Duval County, Florida Short-Term Rental Regulations: A 2026 Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Duval County, Florida and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that across most of the county you can, and the city isn't going to ask you for a short-term rental permit before you take a booking. Jacksonville and Duval County run as one consolidated government, which is why the Duval County Tax Collector treats "Jacksonville/Duval County" as a single place, and why there's no separate county rulebook sitting above the city one.

The catch is that Duval isn't only Jacksonville. Four other municipalities sit inside the county line, and two of them take the opposite view of nightly rentals entirely. Atlantic Beach has prohibited residential rentals shorter than 90 days since 2006, Neptune Beach draws its line at 28 days, and Jacksonville Beach does allow them although it wants a certificate, a fire inspection and an occupancy cap first. So the real question isn't whether Duval County permits short-term rentals, since it mostly does. It's which of five local governments your deed happens to fall under.

So let's walk through what it actually takes to do this properly in 2026: which jurisdiction you're in, the state license nobody escapes, the business tax receipt the county wants, the three layers of tax stacked on every booking, how hard any of it gets enforced, and who to call when something doesn't add up. Every figure below comes from Jacksonville's, Duval County's or Florida's own pages, checked in July 2026, and where I couldn't pin something down I've said so plainly. Assuming you're still comparing this against other markets, run the property through BNBCalc before you commit to anything.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Duval County

That five-way split is a lot easier to hold in your head once you know how the county is put together. Jacksonville's consolidated government covers the overwhelming majority of Duval County's land and population, so when people say "Duval County rules" they almost always mean Jacksonville's.

The exceptions are the three beach towns on the Atlantic side, Jacksonville Beach, Atlantic Beach and Neptune Beach, plus the small Town of Baldwin out west. The Tax Collector confirms that split from the tax side, since businesses in those four municipalities have to pick up a municipal local business tax on top of the county one. Here's how the five compare before you go any further:

Where the property sits	Nightly rentals allowed?	Local registration
City of Jacksonville (most of Duval)	Yes, with no minimum stay	None required by the city
Jacksonville Beach	Yes, with a certificate	Short-Term Vacation Rental Certificate, $150
Atlantic Beach	No, in residential zones. 90 days minimum	Not available
Neptune Beach	No, in residential zones. 28 days minimum	Not available
Town of Baldwin	Not confirmed	Municipal business tax at minimum

Jacksonville's permissiveness isn't generosity, mind you, since it's state law doing the work. Under Florida Statutes section 509.032(7)(b), "a local law, ordinance, or regulation may not prohibit vacation rentals or regulate the duration or frequency of rental of vacation rentals," and that bar catches everything adopted after June 1, 2011. Cities that already had rules on the books before that date get to keep them, which is the whole reason two Duval municipalities can still say no while the biggest one can't.

Jacksonville never passed such a rule in time, and its ordinary residential zoning doesn't count as a substitute. The Attorney General's office took that exact argument apart in an informal opinion issued October 22, 2013. Its answer to Flagler County was blunt, since a pre-2011 single-family zoning ordinance "that did not restrict the rental of such property as a vacation rental, cannot now be interpreted to do so."

Generic single-family zoning, in other words, is not a grandfathered vacation rental ban. Hosts here have leaned on that reasoning for years, and the city's own guidance now reads as though it accepts it.

What Jacksonville does ask for is spelled out on its short-term rental page, and the list runs to five things:

• Register with the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation.
• Register with the Duval County Tax Collector for convention and tourist development tax.
• Get any required fire inspection approval.
• Post the human trafficking awareness sign.
• Meet zoning, land use, parking and noise rules like any other property.

Notice what isn't there.

No city certificate, no annual renewal, no cap on nights, no owner-occupancy test. That same page warns that using a platform "does not necessarily mean all required taxes are being paid on your behalf," which turns out to be the single most expensive thing to misunderstand in this county.

Hold that thought.

The beaches are a different country, though, and Atlantic Beach got there first. It adopted Ordinance No. 90-06-193 in 2006, adding a short-term rental definition to Section 24-17 of its land development regulations and a new subsection to Section 24-82 that prohibits them outright. Because that predates June 1, 2011 by five years, it survived the state preemption intact.

The city hasn't gone quiet about it either. A notice dated November 10, 2025 states that short-term rentals of residential property for periods of less than 90 consecutive days are strictly prohibited in all residential zones within Atlantic Beach, with the word "prohibited" set in capitals on the page itself. So ninety consecutive days is the floor there, and violations go to the Code Enforcement Division. Nothing shorter is legal.

