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

Do you own a place in Miami Beach and you're wondering whether you can put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the honest answer is that it depends entirely on which building you own, because Miami Beach is one of the few cities in Florida that got to keep its short-term rental ban after the state tried to take that power away in 2011. Florida law generally stops cities from banning vacation rentals or capping how often you can book one, under Fla. Stat. § 509.032(7)(b). Miami Beach's own ordinance dates to 2010, a year before that cutoff, so it's grandfathered in and still fully enforceable.

That single fact explains almost everything else in this guide. Single-family homes across the city can't do short-term rentals at all, full stop. A wide band of apartment and townhome zoning, including most of what a typical buyer pictures when they picture Miami Beach, is restricted to a fixed list of buildings that were already renting short-term back in 2010. Nobody has been able to add a new address to that list since 2012. Outside those zones, in the city's high-density and commercial districts, short-term rental is allowed, and that's where most of the legal Airbnb activity in Miami Beach happens today.

So this guide walks through what's real in 2026: which zoning permits it, what a Certificate of Use and Business Tax Receipt cost, the four-layer tax stack that lands on a Miami Beach booking, and a fine schedule that's written into the code at $20,000 a violation but hasn't actually been enforceable at that level since a 2020 court ruling. Every figure below comes from the city's own pages, Miami-Dade County's, the Florida Department of Revenue's, or a court record I read directly. If Miami Beach turns out to be off the table for your address, run the numbers on a market where the whole unit qualifies through BNBCalc instead, since plenty of nearby Florida cities regulate this far less tightly.

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

Miami Beach defines a short-term rental as anything under six months and one day, and that threshold, not 30 days like most cities, is the number to remember throughout this guide. Below it, you're in short-term-rental territory and subject to everything that follows. At or above it, you're an ordinary landlord under Florida's regular tenancy law instead.

Where you're allowed to operate splits into three tiers, and the tier your property falls into decides almost everything.

Single-family zoning is a flat ban with no exceptions. The city's own page confirms this sits in the Resiliency Code at § 7.5.4.13(d)(E), and there's no grandfather clause, no certificate, no path through it at all. If your Miami Beach property is a single-family house, six-months-and-one-day is the only legal lease length you'll ever get.

A specific list of multifamily zones is restricted to buildings that already had short-term rental history in 2010. Section 142-1111(a)(1) of the Land Development Regulations, now cited on the city's site as Resiliency Code § 7.5.4.11(a), names the districts: RM-1, RM-PRD, RM-PRD-2, RPS-1, RPS-2, CD-1, RO, RO-3, and TH. Ordinarily short-term rental is banned there too. The carve-out is narrow: owners who could prove a consistent, predominant history of short-term renting as of March 10, 2010, and who applied within six months of the ordinance (with a later, tighter window for the Collins Waterfront Historic District), could get a certificate of use.

That application window closed in 2012. It has never reopened. So today, in these zones, short-term rental is only legal in a fixed set of already-approved buildings, and buying into one of those specific addresses is the only route in.

Everything outside those two categories is genuinely open. The city's higher-density and commercial districts, generally described as South Beach's Entertainment District, the North Beach Town Center, and zones like RM-2, RM-3, CD-2, CD-3, MXE and TC, don't carry the 2010 grandfather test at all. A Certificate of Use, a Business Tax Receipt and a Resort Tax account get you there, the same three things any legal Miami Beach operator needs regardless of zone.

Miami Beach's own address lookup tool exists because the answer varies address by address, and it's worth running your own property through it before you assume anything from this guide applies to your specific unit.

Starting a Short Term Rental Business in Miami Beach

Since where you can legally operate depends entirely on the address, starting a Miami Beach short-term rental business starts with a property search rather than a business plan. Unfortunately for most buyers, the honest math is discouraging: single-family homes are out entirely, and most condo and apartment buildings sit in the restricted zones where the door closed in 2012. What's left is a fairly narrow slice of Miami Beach real estate, either an already-grandfathered address in a restricted zone or a unit in one of the genuinely open commercial-adjacent districts.

