Compliance · 2026
Miami-Dade's permit rules, fines and lodging taxes, city by city
In Miami-Dade, the first question about any address is which government's code covers it. Brickell, Downtown, Edgewater, Wynwood, Little Havana and Coconut Grove all sit inside the City of Miami. South Beach, Mid-Beach and North Beach answer to the City of Miami Beach. Kendall and the county's other unincorporated suburbs answer to Miami-Dade itself, and towns like Surfside, Coral Gables and Key Biscayne write their own rules. All of them sit on top of the state layer. Florida treats a home or unit as transient lodging when it's rented more than three times a year for periods of less than 30 days, and that takes a vacation-rental license from the Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR). What follows is each rulebook as the city and county publish it in 2026. Get the answer for your exact address in writing before you sign anything.
The City of Miami's building-by-building approval
The City of Miami treats single-family homes and duplexes in its T3 and T4-R zones as ineligible for short-term rental or lodging use, and its own guidance points to the City of Miami v. Airbnb ruling as the reason. Everywhere else the city approves lodging one building at a time, and where there's a condo or homeowners association, the process starts with it. The Short-Term Rental/Lodging Evaluation Form has to be certified by the association, and the Operational Management Plan, written on the city's template, has to carry the association's signature too. Then comes a building permit filed under a lodging category such as apartment hotel or condo hotel, a plan review that includes Fire, inspections, a new certificate of occupancy, a state lodging license, a new Certificate of Use for lodging units and a Business Tax Receipt, plus any county environmental (DERM) sign-off. If more than 25% of a building's units are used as transient lodging, the whole building has to meet R-1 standards. The CU and the BTR renew every year, the plan's 24-hour contact has to stay current, and Code Enforcement or Fire Prevention can inspect without notice. The city's page publishes no fees, so confirm the current figures with the city.
Miami Beach and the unincorporated county
Miami Beach defines a short-term rental as a stay of less than six months and one day, and it prohibits them in all single-family homes and in many multifamily buildings in certain zoning districts. Where they're allowed, you need a vacation-rental Business Tax Receipt and a resort tax account, and both numbers have to appear in every advertisement or listing. The fines have changed. In October 2020, after the city lost a homeowner's lawsuit, the commission voted to cut the illegal-rental fine from $20,000 to $1,000, and the city's code-compliance page now puts fines at up to $1,000 a day for a first offense and $5,000 a day for a repeat within five years. Unincorporated Miami-Dade runs a Certificate of Use program instead. You need the CU before you list or advertise, the home is inspected when you apply, the CU renews every year, and outstanding fines or liens block it. Occupancy is capped at two people per bedroom plus two more, up to 12, not counting children under three. On land designated Estate or Low Density Residential, the responsible party has to live in the home more than six months a year. You keep a guest register open to the county, confirm through a nationwide search that guests aren't registered sex offenders (within 2,500 feet of a school, a registered offender can't stay four or more days in a month), and post the CU where guests can see it. Fines run $100 for a first offense, $1,000 for a second within 24 months and $2,500 after that, and a citation adds a $231.90 violation fee. Airbnb asks hosts there for the 10-digit CU number.
The tax stack and what Airbnb leaves you to file
Florida's 6% transient rental tax and the county's discretionary surtax apply to stays of 182 nights or fewer, cleaning fee included. Miami-Dade then adds a 3% convention development tax, a 2% tourist development room tax and a 1% professional sports franchise facility tax. In Miami Beach the 2% and the 1% don't apply and the city's own 4% resort tax does, on rentals of six months or less, and Surfside, next door, charges a 4% resort tax of its own. Airbnb's Florida tax page says it collects the state tax, the surtax, all three county taxes and Surfside's resort tax, and it lists no Miami Beach resort tax. So on the Beach you file the 4% yourself, monthly by the 20th, and the city's resort tax page tells operators to report sales made through Airbnb on those returns. On direct bookings from your own website nobody collects anything for you. You register with the Florida Department of Revenue, open the county's tourist tax account and remit the convention and tourist development taxes monthly, and file resort tax where it applies. The state license fee depends on how many listings you license, plus a $50 one-time application fee, and a unit in a three-story building needs DBPR's HR-7020 balcony inspection certificate unless it's exempt. At the state level, the 2026 vacation-rental pool-safety bill, CS/CS/SB 658, passed the Senate 37-0 on February 19 and died in the House on March 13, so it isn't law. Tax treatment depends on how you own and run the property, so set it up with a Florida accountant, and have a local land-use attorney read the zoning before you buy.
