palm Beach County links its receipt to the tax account. Its tourist development tax page, linked in the tax chapter, says vacation rentals "must obtain a Short-Term Rental Local Business Tax Receipt for each TDT account" and must renew it every year by September 30.

And the tax itself can turn on a ZIP code. The footnotes to the Department of Revenue's October 2026 chart say Walton County charges 5% in ZIP codes 32459, 32550, 32454, 32461 and its part of 32413, and 2% in the rest of the county. Bay County's 5% applies only in a list of ZIP codes, and Nassau County's only in 32034, Amelia Island. Check the rate for your address, never for your county's name alone.

Where to Look Up Your Own

Four offices cover almost everything. The county tax collector, or in some counties the clerk or comptroller, handles the tourist tax account and the business tax receipt. City hall, usually the code compliance or community development office, handles any vacation rental registration. County or city zoning tells you whether short stays are allowed at the address. And if the home is in a condominium or a homeowners association, read its documents, because an association can set limits of its own that no government office will warn you about.

For a sense of how permits are spread around the state, Cavmir keeps a page of Florida short-term rental permit data. Use it for context and get the rule itself from the office that enforces it.

1. FirstState vacation rental license from DBPR. The statute wants it in hand before you operate.
2. SecondSales tax account with the Department of Revenue, for the state tax and the surtax.
3. ThirdTourist development tax account with the county, where the county collects its own.
4. FourthCounty business tax receipt and any city registration. Both local offices above ask to see the state license.
5. LastThe booking page goes live, with your numbers on it and the tax lines set.

One email gets you most of the answers. Send it to the county tax collector and to city hall, and keep the replies.

Subject: Short-term rental at [Property address]: what does your office require

Hello,

I own [Property address] and plan to rent it for stays of under six months, including bookings taken on my own website.

Could you tell me:
1. Is short-term rental allowed at this address under its current zoning?
2. Which registrations or receipts does your office require, what do they cost and when do they renew?
3. Is the tourist development tax for this address paid to your office or to the Florida Department of Revenue, and what is the current rate?
4. How often are returns due, and is a return required for a month with no rentals?
5. Does a registration or account number have to appear in my advertising or on my website?
6. Are there occupancy, parking or inspection rules I should plan for?

My state vacation rental license number is [DBPR license number, or "applied for on" and the date].

Thank you,
[Your name]
[Phone]

On your own site a card processor takes the platform's place at the till. Your booking software connects to one, charges the guest's card and deposits the money in your bank account, less a processing fee. That fee is taken on the whole payment, tax included, which is why the calculator above charges it on the full amount.

Card rates differ by processor and by card type, and they change, so I've left them out. Read your processor's U.S. pricing page, find the rate for online card payments and the fee for a disputed charge, and use those numbers in the calculators here.

Deposits, Damage and Refunds

A platform makes these choices for you. On your own site you make them once and write them down. Decide how much is due at booking and when the balance is charged. Decide how you cover damage: a refundable deposit, a non-refundable damage waiver fee or a hold on the guest's card. Decide who issues refunds and how fast. Then make sure the booking software can do each of those without you typing card numbers by hand.

When a guest disputes a charge with their bank, the processor asks you for evidence. The signed agreement, the guest register and the message thread are that evidence, so keep all three for every stay. Ask your accountant when a deposit becomes taxable rent and how a forfeited deposit or a cancellation fee is taxed. The answer changes what you owe the state and the county.

Setting the Tax Money Aside

The tax a guest pays you lands in the same bank account as the rent. It isn't income. Move it to a separate account the day it arrives, or at least know the number. Example: $6,000 of taxable direct bookings in a month, at the 6% state rate with a made-up 1% surtax and 5% county tax, means $420 for the state return and $300 for the county.

The Rental Agreement

Three Florida points belong in your thinking before you copy an agreement from another state. First, the statutes define "transient occupancy" as temporary occupancy, and say the term includes a stay at a vacation rental "unless a written rental or lease agreement expressly states that the dwelling unit is the sole residence of the guest." So have your agreement say plainly that this is a temporary vacation stay and the home is not the guest's residence. A Florida lawyer should read the final wording.