Even inside that narrower slice, the building itself isn't the only gate. Miami Beach's own required-documents page asks every applicant for a letter from their condo or HOA association, dated within 60 days, confirming that short-term rental is permitted under the association's governing documents. That's a separate layer from city zoning, and it trips people up constantly.

Hosts on BiggerPockets point out that most Miami Beach inventory is condos, and plenty of condo HOAs simply don't allow short-term rentals no matter what the city permits. Do check your association's bylaws before you assume a legally zoned building gets you all the way there.

Another thread on the same forum captures the practical workaround. An agent there advised a prospective host that the HOA's own governing documents can substitute for a formal approval letter when the association won't issue one directly. That agent also noted that owners who ignore an HOA's short-term rental ban tend to get caught and fined by their own association eventually, even when the city itself has no objection. Keep in mind that a legal certificate of use from the city doesn't override a stricter HOA rule sitting on top of it.

If your target property clears zoning and the HOA both, the state layer still applies on top. Florida requires a DBPR vacation rental license for any qualifying unit under Fla. Stat. § 509.242, separate from anything Miami Beach issues. And if none of this pencils out for the address you're looking at, it's worth widening the search. Our Florida statewide guide covers the preemption that protects most other Florida cities from doing what Miami Beach did, and the Collier County guide and the Manatee County guide both cover Gulf Coast markets where that protection still holds.

Short Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Miami Beach

Assuming your address clears zoning and the association letter, the licensing itself still runs through three connected approvals rather than one. The city bundles them under what it calls a Business License: a Certificate of Use, an Annual Fire Fee, and a Business Tax Receipt, per the Finance Department's own BTR page.

For a property in one of the grandfathered restricted zones, the certificate of use has its own dedicated process under Sec. 142-1111(c), and it carries a $600 application fee. The approval, once granted, runs for one year and has to be renewed, and it comes with real strings attached. Rentals can't happen more often than once every seven days. The whole unit has to be rented, never a single room, and every agreement needs a named contact person reachable 24 hours a day who either lives on site or keeps a principal office within the district.

That contact's name and phone number has to be posted on the outside of the building. No exterior signage advertising the rental is allowed at all, and the ordinance is explicit that no variances can be granted from any of it.

For a property in one of the genuinely open districts, the process is more standard. You apply for the Certificate of Use through the city's Civic Access portal and work through the checklist for short-term rentals specifically, then schedule a fire inspection once planning signs off. The CU issues automatically once that inspection and the financial review both clear. From there you apply for the Business Tax Receipt itself.

Both paths land in the same place: a state DBPR vacation rental license (Vacation Rental-Condo or Vacation Rental-Dwelling), a city BTR, and a Resort Tax account with Miami Beach's Finance Department. Don't forget that a registration lasting one year means this isn't a one-time cost. Budget for the renewal every single year, on top of whatever you paid to get approved the first time.

Required Documents for Miami Beach Short Term Rentals

Since the licensing itself runs through several offices, it's worth gathering the paperwork before you start rather than after. Miami Beach's own checklist is unusually specific about what it wants:

• Proof of ownership, a recorded warranty deed or bill of sale.
• Business formation documents, Articles of Incorporation and a Federal ID Number if you're operating through an entity.
• Florida Annual Resale Certificate and your state license, which ties back to the DBPR vacation rental license every operator needs.
• A dated association letter, no older than 60 days, confirming your specific unit is allowed to short-term rent under the building's governing documents.
• A written homestead acknowledgment, since claiming a homestead exemption while running a short-term rental can put that exemption at risk, and the city wants your signature saying you understand that before it issues anything.
• Every listing platform you use, named individually with contact information for each.
• A completed Resort Tax registration form with a photo ID and signatures.
• A notarized affidavit, and this one has a hard clock on it: the original has to be mailed or delivered in person within two weeks of issuance, not just filed electronically.

Keep in mind the occupational classification matters too. The city files residential short-term rentals under code 95017300 and non-residential under 95017301, so make sure whichever application you submit matches your actual property type.