Neptune Beach is stricter still in one sense, because it catches the advertising as well as the stay. Its planning department says that under the Land Development Code, short-term rentals are prohibited in all residential zoning districts. A short-term rental there means a private dwelling "rented, leased or advertised for a term period less than 28 days," and "the renting or advertising for anything less than 28 days is a violation of the Code."

Do read that second half carefully, since a listing that merely offers a three-night minimum breaks the rule before a guest ever arrives. I wasn't able to confirm the adoption date of the Neptune Beach provision from a primary source, so treat the 28-day line as live rather than as something to test.

Jacksonville Beach took the middle path, and it's the only municipality in Duval County with a genuine short-term rental permitting scheme. Its rules sit in Sections 34-300 and 34-731 of the Land Development Code, and the city's own short-term vacation rental page confirms the rentals are permitted in residential zoning districts as long as you hold a certificate. That certificate carries real conditions, which the next section gets into.

As for Baldwin, I couldn't find any short-term rental ordinance for the town at all, and with a population in the low thousands that's not surprising. Before you buy there, call the town directly rather than assuming Jacksonville's answer carries across. Nobody else can answer it for you.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirements in Duval County

Since your local government may ask for nothing at all, it's easy to assume the whole thing is unlicensed, and that's where people get into trouble. Florida licenses vacation rentals at the state level and Duval County taxes them at the county level, so even a Jacksonville host with no city permit still collects two or three separate credentials before the first guest arrives.

Start with the state, because nothing local replaces it. Under Florida Statutes section 509.241, "each public lodging establishment...shall obtain a license from the division," and that division is the DBPR Division of Hotels and Restaurants. So a vacation rental gets licensed in one of two classes, Vacation Rental Dwelling or Vacation Rental Condo, depending on the building.

And the Division's lodging fee schedule puts a single-unit license, as of July 2026, at a $50 application fee plus $170 for a full year or $90 for a half year, with a $10 Hospitality Education Program fee on every application. A license covering two to 25 units runs $180 for a full year, while a collective license, where an agent covers several owners at once, is $150 plus $10 per unit.

Licenses then renew annually on a staggered schedule, and you have 30 days to report an address change through your online account.

Whether you need that license at all turns on a frequency test, though, and Florida rewrote it recently. Chapter 2025-113, signed June 2, 2025 and effective July 1, 2025, defines transient occupancy as renting more than three times in a calendar year for periods of less than 30 consecutive days. It counts consecutive days rather than calendar months, and it drops the old test based on what the operator says they intended.

Keep in mind that the fourth booking is what tips you over, so a genuinely occasional rental may sit outside the licensing regime entirely.

Next comes the county business tax receipt, which applies whether or not you think of yourself as running a business. The Tax Collector's local business tax page says that anyone who owns or operates a business in Jacksonville or Duval County needs a Local Business Tax Receipt, authorized by Chapter 205 of the Florida Statutes. That tax reaches "most businesses, including home-based and one-person operations," so a single spare condo counts.

And vacation rentals are named on that same page as a state-regulated activity, which matters for the order you do things in. Under section 205.194, anyone applying for a receipt to engage in a state-regulated business has to show an active state license first, so the DBPR license comes before the county receipt rather than after it. Turn up in the wrong order and you'll be sent away.

Receipts run from October 1 to September 30 and the renewal window opens July 1. Late payment then gets expensive on a schedule: a 10 percent penalty for October, another 5 percent for each following month until the penalty caps at 25 percent, and civil action once you're more than 150 days past due. Home-based hosts do get one small break, since Florida Statutes section 559.955 exempts them from the city's Certificate of Use requirement, though the business tax receipt itself is still owed.

The third credential is a tourist tax account with the Duval County Tax Collector, covered in the tax section below. It's the one most Jacksonville hosts skip by accident.

Jacksonville Beach then adds a fourth layer on top of all of that. The city's certificate application packet requires an owner or licensed agent to hold a Short-Term Vacation Rental Certificate for every unit before renting it, and the certificate is nontransferable, so a sale means the new owner applies again.

The application fee is $150, and it's the same $150 for a transfer or a modification, payable by check only. A Jacksonville Beach local business tax receipt costs a further $79.20 a year per property, while missing your Fire Marshal inspection appointment costs $100. Renewals are due by October 1 each year, so make sure that date lives in your calendar rather than in your memory.