Second, the register. Section 509.101 of the Florida Statutes gives each operator of a transient establishment the duty to "maintain at all times a register of guests who occupy rental units within the establishment", showing the dates of each stay and the rates charged. It must be in chronological order and available to the division, it may be electronic, and operators need not produce registers more than two years old. A reservation report from your booking software can do the job if it shows names, dates and rates. Ask DBPR if you're unsure yours does.

Third, house rules. The same section lets an operator set reasonable rules for the establishment and its guests, and says they "shall be printed in the English language and posted in a prominent place". Put your rules in the agreement, on the website and in the home.

RENTAL AGREEMENT CHECKLIST: [Property name]

1. Parties: the owner's legal name as it appears on the state license, and every adult guest.
2. Property: full address, state license number, county tax account number.
3. Dates and times: arrival, departure, check-in and check-out hours.
4. Nature of the stay: a temporary vacation stay; the home is not the guest's residence.
5. Occupancy: maximum overnight guests, visitors, vehicles and pets.
6. Price: nightly rent, each mandatory fee, each tax on its own line, and the total.
7. Payment: amount due at booking, date the balance is charged, cards accepted.
8. Security: refundable deposit or damage waiver, the amount, and when a deposit is returned.
9. Cancellation: refund by date, how to cancel, what happens with a no-show.
10. Storms: what happens if an evacuation order covers the stay dates.
11. House rules: quiet hours, parking, trash, pool and dock safety, events.
12. Access: how and when entry details are sent.
13. Problems: who to call, response hours, how repairs are handled.
14. Signature: name, date and e-signature of the guest who books.

Reviewed by [Your Florida lawyer's name] on [Date]

There are three ways to get a site that takes bookings: use the website builder inside booking software, have a custom site built and connected to that software, or hire an agency to build and market it. All three need the same thing underneath, which is software that holds your calendar, your prices and your tax settings and takes the payment.

Booking Software With a Website Builder

OwnerRez prices on a sliding scale by number of properties. Its pricing page showed $40 a month with one property entered and $88 a month with five when I checked in November 2026, with a 14-day trial. They say: "No commissions, no guest fees, or per-booking fees." Hosted websites are listed there as a premium feature that is billed on top.

Hostfully's pricing page lists a Growth plan for 1 to 50 listings "Starting at" $15 per property a month plus a platform fee, and a Pro plan from $25. A direct booking site is marked as included in every plan. The page shows a 0.85% direct booking fee on Growth and "No commissions on direct bookings" on Pro.

Hospitable's pricing page lists a free Essentials plan and puts its Direct Booking Website on the Professional plan. The prices of its paid plans did not display in the version of the page I could read, so take those from the page yourself. Lodgify is another well-known name in this group, and its pricing page would not load for me at all, so I have no figure to give you.

A Custom Site or an Agency

A custom site still runs on booking software. The difference is that the pages guests see are yours: your design, your area guides, your words, with the calendar and checkout connected behind them. That's worth it once you care about showing up in search for your town and about a brand guests remember. Two of our guides go deep here, so I won't repeat them: how to build a website for your rental, step by step, and the direct booking website cost guide, with price ranges for each route.

Florida Checks for Any Software

Before you sign up for anything, ask its support team six questions. Can it charge two tax lines at different rates, one for state tax plus surtax and one for the county tax? Can it apply tax to the cleaning fee and other mandatory fees? Can it leave tax off a stay with a written lease longer than six months? Can it give you a monthly tax report per home, split by tax? Can it export a guest register with dates and rates? And can it show your license and tax account numbers on the site and on the guest's receipt? A yes to all six makes the monthly filing a ten-minute job.

A direct-booking site has two readers. One is the guest deciding whether to trust a website they've never heard of with a four-figure payment. The other is the search engine, or the AI assistant, deciding whether your page answers a question about a Florida stay. The same contents serve both.