Miami Beach Short Term Rental Taxes

Once the paperwork clears, there's still the tax stack to deal with, and it's an unusual one, the part most out-of-state owners get wrong. As of July 2026, four separate taxes apply, from three different governments, and only some of them get collected for you automatically.

Tax	Rate	Collected by	Who remits it
Florida state sales tax	6%	Florida Dept. of Revenue	Airbnb collects automatically
Miami-Dade discretionary surtax	1%	Florida Dept. of Revenue	Airbnb collects automatically
Miami-Dade Convention Development Tax	3%	Miami-Dade RER, Business Section	Airbnb collects automatically
Miami Beach Resort Tax	4%	City of Miami Beach Finance Dept.	Host must file and remit directly

That's 14% total, and DOR's own county-by-county rate table confirms it directly. Miami Beach's combined local option rate is 7% (the city's own resort tax plus the county's convention development tax), stacked on top of the state's 6% and Miami-Dade's 1% surtax, per DOR's surtax schedule.

Going through Airbnb's own occupancy tax page directly rather than a summary of it, Airbnb collects and remits the 6% state tax, the 1% county surtax, and the 3% Convention Development Tax on every Miami Beach booking. It does not collect Miami Beach's own 4% Resort Tax at all. There's simply no line item for it.

That means 10 of the 14 points get handled for you, and the remaining 4% is entirely on the host to track, file, and pay through the city's Resort Tax portal, monthly by the 20th of the following month or annually by May 20th for the prior May-through-April period. Third-party platform sales, Airbnb included by name in the city's own guidance, still have to be reported in that filing even though Airbnb never sends Miami Beach the money on your behalf.

The Convention Development Tax piece adds its own separate registration, since as of October 1, 2024 Miami-Dade County moved that account from the Tax Collector to its Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources. Even though Airbnb collects that 3% for you, you still need a Tourist Tax account on file with the county, and a missed monthly filing there carries at least a $50 penalty even when zero dollars are due.

One piece of good news: Florida has no state personal income tax, so your rental profit only faces federal tax, not a state layer on top.

Miami Beach wide Short Term Rental Rules

Beyond the tax filings, a handful of operating rules apply to every legal short-term rental in the city regardless of which zoning tier it falls under. Advertising itself counts as evidence: under Sec. 142-1111(d)(4), a listing that advertises a stay under six months and one day is treated as direct, admissible proof that the property is being used illegally, and it creates a rebuttable presumption against the owner. So an unapproved listing is its own evidence trail, whether or not a guest ever checks in.

For rentals operating in the restricted, grandfathered zones, three more rules bite hard. First, only the entire unit can be rented, never a single room or a portion of it. Second, a booking can't happen more than once every seven days, so daily or even three-night turnover isn't legal there even for an approved address.

Third, and this is the one that ends operations outright, three or more adjudicated violations at any unit the same owner or manager controls within a 12-month period blocks that certificate of use from being renewed at all. That's not a fine you absorb and move past. It's a countdown to losing the right to operate entirely.

City law also requires the Business Tax Receipt number and Resort Tax certificate number to appear visibly in every single advertisement or listing, under Sec. 102-386. A listing without both numbers displayed is itself a compliance gap, separate from whether the underlying rental is legal.

Does Miami Beach strictly enforce STR rules?” Is Miami Beach Airbnb friendly?

Given all of that, Miami Beach earns its reputation as one of the least Airbnb-friendly cities in Florida, but the enforcement mechanics are more layered than the headline number suggests. The code itself, still unamended since a 2016 update, lists fines of $20,000 for a first violation, $40,000 for a second within 18 months, and up to $100,000 plus revocation for a fifth or later violation, with an extra $25,000 tacked on for larger buildings on a repeat offense.