The operating conditions attached to that certificate are worth reading before you buy anything on the island, because they constrain the guest count directly. Maximum occupancy is two people per bedroom plus two, capped at twelve per unit, and children under 24 months don't count toward it. Off-street parking then has to equal that maximum occupancy divided by four, with no more than four cars parked at the property at any one time.

On top of that you have to name a Responsible Party, and the job description is specific. They must be at least 18, reachable on a listed phone number 24 hours a day, and able to be at the property within two hours. They also accept legal notice for the owner, produce the current rental agreement on request, and check the property weekly for compliance.

That two-hour radius quietly rules out remote ownership without a local manager. Budget for one.

Required Documents for Duval County Short-Term Rentals

Given how many separate offices are involved, the paperwork is less a single application than a chain where each link needs the one before it. Gather these in order and the process is dull rather than difficult.

• A DBPR vacation rental license, in the Dwelling or Condo class, issued by the Division of Hotels and Restaurants. This is the document the county will ask to see.
• A Florida Department of Revenue certificate of registration, which is what lets you collect and remit state sales tax on transient rentals.
• A Duval County Local Business Tax Receipt, applied for in person at 231 East Forsyth Street, Suite 130, or online through the Tax Collector's BTExpress portal. Bring photo ID, your Social Security number or EIN, any fictitious name or corporation certificate, and your state license.
• A Duval County tourist development tax account, opened by mailing the registration form to the Tax Collector's tourist development office.
• A municipal business tax receipt as well, if the property sits in Jacksonville Beach, Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach or Baldwin.
• In Jacksonville Beach only: the notarized Short-Term Vacation Rental Application, a completed local business tax form, a passed Fire Marshal inspection, and a signed affidavit committing you to the Land Development Code standards, the Florida Fire Prevention Code, the Florida Building Code and section 509.215.

Jacksonville Beach also dictates what goes on the walls, and this is where applications come unstuck. The certificate itself has to be posted facing outward in the window nearest the front door, while a single-page sheet sits on the back of the main entrance door or on the refrigerator.

That sheet carries the Responsible Party's contact details, the maximum occupancy, the 10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. quiet hours, the number of vehicles allowed and where they park, the solid waste and recycling schedule, sea turtle nesting season and lighting restrictions, emergency numbers for local police and fire, and the location of the nearest hospital. None of that is optional, and an inspector reads it as a checklist.

Duval County Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you're able to get all of that in place and start hosting, there's still the tax stack to deal with, and this is where Duval County differs from most of Florida in a way that costs real money. Three charges attach to a taxable stay, two of them go to the state, and the largest single one goes to the county without arriving there by itself.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
Florida transient rental (sales) tax	6%	Florida Department of Revenue
Duval County discretionary sales surtax	1.5%	Florida Department of Revenue
Duval County Convention/Tourist Development Tax	6%	Duval County Tax Collector
Total on a taxable stay	13.5%	Two separate returns

The county's own tourist development tax page sets out that 6% figure and its two halves, a 4% tourist development tax under section 212.03 and a 2% convention development tax under section 212.0305. It applies to rentals of six months or less, it's collected from the guest rather than paid by the owner, and it sits on top of the 7.5% state sales and use tax. That's the 13.5% total.

Form DR-15TDT, the Department of Revenue's list of local option transient rental tax rates, confirms the 6% rate and, more importantly, that Duval collects its own. That last detail is the whole story.

Now the part that catches people. The Tax Collector states it in capital letters: "There is no agreement between Duval County and any online rental platform to receive payments on behalf of any taxpayer. It remains the property owner's responsibility to ensure that the 6% TDT is collected and remitted every month the property is available for short-term rentals."

Airbnb's own Florida tax page matches that. It lists the 6% Florida transient rental tax and the 0.5% to 1.5% discretionary sales surtax as taxes Airbnb collects, then names the specific counties whose tourist taxes it also handles. Duval isn't on either list.

So the state half of your tax bill gets handled for you and the county half doesn't, which means a host who assumes the platform covers everything is quietly accruing a 6% liability on every booking.

Filing that county tax is a monthly job whether or not you had guests. Returns fall due on the first day of the month after the reporting period and go delinquent if they aren't postmarked or submitted by the 20th, so January's return is due February 1 and late after February 20.

There's a small collection allowance of 2.5% of the first $1,200 in tax collected, capped at $30, though you lose it on any late or noncompliant return. Miss the deadline and the penalty is 10% per month on the unpaid tax, with a $50 minimum and a 50% ceiling, plus interest accruing daily at the Department of Revenue's floating rate. Registration, meanwhile, is by mailed form to the Duval County Tax Collector, Attn: Tourist Development, 231 East Forsyth Street, Room 212, Jacksonville, FL 32202.

