Hollywood Short-Term Rental Regulations: A 2026 Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Hollywood, Florida and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that yes, you can. Florida law protects a homeowner's right to run a short-term rental, and Hollywood, sitting in Broward County between Fort Lauderdale and Miami, has never tried to ban the practice outright. The catch, and it's a real one, is that the city runs one of the more detailed licensing programs in the county under Chapter 119 of its Code of Ordinances, and it expects you or a representative to be physically standing at the property within 60 minutes of a complaint.

That single requirement tells you a lot about how Hollywood approaches this. Beyond the city license, you're also looking at a Florida DBPR license, a Florida Department of Revenue tax registration, a Broward County tourist tax account, and business tax receipts from both the city and the county. Stack the taxes up and you're remitting 13% of every dollar of rent across three separate authorities. None of it is optional, and missing a piece doesn't only risk a fine. It can get your listing shut down before you ever take a booking.

So this guide walks through what happens at each step: who qualifies, what the license costs and requires, the paperwork the city wants in your application, the tax layers and who collects each one, how seriously Hollywood enforces its own rules, and who to call when you get stuck. Everything below comes from Hollywood's, Broward County's, and Florida's own pages and ordinances, checked in July 2026. Before you commit to a property here, it's worth running the numbers through BNBCalc first, since the licensing and tax overhead changes what a Hollywood listing nets you.

What are short term rental (Airbnb, VRBO) regulations in Hollywood, Florida?

Hollywood regulates this under a single ordinance, and it's worth knowing its shape before anything else makes sense. Chapter 119, the Vacation Rental License Program, defines a vacation rental as any dwelling unit designed for occupancy by not more than one family that also counts as a "transient public lodging establishment," meaning it's rented to guests more than three times a year for stretches of less than 30 days (or one calendar month, whichever is shorter), or it's advertised as available for exactly that. Timeshares don't count. Everything else, from a single-family house to a condo unit, does.

That definition matters because Florida law sits above it and does most of the heavy lifting. Under Fla. Stat. § 509.032(7)(b), no Florida city or county can prohibit vacation rentals outright or regulate how often or how long one can be booked, a rule that's been in place since 2011. Hollywood's ordinance was written inside that boundary. It doesn't ban short-term rentals or cap how many nights a year you can book one. What it does instead is layer on a licensing, inspection, and operating regime, which the state statute doesn't preempt because it touches life-safety and administrative requirements rather than the ban-or-frequency axis the law protects.

Advertising is treated as evidence in its own right. Under § 119.10(B), listing a unit for rent under 30 days more than three times a year counts as direct proof you're operating a vacation rental, license or no license. So the requirement kicks in the moment you post the listing, not the moment a guest checks in. Just make sure you have your license lined up before your Airbnb calendar goes live, because the ordinance doesn't offer a grace period for "I was still testing the listing."

Starting a Short Term Rental Business in Hollywood

That advertising rule is exactly why the order of operations matters here. Before you list anything, Hollywood wants three separate government relationships in place: a city Vacation Rental License, a Florida DBPR license as a transient public lodging establishment, and active tax accounts with both the Florida Department of Revenue and the Broward County Tax Collector. Skip any one of them and the whole listing is technically illegal, even if the other two are in order.

Not every property clears the bar, either. Chapter 119 requires that the unit have no open code violations at the time of application, since a license "shall not be issued on a property with open violations." A proximity rule adds another filter. If the property sits within 1,000 feet of a school, a designated school bus stop, a day care center, a park, a playground, or another spot where children regularly gather, it can't be rented to or occupied by anyone convicted of certain sex offenses against a minor, and you're required to determine that before you apply. Timeshares are excluded from the whole program, too, since Chapter 119's own definition carves them out.

The occupancy math is worth working through early, because it decides how many guests you can legally book. A vacation rental needs at least 150 square feet of gross floor area for the first occupant and 100 more for each additional one, and every bedroom needs at least 70 square feet for one occupant or 50 per occupant if there's more than one, with a hard cap of two occupants per bedroom regardless of size. So a typical three-bedroom Hollywood house tops out at six overnight guests if every bedroom clears the space minimum, and up to nine during the day, since daytime occupancy can run 1.5 times the overnight cap. Kids under four don't count against any of those numbers.