Those numbers, as written, are no longer what actually gets enforced. In City of Miami Beach v. Nichols (Third District Court of Appeal, docket 3D19-1954, decided July 22, 2020), the court affirmed a trial court ruling that Miami Beach's fine schedule conflicts with the statewide caps in Fla. Stat. § 162.09. That statute lets a city Miami Beach's size adopt enhanced penalties, but even the enhanced tier tops out at $1,000 a day for a first violation, $5,000 a day for a repeat, and up to $15,000 for a violation the city deems irreparable or irreversible.

I read the court's docket record directly, along with two independent legal write-ups of the holding, and found nothing indicating the ruling was later reversed. So going into 2026, Miami Beach's real exposure runs on those statutory caps, not the $20,000-plus figures still sitting in the ordinance text. That's a meaningfully lower number than the code implies, though $5,000 a day compounding on a repeat violation still adds up fast if you let it run.

What hasn't softened is the mechanism itself. Violations get heard before a special master, not a courtroom, which moves faster and gives the city more procedural room than a typical civil case. And enforcement doesn't wait for a fine to land. The city can seek an injunction to shut a listing down directly, and it can even order tenants evicted from a unit found operating illegally, on top of whatever fine follows.

Code Compliance also runs a 24-hour violation hotline, and because the city's own Practice Safe Renting tool is public, a neighbor or a guest can check whether an address is properly registered before a complaint even gets filed.

How to Start a Short Term Rental Business in Miami Beach

Given how much of this depends on the address, the order below front-loads the steps that can kill the whole plan before you spend real money on the ones that can't.

1. Check the zoning tier for the specific address, using the city's Practice Safe Renting lookup. If it's single-family, stop here. If it's a restricted district, confirm the building is already on the approved list rather than assuming a new certificate of use is available.
2. Pull the HOA or condo association's governing documents and confirm short-term rental is allowed, in writing, dated within 60 days if you're going to use it in the application.
3. Confirm the state DBPR vacation rental license path applies to your unit type, Condo or Dwelling, and budget the fee ladder into your numbers.
4. Apply for the Certificate of Use through Civic Access, following whichever path matches your zoning tier, restricted with the $600 fee or standard.
5. Complete the fire inspection once planning approval comes through, and don't let the application sit idle for 90 days or the city treats it as abandoned.
6. Apply for the Business Tax Receipt once the CU and fire inspection both clear.
7. Register for Resort Tax with the city, and separately register a Tourist Tax account with Miami-Dade County's RER Business Section for the Convention Development Tax.
8. Register for Florida sales tax with the Department of Revenue, even though Airbnb collects most of it for you.
9. Post the required numbers on every listing, your BTR and Resort Tax certificate numbers, before the first booking goes live.
10. Diarize the annual renewal, since the certificate of use, BTR, and resort tax account all need to stay current every year, not just at launch.

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

Whichever step trips you up, the office you need depends on what kind of question it is, and Miami Beach splits this across more departments than most cities.

For Licensing Inquiries:

Miami Beach Finance Department handles the Business Tax Receipt, Certificate of Use follow-up, and Resort Tax account.

• Address: 1755 Meridian Avenue, 1st Floor, Miami Beach, FL 33139
• Phone: 305-673-7420
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: Monday-Friday, 8:30am-6pm (closed 12-1pm daily, and 12-2pm on the 1st and 3rd Thursday)

Miami Beach Planning Department issues the Certificate of Use itself.

• Address: 1700 Convention Center Drive, 2nd Floor, Miami Beach, FL 33139
• Phone: 305-673-7550

Miami-Dade RER Business Section handles the county's Convention Development Tax / Tourist Tax account.

• Address: 11805 SW 26th Street, Suite 230, Miami, FL 33175
• Phone: 305-375-5550
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: Monday-Friday, 7:30am-4:30pm

Florida DBPR Division of Hotels and Restaurants issues the state vacation rental license.

• Online: the DBPR licensing portal

For Zoning and Land Use Questions:

Miami Beach Code Compliance Department handles violations, complaints, and zoning enforcement.

• Address: 1680 Meridian Avenue, Suite 602, Miami Beach, FL 33139
• Main line: 305-673-7555
• 24-hour violation hotline: 305-673-8285 or 305-604-CITY (2489)
• Front counter hours: Tuesday-Friday, 8:30am-12pm and 1pm-3:30pm

Florida Department of Revenue handles state sales tax registration and questions.