Possible Write-Offs and Deductions

The one genuinely cheerful line in all of this is that Florida takes no personal income tax. The Department of Revenue's own FAQ puts it flatly: "Florida does not impose a personal income tax, so there are no filing requirements." Your rental profit still lands on a federal return, of course, though nothing gets skimmed on the way through Tallahassee.

On the federal side the ordinary rental deductions apply, and several of the costs named above are among them: the DBPR license fee, the Duval County business tax receipt, the Jacksonville Beach certificate and its inspection charges, plus mortgage interest, property insurance, cleaning, utilities, repairs and depreciation.

Remember that the tourist development tax and sales tax you collect aren't income at all, since you're holding a guest's money on the county's behalf, so booking them as revenue overstates both your profit and your tax. Rules on personal use days, material participation and depreciation get complicated quickly, and I'd take a Florida CPA over any article on that particular question, including this one.

Florida Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

Almost everything above sits on a state framework worth understanding on its own terms, because it explains why Jacksonville behaves so differently from, say, a New York borough. Florida decided this fight in 2011 and has mostly refused to reopen it since.

The preemption in section 509.032(7)(b) is the load-bearing piece, and its reach is narrower than the headlines suggest. Local governments can't ban vacation rentals and can't regulate how long or how often you rent, yet they keep ordinary authority over zoning, noise, parking, building codes and life safety, which is precisely the space Jacksonville Beach's certificate occupies.

Anything adopted on or before June 1, 2011 is grandfathered, and the Attorney General held in AGO 2019-07 that amending such an ordinance doesn't destroy the protection for provisions carried over unchanged, although genuinely new language is preempted like anything else.

Tallahassee has tried twice to redraw this and failed both times. A 2024 package that would've expanded preemption and created a statewide registration and advertising platform regime got as far as the Governor's desk before SB 280 was vetoed on June 27, 2024, and its House companion HB 1537 was laid on the table that March.

More recently, SB 658 passed the Senate 37 to 0 on February 19, 2026 and then died in Messages in the House on March 13, 2026. That bill would've required vacation rental licensees within 150 feet of a pool or other water body to install water safety features and certify compliance at licensure and renewal. It isn't law, though a 2027 refile wouldn't surprise anyone, so it's worth knowing about if you own something on the water here.

One state obligation does reach every licensed host and often gets missed. Under Florida Statutes section 509.096, though, public lodging establishments have to run annual human trafficking awareness training for anyone who cleans rooms or handles check-in, and train new hires within 60 days. They also post an awareness sign, at least 11 by 15 inches in 32-point type, where employees can see it.

The fines for skipping it are not small, either. The Division charges $2,000 a day for noncompliance, though it does allow a 45-day correction window on a first offense and none at all for repeats. Jacksonville's own short-term rental page repeats the sign requirement, so be aware that it gets checked at both levels. Our Florida statewide guide walks through the rest of the state framework in more depth.

Does Duval County Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Given how much of that framework is state law, the honest answer for Jacksonville is that enforcement runs through the tax office rather than the zoning office. There's no city certificate to revoke and no local occupancy rule to cite you under, so the exposure is financial. And it compounds.

A host who never opened a tourist tax account is looking at 6% of gross rents plus 10% a month in penalties up to half the tax owed, plus daily interest, and the county knows perfectly well which addresses advertise publicly. Then add the business tax receipt penalties, which reach 25 percent before civil action starts at 150 days. Layer DBPR's separate authority over unlicensed lodging on top of that, and the picture is less relaxed than "no permit required" makes it sound.

The beach towns enforce the way small cities usually do, which is to say by complaint, and the numbers are modest. News4Jax reported on October 17, 2025 that Atlantic Beach had logged three short-term rental complaints in 2013, a peak of 15 in 2017 and five so far in 2025, with no case having reached the Code Enforcement Board, against a possible penalty of up to $250 per day per violation.

Deputy City Manager Kevin Hogencamp told the station that Florida law now bars the city from investigating anonymous complaints, and that some listings look active without actually taking bookings. That's a fair description of why a residents' group and a code officer can read the same map and reach opposite conclusions.

Watch out for the informal route, though, because it works faster than the formal one. That same reporting describes a listing coming down after the city complained directly to Airbnb. A platform takedown needs no hearing, no notice period and no code enforcement board, and there's no appeal that gets your calendar back. In a jurisdiction with an outright prohibition on the books, that's the realistic downside case, and it arrives as a delisting rather than as a fine.