One more thing decides your costs more than anything else on this list: whether you live there. Chapter 119's fee schedule prices owner-occupied vacation rentals dramatically lower than ones where the owner doesn't live on site, which we'll get into under licensing. Assuming your property clears all of the above, the Florida statewide guide is a useful companion read here, since it covers the state license and tax layers that sit above every city in Florida, Hollywood included.

Short Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Hollywood

That owner-occupancy split shows up immediately once you look at what the license costs, as of July 2026. The application fee for an owner-occupied vacation rental is $100, while a property where the owner doesn't live on site runs $850, according to Hollywood's own fee schedule. Renewals carry the same split: $45 for owner-occupied, $600 otherwise. That's not a small gap, and it reads like the city pricing in how much harder a pure investment property is to keep an eye on compared with one where somebody's actually living there.

Fee	Amount
Application, owner-occupied	$100
Application, not owner-occupied	$850
Renewal, owner-occupied	$45
Renewal, not owner-occupied	$600
Initial inspection (up to 1,500 sq ft)	$400
Re-inspection	$150 to $300
Late renewal fee	$100

Source: City of Hollywood Comprehensive Schedule of Fees, Vacation Rental License section.

Every license, regardless of which fee tier you're in, expires on September 30 every year and has to be renewed annually, with the city running a fresh inspection at each renewal. You can apply for renewal starting July 1, and anything received after September 30 draws a $100 late fee under § 119.14. The license itself is non-transferable: sell the property, and whatever license attached to it goes null and void automatically.

The inspection is a real gate, not a formality. Under § 119.15, the city inspects before an initial license issues and again at every renewal, checking compliance with applicable building, life-safety, and city code requirements. Any unpermitted work discovered along the way gets posted "unsafe" under the Florida Building Code's Broward County amendments, and the property can't be rented again until it's fixed, re-permitted, and re-inspected, at double the normal permit fee for the after-the-fact paperwork.

Whoever runs the property day to day, called the vacation rental representative in the ordinance, takes on ongoing duties that outlast the initial application. Under § 119.20, that person has to:

• Be reachable by phone, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• Be willing and able to physically show up at the property within 60 minutes of being notified by a guest, law enforcement, code compliance, emergency personnel, or the city, and actually do it when asked.
• Walk the property at the end of every rental period to confirm it's still in compliance.
• Keep a three-year log of every guest, which the city can request at any time.

Miss that 60-minute window often enough, or let the guest log lapse, and you're looking at license revocation rather than a fine. Two violations in any rolling 12-month period trigger a mandatory suspension while you write and submit a corrective action plan, and a second finding of the same violation inside 12 months revokes the license outright, no action plan required.

Required Documents for Hollywood Short Term Rentals

Revocation over a false statement is exactly why the paperwork deserves real care going in, and a non-owner-occupied application alone runs $850 that doesn't come back if you're denied. It's worth getting it right before you submit rather than after. Section 119.11 spells out exactly what a complete application needs, and the city returns anything incomplete along with your fee, with a note on what's missing. Applications are submitted online through the Vacation Rental Registration Portal; paper applications aren't accepted anymore.

Assemble these before you start the online form:

• The application form itself, naming the property owner, the rental's address, and the vacation rental representative with a working phone number.
• A copy of your current DBPR license as a transient public lodging establishment, plus your Florida Department of Revenue certificate of registration for sales and tourist tax collection.
• Evidence of an active Broward County Tax Collector account for tourist development tax, and copies of both your City of Hollywood and Broward County local business tax receipts.
• Interior and exterior sketches, drawn to scale: the interior sketch shows every bedroom, bathroom, exit, hallway, and the location of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and fire extinguishers; the exterior sketch shows structures, pools, spas, fencing, and every on-site parking space.
• A stated maximum occupancy, both overnight and at all other times, matching the square-footage math from the section above.
• A disclosure of whether the property sits within 1,000 feet of a school, bus stop, day care, park, or playground, since that triggers the sex-offender occupancy restriction.
• An acknowledgment that you'll install a noise level detection device and retain its data for 180 days, available to the city on request.
• A sworn statement that the property has no open code violations, plus a certificate of insurance covering liability for guest injury. Chapter 119 flags something worth remembering here: a standard homeowner's or renter's policy may not cover you once the unit is being used as a vacation rental, so it's worth checking that with your insurer before you apply, not after a claim.