The Pages

Keep the list short and finish every page on it. A home page that says where you are and who the home suits. A page for each property with photos, beds and baths, amenities, a live calendar and a price that includes the taxes before checkout. A policies page covering cancellation, storms, house rules, pets and privacy. An about and contact page with a real name and a phone number. Guest reviews with dates. A page of questions and answers. Area guides. And a booking flow that ends with the signed agreement and a receipt.

License and Tax Lines

Put your numbers in the footer and on the booking page. Nothing reassures a first-time guest faster than seeing that the home is licensed and that the taxes on the bill are named. Use wording like this and fill it from your own accounts.

Florida vacation rental license (DBPR): [License number]
[County] County tourist development tax account: [Account number]
[City or county] registration: [Number, or delete this line if none applies]

Taxes on your stay: [State and surtax rate]% Florida sales tax and county surtax, plus [County rate]% [County] County tourist development tax. Both are charged on the rent and on mandatory fees such as cleaning, and each appears as its own line before you pay.

Hurricane and Cancellation Information

Guests booking a Florida stay for late summer or fall think about storms, and a site that says nothing leaves them guessing. The National Hurricane Center's climatology page gives the dates: "The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30", and the peak "is September 10, with most activity occurring between mid-August and mid-October." Write a storm policy, publish it and repeat it in the agreement. The version below is one reasonable set of choices. Change it to what you'll do in practice, because a published policy is a promise.

Storms and evacuations

Hurricane season in Florida runs from June 1 to November 30. If [County] County issues a mandatory evacuation order that covers our address during your stay, we refund the nights you can't use. If the order is issued before you arrive and covers your arrival date, we refund your stay in full or move your dates, whichever you prefer.

We don't refund for forecasts, watches or bad weather without an evacuation order. Travel insurance that covers weather protects you in those cases, and we recommend buying it when you book.

Questions about a storm in the forecast: [Phone] or [Email].

Accessibility

Two things go under this heading. The website should work for someone using a keyboard or a screen reader: text descriptions on photos, readable contrast, form fields with labels, a calendar that can be operated without a mouse. And the home's own access facts should be stated without spin: steps at the entry, door widths, a ground-floor bedroom, a pool lift if there is one. Our guide to ADA compliance for vacation rental websites covers the legal side and the fixes.

Local Guides

This is where an owner beats a platform listing. You know which beach access has parking after 10 a.m., how long the drive to the parks takes on a Saturday, where to launch a boat and which restaurants take a party of ten. Write that down as guides, one subject per page, with distances from your door. They help the guest who has booked, and they're the pages that show up when someone searches for a stay near a place.

A new direct-booking site starts with no visitors. The platforms spend heavily to stand between travelers and homes, so your site earns its traffic in the places they don't own: your name, your town, your guides, your past direct guests and, more and more, the answers AI assistants give.

Google Business Profile and Google Vacation Rentals

Before you create a Google Business Profile for a house, read Google's own guidelines for representing your business. They set who qualifies and how the name, the address and the category must be written. Our guide to listing a vacation rental on Google goes through the options an owner has.

Google also shows vacation rentals in their own search results, with photos, ratings and location. Its developer documentation for vacation rental structured data is frank about who that is for: "These instructions are intended for sites that have already connected with a Google Technical Account Manager", and the feature "is limited to sites that meet certain eligibility criteria." For an owner with a few homes, the practical route in is through booking software or a channel that has that connection. Ask yours whether it does. The same page asks for at least eight photos per listing, which is a good floor for your own pages too.

Local Search

Most searches that lead to a direct booking name a place: your city plus the words vacation rental, a beach, a neighborhood, a park, an event. Give each home a page whose title says what it is and where, in plain words. Give each nearby place a guide. Put your address, your license number and your phone on every page. Then earn a few links from real local sources, such as the chamber of commerce, a fishing charter you send guests to or the wedding venue down the road.

AI Answers

Travelers now ask ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews where to stay, and those answers quote websites. In Cavmir's July 2026 study of 550 Google AI answers across 15 U.S. markets, independent and regional operators got 82% of the citations, and Airbnb or Vrbo appeared in 17% of the answers. That is an opening for an owner whose site states facts clearly: how many the home sleeps, how far it is from the beach, what the license number is, what the cancellation terms are. Pages that answer one question each get quoted.