Jacksonville Beach sits somewhere in between, since it has both a certificate to suspend and a Fire Marshal who inspects before issuing one. The city built its scheme deliberately as regulation rather than prohibition, which is what keeps it on the right side of the state preemption, and the practical consequence is that a certificate holder who ignores occupancy, parking or the Responsible Party rules has something concrete to lose.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Duval County

Whichever of those five jurisdictions you land in, the sequence below wastes the least money, mostly because the first two steps can end the project before you've spent anything on it.

1. Pin down the jurisdiction before anything else. Check the address on the Property Appraiser's search tool and confirm which city it sits in. An Atlantic Beach or Neptune Beach address in a residential zone is a dead end for nightly rentals, and no amount of paperwork changes that.
2. Check the private restrictions too. A homeowners association, condo declaration or deed restriction can prohibit short-term rentals where the city doesn't, and Florida's preemption says nothing at all about private covenants.
3. Get the DBPR vacation rental license. Apply to the Division of Hotels and Restaurants in the Dwelling or Condo class, and budget the $50 application fee plus $170 for a full year on a single unit, plus the $10 education fee.
4. Register with the Florida Department of Revenue for sales tax on transient rentals, even though a platform is likely to collect the state portion for you.
5. Open the Duval County tourist development tax account. Mail the registration form to the Tax Collector's tourist development office, and don't forget that the return is monthly whether or not you had a booking.
6. Apply for the Duval County Local Business Tax Receipt with your state license in hand, at 231 East Forsyth Street, Suite 130 or through BTExpress online. Add the municipal receipt if you're in one of the four separate towns.
7. In Jacksonville Beach, apply for the certificate. Notarized application, local business tax form, Fire Marshal inspection, $150 fee by check, and a Responsible Party who can genuinely be there in two hours.
8. Set up the postings and the house rules to match whatever your jurisdiction requires, including the human trafficking sign, and the full posted sheet if you're in Jacksonville Beach.
9. Decide who collects what before your first guest. Confirm on your own listing which taxes the platform remits, then build the 6% county tax into your pricing rather than absorbing it later.

Who to Contact in Duval County about Short-Term Rental Regulations and Zoning?

Since the answer to almost every question above depends on which office owns it, knowing who to call saves an irritating amount of time. These are the ones that come up.

Tourist development tax, Duval County

The Duval County Tax Collector, Jim Overton's office, administers the 6% convention and tourist development tax, and it's who you register with and file to monthly.

• Tourist development mailing address: 231 East Forsyth Street, Room 212, Jacksonville, FL 32202
• Email: [email protected]
• Tax Collector "One Call" Center: (904) 255-5700
• General email: [email protected]

Local business tax receipt

The same office handles the business tax receipt, from a different suite.

• Address: 231 East Forsyth Street, Suite 130, Jacksonville, FL 32202
• Email: [email protected]
• Online: the Tax Collector's BTExpress portal at county-taxes.net/fl-duval/btexpress

Zoning, land use and city questions

The City of Jacksonville Zoning Section answers zoning and certificate of use questions, while MyJax routes everything else.

• Zoning Section: 214 North Hogan Street, Jacksonville, FL 32202, (904) 255-8300
• MyJax general services: (904) 630-2489

The three beach cities and Baldwin

• Jacksonville Beach: 11 North Third Street, Jacksonville Beach, FL 32250, (904) 247-6100, certificate questions to [email protected]
• Atlantic Beach: City Hall, 800 Seminole Road, Atlantic Beach, FL 32233, (904) 247-5800, code enforcement questions and complaints to [email protected]
• Neptune Beach: Building Department, 116 First Street, Neptune Beach, FL 32266, (904) 270-2400, City Hall open 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
• Town of Baldwin: contact the town directly, since I found no published short-term rental ordinance for it either way

State licensing and state tax

• DBPR Division of Hotels and Restaurants: state licensing information on (850) 487-1395, the number the Duval Tax Collector itself publishes for regulated professions
• Florida Department of Revenue: Taxpayer Services on (850) 488-6800, Monday to Friday excluding holidays

What Do Airbnb Hosts in Duval County on Reddit and Bigger Pockets Think about Local Regulations?