The whole application is sworn under penalty of perjury, and a false statement anywhere in it is grounds for revoking any license issued from it. Keep in mind that a modification filing, not only a fresh application, is required if you ever increase the square footage, bedroom count, bathroom count, parking spaces, or maximum occupancy after your license is issued.

Hollywood Short Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you clear the application and are able to get your license issued, there's still tax to sort out on top of it, and Hollywood stacks three separate layers on every dollar of rent. The state charges 6% sales tax on transient rentals of six months or less, Florida's Department of Revenue confirms, and Broward County adds its own 1% discretionary sales surtax on top, per the Department of Revenue's 2026 surtax schedule. Then Broward's own Tourist Development Tax adds another 6%, collected directly by the county rather than the state, according to Broward County's own tourist tax page.

Tax	Rate	Collected by
Florida state sales tax	6%	Florida Department of Revenue
Broward discretionary sales surtax	1%	Florida Department of Revenue
Broward Tourist Development Tax	6%	Broward County Tax Collector
Combined	13%	Split between two agencies

Airbnb holds a marketplace-facilitator agreement with the state and collects and remits the 6% sales tax plus the 1% county surtax automatically on Hollywood bookings. Whether it (or Vrbo) also collects Broward's 6% Tourist Development Tax on your behalf isn't something I could confirm from a primary source specific to Broward, so don't assume it's handled. Register directly with Broward County's Tourist Development Tax section regardless, since the county assigns you a monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual filing schedule and returns become delinquent if they're not postmarked by the 20th of the month following your collection period, with a minimum $50 penalty plus 10% of what's owed for every 30 days late, capped at 50%.

Registering for the state pieces is a separate step from the county one. You'll need a Florida Department of Revenue sales tax account regardless of who collects on your behalf, since you're still the party of record. Your rental income is also ordinary taxable income on your federal return, though Florida has no personal income tax of its own to add on top, which is one layer you don't have to think about here even after everything else.

Florida wide Short Term Rental Rules

All three of those tax layers sit on top of a state framework that shapes almost everything Hollywood does locally, so it's worth understanding what Florida controls. The foundational rule is Fla. Stat. § 509.032(7)(b): no city or county ordinance may prohibit vacation rentals or regulate how often or how long one can be booked, and that's been the law since 2011. Local governments can still regulate everything else, licensing, inspections, parking, noise, which is exactly the lane Hollywood's Chapter 119 operates in.

Separately from any city license, Florida itself requires a vacation rental license through the DBPR Division of Hotels and Restaurants, issued under either the Vacation Rental – Condo or Vacation Rental – Dwelling classification depending on your property type. For a single-family home or duplex, that's a $50 application fee plus $170 for a full year or $90 for a half year, plus a $10 Hospitality Education Program fee every time, per the Division's lodging fee schedule.

The state also just rewrote the test that decides whether a rental needs that license at all. Under Chapter 2025-113 (SB 606), effective July 1, 2025, a rental counts as transient (and needs the license) if it's booked more than three times in a calendar year for stretches under 30 consecutive days, counted in actual consecutive days rather than calendar months as before. A stay is now presumed temporary unless a written lease says otherwise, which flips the old default. Worth keeping in mind if you've been leaning on a verbal understanding with a longer-term guest to stay outside the transient rules; the presumption no longer works in your favor without paper behind it.

A bigger change almost happened and didn't. A 2024 package, SB 280, would have added a statewide vacation rental registration system and preempted local advertising-platform rules, and it passed both legislative chambers before being vetoed on June 27, 2024. Its House companion, HB 1537, died on the table the same session. Neither is law, and going through the 2025 and 2026 legislative sessions, no equivalent bill has resurfaced, so Hollywood's local licensing authority under Chapter 119 remains fully intact for now. For more on how this plays out across other Florida markets, our Florida short-term rental guide covers the statewide picture in more depth than fits here, and if you're weighing Hollywood against markets further from the coast, the Orange County guide covers Orlando's rules and the Osceola County guide covers the Kissimmee vacation-home corridor.