What the Platform Rules Allow

Here's the line you can't cross. Airbnb's policy on pricing and payment transparency says "Guests and hosts must keep payments for mandatory fees and for current, future, or repeat bookings on the Airbnb platform." It bars offering discounts to book off Airbnb, rebooking a reservation off the platform, putting links in listings or messages that lead away from Airbnb, and asking a guest to talk somewhere else before booking. Airbnb says its responses run from warnings to removing a listing or an account.

So leave platform guests alone. No pitch for your website in the welcome book or the house manual, nothing on the fridge, no follow-up offer after checkout. From November 20, 2026 Airbnb also restricts hosts from asking guests for personal details during a booking or a stay. Our direct booking strategy for 2027 covers both rules in full, and Vrbo's newer terms add a parity clause that we explain in the Vrbo fee and rate parity post.

Your direct marketing goes to people who reach you on their own: through search, your social accounts, a friend's recommendation or a past stay they booked on your site. Two replies cover the two cases.

Hi [Guest first name],

Thanks for asking. For a stay you found on [Airbnb or Vrbo], the booking, the payment and our messages all stay here. That's the platform's rule and I follow it.

I'm glad to answer anything about the home in this thread, and the calendar on the listing shows the dates that are open.

[Your name]

Hi [Guest first name],

Thanks for getting in touch through our website. [Property name] is open for [Dates].

Your total for [Number] nights is $[Total]: $[Rent] rent, $[Cleaning fee] cleaning, $[State tax amount] Florida sales tax and surtax, and $[County tax amount] [County] County tourist development tax.

You can book here: [Link to the property's booking page]. A [Deposit]% payment holds the dates, the balance is charged [Number] days before arrival, and the rental agreement is part of checkout.

Our Florida vacation rental license number is [DBPR license number].

[Your name]
[Phone]

Email to Guests Who Booked Direct

Your list is the people who booked on your own site and agreed to hear from you. Guests who came through a platform don't go on it. Keep it small and useful: a note when next winter's calendar opens, a reminder before spring break dates fill, an early look at open weeks in the quiet months. Our email marketing guide has the schedule and the wording.

Florida's visitor count peaks in the first three months of the year, but that statewide number hides very different local calendars. Knowing your own home's curve tells you when to open next year's calendar, when to ask for longer minimum stays and when to spend on marketing.

The Statewide Pattern

VISIT FLORIDA publishes visitor estimates every quarter. They count every visitor, hotel guests and day-trippers included, so use them for the shape of the year and don't read them as vacation rental bookings. Here are four quarters in a row, April 2025 to March 2026, from the official releases.

Add the four together and January to March holds 28% of the visitors, by my arithmetic on preliminary figures. Canada shows the winter pull most clearly, with about twice as many Canadian visitors in the first quarter of 2026 as in the third quarter of 2025. The May release put that first quarter 1.0% below the year before and noted that its estimate for domestic visitors who don't fly may change in later revisions.

Two Counties, Two Calendars

County bed tax reports show the regional difference better, because they track the rent itself. Okaloosa County, whose report lists Destin, Okaloosa Island and Fort Walton Beach among its areas, publishes tourist tax collection reports that split rent by type of rental. The report notes that the "Reporting Period is always the month before the Collection Period", so tax collected in July is on rent from June.

Palm Beach County's Tourist Development Council posts a bed tax collections table by month of stay. It covers every kind of lodging, hotels included.

The ratios and shares are my own division of the official figures. Okaloosa's single-family homes took in 52% of the year's rent in June, July and August 2024, and Palm Beach collected 39% of its year's bed tax on stays from January to March 2026. Okaloosa's quiet season is winter. Palm Beach's is late summer and early fall.

What the Seasons Mean for Your Site

Open the next busy season's calendar early, and tell the people on your own list, the guests who booked with you directly, on the day it opens. Set seasonal rates and minimum stays in your booking software so the website quotes them without you stepping in. If you also list on Vrbo, check its parity terms before you price your own site below the listing.