Those offices give you the official position, and host forums give you the version people actually operate on. I should say up front that Reddit blocks the tooling I use, so I didn't read its Jacksonville threads directly, and what follows leans on BiggerPockets and on local reporting instead. Take it as sentiment rather than as a survey.

The main BiggerPockets thread on the subject, STR regulations for City of Jacksonville, Florida, captures the shift neatly. Ryan Millsap opened it in February 2022, and he described exactly the confusion you'd expect, since he couldn't get a straight answer from city officials about where rentals were permitted, whether a seven-night minimum applied, or whether owner occupancy was required.

So Billy Knox answered in May 2023 with the resolution, pointing to a city enforcement suit that ended in November 2022, dismissed on the reasoning that generic zoning provisions like Jacksonville's don't qualify as pre-June-2011 regulation. "Based on this ruling," he wrote, "the City no longer has any regulations for short term rentals."

I couldn't locate the docket for that case through an official source, so treat the outcome as the forum's account rather than as something I've verified. The Attorney General's 2013 opinion does point the same way.

A few themes recur past that thread. Investors treat Jacksonville proper as unusually easy by Florida standards and price the beaches as a separate market entirely, since the good coastal inventory sits in the two cities that prohibit short stays.

Hosts who've been through it warn newcomers about the county tourist tax specifically, and that's the mistake that keeps surfacing. The platform statement looks complete, the state portion really is handled, and the 6% county piece accrues silently until somebody opens the account. Meanwhile the pressure in the beach towns is coming from residents rather than from the state, with Atlantic Beach neighbors publicly questioning enforcement in October 2025 and Jacksonville Beach residents pushing for stricter rules earlier that year.

My own read, for what it's worth, is that the regulatory risk in Duval County isn't a future Jacksonville ordinance, since state preemption makes that hard to pass and harder to defend. The risk is a beach city tightening what it already has, because a pre-2011 ordinance gives it a foothold nothing else in the county enjoys.

Assuming you want to see where the returns actually sit before committing to a jurisdiction, the Florida market data on BNBCalc Markets is the quickest way to compare Jacksonville against the rest of the state. It's worth reading alongside the Orange County guide for the Orlando picture and the Manatee County guide for a Gulf coast comparison, because Florida's counties diverge far more than the shared state law suggests.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Duval County, Florida in 2026?

In most of the county, yes. The City of Jacksonville, whose consolidated government covers the great majority of Duval County, requires no local short-term rental permit and sets no minimum stay. You still need a state DBPR vacation rental license, a Florida Department of Revenue sales tax registration, a Duval County local business tax receipt and a county tourist development tax account. The exceptions are Atlantic Beach and Neptune Beach, which prohibit short stays in residential zones, and Jacksonville Beach, which requires a certificate.

How much tax do you pay on a short-term rental in Duval County?

The combined rate is 13.5% of the rent. That breaks into 6% Florida transient rental tax and a 1.5% Duval County discretionary sales surtax, both of which go to the Florida Department of Revenue, plus a 6% Duval County Convention/Tourist Development Tax paid straight to the Duval County Tax Collector. The county tax is a 4% tourist development tax plus a 2% convention development tax, it applies to stays of six months or less, and it's collected from the guest.

Does Airbnb collect the Duval County tourist development tax for you?

No. The Duval County Tax Collector states there is no agreement between the county and any online rental platform to receive payments on a taxpayer's behalf, and Duval does not appear on Airbnb's list of Florida counties whose tourist taxes it collects. Airbnb does collect the 6% state transient rental tax and the discretionary sales surtax. The 6% county tax remains the owner's responsibility, filed monthly even in months with no bookings.

Are short-term rentals banned anywhere in Duval County?

Yes, in two of the beach cities. Atlantic Beach prohibits residential rentals of less than 90 consecutive days in all residential zones, under an ordinance adopted in 2006 that survives Florida's 2011 preemption because it predates it. Neptune Beach prohibits short-term rentals in all residential zoning districts and defines them as any rental, lease or advertisement for less than 28 days, which means the advertising alone is a violation.

What does a Jacksonville Beach short-term vacation rental certificate cost and require?

The certificate costs $150, and $150 again for a transfer, with renewal due by October 1 each year. Occupancy is capped at two people per bedroom plus two, to a maximum of twelve. Parking must equal occupancy divided by four, and a named Responsible Party has to reach the property within two hours.

Zoning maps are the part of a deal people check last and should check first. In Florida a county line means little. A city line inside it decides what a property can charge.

Last verified: July 2026. Every ordinance, tax rate, state law, and contact detail in this guide links to or comes from its official source.