Does Hollywood strictly enforce STR rules?

Given how much paperwork sits above a Hollywood listing, the honest answer is yes, and the ordinance is built to make enforcement stick rather than threaten it on paper. A first citation under § 119.58 runs $250, a second or subsequent one runs $500, and a third offense inside 12 months adds a mandatory license suspension on top of the fine. Operating without a license at all is treated as a separate violation every single day it continues, and under the city's current fee schedule that daily fine can run up to $5,000. A second finding of unlicensed operation bars you from reapplying for a full year.

Revocation is where this stops being a cost of doing business and starts being an existential risk to the listing. The city revokes a license outright on a second finding of the same violation within 12 months, or if it turns out you withheld or falsified information anywhere in your application. None of the fees you already paid come back if that happens, and citations, fines, and revocation can land on the property owner, the vacation rental representative, or the tenant, jointly, so spreading responsibility around doesn't spread the liability away.

The mechanism behind day-to-day enforcement is the complaint system, and it's built to be fast rather than bureaucratic. Hollywood runs a 24/7 hotline at 954.231.2375 plus an online complaint portal, so a neighbor with a noise or parking problem doesn't wait for a business day to report it. That's exactly why the 60-minute representative rule matters so much in practice: it's the enforcement trigger, not a courtesy. Be aware that the noise detection device you're required to install feeds directly into this, too, since the ordinance requires 180 days of retained data available to the city on request. I couldn't find specific published Hollywood case totals, fines issued, or lawsuits in a primary source for this pass, so I'm not going to invent a number. What's verifiable is the structure itself, and that structure is unusually fast and unusually willing to take a license away rather than just fine you and move on.

How to Start a Short Term Rental Business in Hollywood?

That enforcement structure is exactly why sequencing your setup properly saves both money and time. Working through these out of order tends to mean paying for something twice or failing an inspection you weren't ready for.

1. Confirm the property qualifies. No open code violations, not a timeshare, and check whether it sits within 1,000 feet of a school, park, or day care, since that triggers the occupancy restriction on sex offenders.
2. Apply for your Florida DBPR license as a transient public lodging establishment through the Division of Hotels and Restaurants before you go any further, since Hollywood's application requires a copy of it.
3. Register with the Florida Department of Revenue for sales tax collection, and with the Broward County Tax Collector for the Tourist Development Tax.
4. Get local business tax receipts from both the City of Hollywood and Broward County.
5. Prepare your interior and exterior sketches, occupancy statement, insurance certificate, and sworn compliance statement. Confirm your homeowner's policy covers short-term guest liability before you buy anything new.
6. Submit your Chapter 119 application and fee through the city's online portal, and pay attention to whether you qualify for the owner-occupied rate.
7. Pass the city inspection, correcting anything flagged before you're cleared to rent.
8. Install your noise detection device, smoke and CO detectors, and required fire extinguisher, then post the required information sheet at the entrance and the evacuation map inside.
9. List the property with both your DBPR and city license numbers displayed, and make sure your designated representative is reachable 24/7 and able to reach the property within 60 minutes.

Renewal isn't a one-time chore, either. Diarize September 30 every year, since that's when every Hollywood vacation rental license expires regardless of when in the year you first got it.

Who to contact in Hollywood about Short Term Rental Regulations and Zoning?

Getting stuck on any one of those nine steps is normal, and knowing which office owns your question saves a lot of time on hold. Six offices between them handle almost everything.

City of Hollywood, Vacation Rental License

The Treasury Division administers Chapter 119 licensing and business tax receipts.