Price long winter stays with the tax in mind. A stay of 30 days or more doesn't count toward the license's three-rentals test, though advertising shorter stays still brings the home under it. State tax applies to any stay of six months or less unless the guest holds a bona fide written lease for longer, so a three-month winter booking is taxed the same way as a weekend.

Plan the quiet months too. A county return can be due when nothing rented, as Palm Beach's $0.00 filing rule showed, and slow weeks are the time to write area guides. Storm season sits in the same stretch: the National Hurricane Center puts most activity between mid-August and mid-October, which overlaps Palm Beach's quietest months, so publish your storm policy before you open those dates.

Here's the whole guide as one month of work for one home. The order follows the rule from the first chapter: paperwork, then money and terms, then the website, then marketing. If you already host on Airbnb or Vrbo, some boxes may be ticked before you start.

Each week ends with something you can check. Don't let the site take a real booking until weeks one and two are done, because the tax lines and the payment setup have to be right before the first guest pays. If something in week one takes longer, such as waiting on DBPR or a county office, keep going with week two and hold the launch.

After Day 30

The month after launch brings your first returns: one to the Department of Revenue for the state tax and surtax, and one to your county if it collects its own tourist tax. Ask each office whether it wants a return for a month with no rentals. Palm Beach does, and the safest habit is to file every month.

Then make three things monthly. Match your booking software's tax report against both returns. Add one area guide, written from what you know about the neighborhood. And look at which pages brought visitors to the site, so the next guide answers a question people are already asking. By the end of the first year you'll have twelve guides that no platform listing offers.

Everything in this guide falls into three piles: the paperwork, the website and its marketing, and the home itself, meaning the guests, the cleaning and the repairs. Different people do each pile well. You can keep any of them and hire out the rest, as long as you know which pile each person is taking.

Kinds of Help

Two points to settle with any of them. The first is ownership. The domain, the website's content and the list of guests who booked direct should be in your name, so you can change helpers without starting over. The second is the platform rules. Anyone who markets for you has to follow Airbnb's and Vrbo's terms, which means no marketing aimed at guests who booked there.

Questions to Ask Before You Hire

Send the same questions to each person you're considering, then lay the answers side by side. Vague answers to the ownership and cost questions tell you as much as the good ones.

Questions before we work together: [Property name or names]

1. Which booking software will the site connect to, and will my homes, prices and open dates on the site stay in step with it?
2. Will the domain, the website content and the guest list be in my name?
3. Can the site show my Florida license number, my county tax account and each tax as its own line before payment?
4. Which Florida vacation rental sites have you built? Can I see two that are live?
5. Who writes the area guides, and from what information?
6. What will you report to me each month, and which numbers?
7. How do you follow Airbnb's and Vrbo's rules about guests who booked there?
8. What does the build cost, what does each month cost, and what is not included?
9. What happens to the site and the domain if I stop working with you?
10. Who do I contact when something breaks, and how fast do you reply?

Thank you,
[Your name]

Where Cavmir Fits

Cavmir builds direct-booking websites for vacation rental owners in Florida and elsewhere, connected to the booking software you use, so your homes, prices and open dates on your own site stay in step with it. We then market the site on monthly plans: search engine optimization, GEO (being named in AI answers), Google Ads, content, social and email. The direct booking website page describes the build.

Here's where we're not the fit. We're not a property manager. We don't manage the home, answer guests, handle cleaning, set your prices or file your taxes, and the license and the county accounts stay in your name. If you want someone to run the home and the guests, a licensed local manager is the better choice, and your accountant is the right person for the returns.

Build prices are on our pricing page, and the marketing plans are on the monthly plans page. Our Florida page covers the state's vacation rental markets.

What to Budget

Before you compare quotes, list the costs that come with any route. Every figure below comes from a source cited earlier in this guide.

• State license: set by DBPR's fee table and capped by statute at $1,000 per establishment, plus an application fee of up to $50.
• Local registration: it depends on the city. Fort Lauderdale lists $880 for up to four units under one folio, first inspection included.
• Booking software: OwnerRez showed $40 a month for one property, and Hostfully started at $15 per property a month plus a platform fee, in November 2026.
• Payment processing: a percentage of every payment, tax included, at your processor's published U.S. rate.
• A lawyer to review the agreement and an accountant for the registrations and returns: ask each for a fixed quote.
• The website and its marketing: our cost guide gives ranges for each route.