• Phone: 850-488-6800, Monday-Friday, excluding holidays

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

Talk to anyone who's tried to actually buy in Miami Beach for this purpose and the zoning maze comes up fast. On BiggerPockets, one prospective host asked what to do about a listing that already showed as zoned for short-term rental, yet still needed an HOA letter the association wouldn't easily provide.

The advice from a Miami-based agent in that thread was practical rather than optimistic. Pull the association's actual bylaws yourself if a formal letter isn't forthcoming, since most operators who skip that step tend to get caught by their own HOA eventually, even when the city itself has no complaint against them.

A separate thread on investing in the Miami Beach area makes the tradeoff explicit. One poster lays it out plainly: Miami Beach can out-earn nearby markets on a nightly basis. Finding a property that's both zoned correctly and HOA-approved is genuinely hard, though, since most of the city's inventory is condos and plenty of those associations ban short-term rentals outright regardless of what the zoning map says.

The suggested alternative in that same thread, worth taking seriously if the numbers don't work here, is looking north toward Fort Lauderdale, where approval tends to be more straightforward even if nightly rates run lower.

The throughline across both threads is the same one this guide keeps coming back to. The city's rules are only the first gate, and the address itself, along with whoever governs it beyond city hall, still decides whether a Miami Beach short-term rental is available to you at all. If your search does turn up a property that clears every layer, it's still worth checking what that unit could realistically earn against nearby, less-restricted Florida markets using BNBCalc's Miami Beach market data before you commit to the paperwork.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Miami Beach in 2026?

Only if the specific property qualifies. Single-family homes are banned outright with no exceptions. In RM-1, RM-PRD, RM-PRD-2, RPS-1, RPS-2, CD-1, RO, RO-3, and TH zoning, short-term rental is restricted to a fixed list of buildings grandfathered in around 2010, and that list hasn't accepted new addresses since 2012. Outside those two categories, in high-density and commercial districts, short-term rental is allowed with a Certificate of Use, Business Tax Receipt, and Resort Tax account.

What taxes apply to a Miami Beach short-term rental?

Four taxes stack on every booking, totaling 14%: 6% Florida state sales tax, 1% Miami-Dade discretionary surtax, 3% Miami-Dade Convention Development Tax, and 4% Miami Beach Resort Tax. Airbnb automatically collects and remits the first three, 10 points total. The city's own 4% Resort Tax is not collected by Airbnb at all, so the host has to register with Miami Beach's Finance Department and file that piece directly, even when all bookings come through the platform.

How much can Miami Beach actually fine you for an illegal short-term rental?

The code still lists $20,000 for a first violation up to $100,000-plus for repeat offenses, but those numbers were struck down as unenforceable in City of Miami Beach v. Nichols in 2020. The real, currently enforceable caps run under Florida Statute 162.09: up to $1,000 a day for a first violation, $5,000 a day for a repeat, and up to $15,000 for a violation the city treats as irreparable. Beyond fines, the city can also evict tenants from an illegal unit and seek a court injunction to shut it down.

Can I get a new Certificate of Use for short-term rental in a restricted Miami Beach zone?

Generally, no. The application window for RM-1, TH, and the other restricted districts opened in mid-2010 and closed by 2012, with a narrow extension only for applicants who could prove a government filing error. No new certificates have been issued in those zones since. The only way in today is buying a unit that already holds an approved certificate, so make sure you confirm a building's status before you make an offer rather than after.

Does an HOA-approved building automatically mean I can list it on Airbnb in Miami Beach?

No, and this is a common misunderstanding. City zoning and HOA rules are two separate approvals that both have to line up. A unit can sit in a zoning district where short-term rental is fully legal and still be blocked by a condo association's own bylaws, which many Miami Beach buildings maintain regardless of what the city permits. Always check the association's governing documents directly, since a favorable zoning map means nothing if the HOA says otherwise.

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