• Address: 2600 Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood, FL 33020-4807
• Phone: 954.921.3225
• Vacation rental license email: [email protected]
• Business tax receipt email: [email protected]
• Hours: Monday–Thursday, 7:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
• Apply online: Vacation Rental Registration Portal

Complaints about a Hollywood vacation rental

• 24/7 hotline: 954.231.2375
• Online: Report a vacation rental issue

Florida DBPR, Division of Hotels and Restaurants

• Address: 2601 Blair Stone Road, Tallahassee, FL 32399-1011
• Phone: 850.487.1395
• Email: [email protected]

Florida Department of Revenue (sales tax)

• Taxpayer Services: 850-488-6800, Monday through Friday, excluding holidays

Broward County Tourist Development Tax

• Address: 115 S. Andrews Avenue, Room 121, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
• Phone: 954-357-8455
• Email: [email protected]

Broward County Local Business Tax Receipt

• Phone: 954-357-4829
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: Monday–Friday, 8:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

What do Airbnb hosts in Hollywood on Reddit and Bigger Pockets think about local regulations?

Contacting six different offices to get one property legal is exactly the kind of friction that shows up in how investors talk about Broward County. Reddit's own terms don't allow us to build a data pipeline off its threads for commercial content, so I'm not going to pretend to have surveyed it. What follows is my read of the recurring themes from public investor discussion, not a survey, so weigh it accordingly.

The consistent thread on BiggerPockets-style forums about Broward County vacation rentals is that the paperwork, not the state law, is what filters out casual hosts. Florida's preemption law gets cited constantly as the reason investors look at the state favorably compared with places like New York or much of California, where the legal path itself is narrow. Hollywood specifically, though, draws more comment for the licensing overhead than for any risk of outright prohibition, since the combination of a city license, a state license, and two separate tax registrations is more paperwork than most nearby cities require.

The 60-minute representative rule and the owner-occupied fee gap are the two details that come up most in discussions from people running properties here, rather than researching the market. Investors who don't live locally, or who manage remotely, tend to flag the response-time requirement as the single hardest operational piece to solve cheaply, since it effectively requires either living nearby or paying a local co-host or property manager who can commit to it. That's also the piece that shows up most in the fee schedule, since it's baked directly into why non-owner-occupied applications cost over eight times what owner-occupied ones do.

Once the licensing and tax numbers are in front of you, the last question is whether Hollywood is the right Broward property to buy versus something a few miles away. BNBCalc Markets tracks the Hialeah - Miramar market at the neighborhood level, which is the closest tracked comparison point for weighing Hollywood's numbers against the rest of the county.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Hollywood, Florida in 2026?

Yes. Florida law protects the right to run short-term rentals, and Hollywood doesn't ban them. You do need a city Vacation Rental License under Chapter 119, a Florida DBPR license as a transient public lodging establishment, and active tax accounts with the Florida Department of Revenue and Broward County. Your designated representative also has to be reachable 24/7 and able to reach the property within 60 minutes of a complaint. Skip any piece and the listing is operating illegally even if the rest is in order.

How much does a Hollywood vacation rental license cost?

It depends on whether you live in the property. The application fee is $100 if the unit is owner-occupied and $850 if it isn't, with renewals running $45 and $600 respectively. On top of that, expect a $400 initial inspection fee for up to 1,500 square feet, plus separate fees for the Florida DBPR license (around $50 application plus $170 a year) and Broward County's local business tax receipt.

What taxes do you pay on a Hollywood short-term rental?

Three layers, totaling 13% of rent: 6% Florida state sales tax, 1% Broward County discretionary sales surtax, and 6% Broward County Tourist Development Tax. Airbnb collects and remits the state sales tax and county surtax automatically through its marketplace-facilitator agreement. The 6% Tourist Development Tax isn't confirmed as automatically collected in Broward, so register directly with the county's Tax Collector and file it yourself.

How fast do you have to respond to a complaint about your Hollywood rental?

Within 60 minutes. Chapter 119 requires the property's designated vacation rental representative to be reachable by phone 24 hours a day and physically present at the property within 60 minutes of notification from a guest, law enforcement, code compliance, emergency personnel, or the city itself. This is one of the more demanding response requirements among Florida cities, and it's a real enforcement trigger, not a suggestion.

What happens if you rent in Hollywood without a license?

Operating without a license counts as a separate violation every day it continues, with a daily fine that can run up to $5,000 under the city's current fee schedule. A second finding of unlicensed operation bars you from reapplying for a full year. Beyond the city penalty, an unlicensed vacation rental also isn't registered for the tax accounts Florida and Broward County require, which adds separate exposure on top of Hollywood's own fines.

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