Start this week with the license and the two tax accounts. When those are in hand, the website is the easier part. If you'd like to talk through your home and your county, check the prices first and then book a call.

Every rule, rate and figure in this guide comes from these sources, checked in November 2026. If you read only four, make them DBPR's licensing guide, the Department of Revenue's sales tax page, form DR-15TDT and your own county tax collector's page. Rates and fees change, so check each one again before you rely on it.

• Florida Legislature, "The 2026 Florida Statutes, section 509.013, Definitions", 2026: leg.state.fl.us
• Florida Legislature, "The 2026 Florida Statutes, section 509.032, Duties", 2026: leg.state.fl.us
• Florida Legislature, "The 2026 Florida Statutes, section 509.101", guest register and establishment rules, 2026: leg.state.fl.us
• Florida Legislature, "The 2026 Florida Statutes, section 509.241, Licenses required", 2026: leg.state.fl.us
• Florida Legislature, "The 2026 Florida Statutes, section 509.242", classifications including vacation rentals, 2026: leg.state.fl.us
• Florida Legislature, "The 2026 Florida Statutes, section 509.251, License fees", 2026: leg.state.fl.us
• Florida Legislature, "The 2026 Florida Statutes, section 212.03", transient rentals tax, 2026: leg.state.fl.us
• Florida Administrative Code, Rule 61C-1.002, Division of Hotels and Restaurants, amended October 20, 2024: flrules.org
• Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, vacation rental licensing guide, November 2026: myfloridalicense.com
• Florida Department of Revenue, "Sales and Use Tax", November 2026: floridarevenue.com
• Florida Department of Revenue, "Discretionary Sales Surtax Information for Calendar Year 2025", form DR-15DSS, revised November 2024: floridarevenue.com
• Florida Department of Revenue, "Local Option Transient Rental Tax Rates", form DR-15TDT, revised October 2026: floridarevenue.com
• Osceola County Tax Collector, "Tourist Development Tax", November 2026: osceolataxcollector.org
• Osceola County Tax Collector, instructions for the short-term Local Business Tax Receipt application, 2021: osceolataxcollector.org
• Palm Beach County Tax Collector, "Tourist Development Tax", November 2026: pbctax.gov
• Palm Beach County Tourist Development Council, "Bed Tax Collections", fiscal year 2025-2026, November 2026: discover.pbc.gov
• Okaloosa County Clerk of Court and Comptroller, "FY24 Tourist Tax Collection Reports", fiscal year October 2023 to September 2024: okaloosaclerk.com
• City of Fort Lauderdale, "Vacation Rental Registration", November 2026: fortlauderdale.gov
• Airbnb Help Center, Florida occupancy tax collection, article 2301, November 2026: airbnb.com
• Airbnb Help Center, "Pricing and payment transparency", article 2799, November 2026: airbnb.com
• Vrbo Help, where Vrbo collects and remits lodging taxes in the United States, November 2026: help.vrbo.com
• OwnerRez, "Pricing", November 2026: ownerrez.com
• Hostfully, "Pricing", November 2026: hostfully.com
• Hospitable, "Pricing", November 2026: hospitable.com
• NOAA National Hurricane Center, tropical cyclone climatology, November 2026: nhc.noaa.gov
• Google Business Profile Help, guidelines for representing your business on Google, November 2026: support.google.com
• Google Search Central, vacation rental structured data, November 2026: developers.google.com
• VISIT FLORIDA, first quarter 2026 visitor estimates and revised 2025 figures, May 22, 2026: visitflorida.org
• VISIT FLORIDA, third quarter 2025 visitor estimates, December 31, 2025: visitflorida.org
• Executive Office of the Governor, 2025 visitor estimates and fourth quarter 2025, February 20, 2026: flgov.com
• Executive Office of the Governor, second quarter 2025 visitor estimates, August 19, 2025: flgov.com