Surfside Short-Term Rental Regulation: A Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Surfside and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that this little Miami-Dade County town never banned short-term rentals the way Miami Beach did a few blocks south, where the city's own Practice Safe Renting page says rentals of less than six months and one day are prohibited across much of its residential map. So yes, you can legally rent a house, condo or townhouse in Surfside for a weekend, and the town will hand you a registration to do it.

The catch turns up fast, though, and it's a hard one. Surfside will issue no more than three short-term rental registrations for a property in any 12-month period, and one registration covers exactly one rental period. Unfortunately for anyone picturing a nightly-turnover beach condo, three bookings a year isn't a business. It's a seasonal arrangement with a tax return attached.

So let's walk through what it actually takes to do this properly: which ordinance governs, what the $100 registration buys you, the safety kit the town wants inside the unit, the three layers of tax a guest pays, how Florida's 2011 preemption law sits over the top, and who to call at Town Hall when something stalls. Everything below comes from Surfside's own code and forms, Miami-Dade County and the Florida statutes, checked in July 2026. And before you buy anything here on the strength of nightly rates, run the property through BNBCalc first.

What are Short-Term Rental (Airbnb, VRBO) Regulations in Surfside, Florida?

That three-a-year cap comes from a single section of the Town Code, and once you've read it, most of the confusion about Surfside disappears.

Sec. 90-41.1 of the Surfside Town Code governs the short-term rental of single-family dwellings, two-family dwellings, multi-family dwellings and townhomes. It was adopted as Ordinance No. 1573 on May 10, 2011, then amended by Ordinance No. 1600 in February 2013 and Ordinance No. 1620 in June 2014.

Three definitions in that section do the heavy lifting.

• A short-term rental is any occupancy of one of those dwelling units "for a period of time between one day to no more than six months." Film and print productions are carved out.
• A seasonal resident is a guest, tourist, lessee or vacationer who leases such a unit for that same one-day-to-six-month window.
• A responsible party is you or someone you designate, answerable for the property and for what your guests do in it.

Notice how wide that first definition runs. A four-night stay and a five-month winter lease are the same thing under this ordinance, which means a snowbird season eats one of your three slots exactly as a long weekend would.

The registration duty itself is written in strong terms. It's unlawful to let anyone occupy a single-family, two-family, multi-family or townhouse unit as a seasonal resident, or to offer such rental services within the town, unless you've registered. So the listing itself is exposed, not only the stay.

Each registration covers one rental period and one property, expires with that period, and can't be transferred or assigned to anyone else. There's no nightly minimum anywhere in the section, mind you. Surfside limits how often you rent, not how briefly.

One legacy carve-out still exists, although the door on it shut years ago. Subsection (d) gave owners a six-month window after the ordinance took effect to register properties with a genuine short-term rental history.

Qualifying meant three things at once. The property had to have been paying Surfside resort tax as of November 10, 2011. Its taxable room revenue had to run at least 50% of total room revenue over the prior two years. And it had to have been registered with the state as a Transient Apartment, Resort Dwelling or Resort Condominium under Chapter 509.

That application window closed in 2012, so nobody can use it today, though it does explain why a handful of buildings in town operate on a different footing from your neighbor's duplex.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Surfside

Setting those grandfathered buildings aside, then, the question worth sitting with is whether three rental periods a year can even carry a Surfside mortgage.

For most owners, it can't. Work it through: three registrations, each covering one continuous rental period, with no way to buy a fourth. A property doing 40 turnovers a year in Kissimmee or Naples does three here, legally.

That pushes almost every Surfside owner toward one of two models.

The first is the long-season lease. You rent to one household for the winter, register it once, and repeat perhaps twice more across the year. It's closer to furnished mid-term rental than to hospitality, and your guest behaves like a tenant with a suitcase.

The second is to leave the short-term regime entirely. The ordinance stops at six months, and so does the tax. Sec. 70-110(b) of the Town Code says no municipal resort tax is imposed on rents collected under a written lease for a period longer than six consecutive months, and Florida's own sales tax on transient accommodations applies to stays of six months or less. Sign a seven-month written lease and you're outside the registration cap, outside the resort tax, and outside the state transient rental tax in one move.

Before you plan around any of that, do check your building's paperwork. Surfside is dense with condominium and townhouse stock, and a declaration that bans or limits rentals will stop you long before the town does.

Fla. Stat. § 718.110(13) is worth knowing here. An amendment that prohibits rentals, changes the minimum term or caps how many times an owner may rent binds only the owners who consented to it and those who took title after it took effect. So the date you bought can decide whether a later rental restriction reaches you at all.

Hotels are a separate story and a separate zoning use, which is why an oceanfront hotel here runs on rules that have nothing to do with your townhouse.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Surfside

Assuming your building rules leave you room to move, the town's paperwork comes next, and there's still more of it than that single form suggests.

Start with the registration itself. Surfside's current Short-Term Rental Registration Form, revised October 2022, sets the fee at $100.00, due when you submit, and routes applications to the Code Compliance Department at [email protected]. Your signature has to be sworn in front of a notary, so build that into the timeline before you turn up at the counter.

You file one of these for every rental period, before the guest arrives, and the town counts them against your three.

Incomplete applications don't get held open for you. Sec. 90-41.1 says plainly that an incomplete registration application is unacceptable and the registration shall not issue, so a missing ownership document sends you back to the start.

Then there's the business side, which catches people who never thought of themselves as running a business. Surfside's FY 2026-2027 renewal packet states that all businesses located in the town require a Certificate of Use and a Local Business Tax Receipt. The license year runs October 1 to September 30, submissions open on August 21, everything is due by September 30, and penalties attach after October 1. Renewals go to [email protected].

Resort tax registration is a third, separate step. Under Sec. 70-111, every operator of a hotel, motel or apartment house has to register with the town manager within 30 days of commencing business and post the resort tax registration certificate conspicuously on the premises. The code's definition of "apartment house" expressly includes condominiums and houses, so don't assume a single unit sits outside it.

That same section carries a detail worth remembering: the town can condition your business tax receipt, certificate of occupancy and certificate of use on your outstanding resort tax returns being paid. Fall behind on the tax and the licenses follow.

Above all of that sits the state. Florida requires a vacation rental license from the DBPR Division of Hotels and Restaurants for dwellings and condo units that qualify as transient public lodging under Fla. Stat. § 509.242.

The lodging fee schedule prices a new 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 top.

Whether you need one is genuinely a per-property question in Surfside, and it's worth putting to DBPR directly.

Since July 1, 2025, Chapter 2025-113 defines transient occupancy as renting more than three times in a calendar year for periods of fewer than 30 consecutive days. Surfside's own ceiling is three registrations in a 12-month period. The two windows don't line up exactly, and stays of 30 nights or more don't count toward the state test at all, so an owner hosting three long winter lets and an owner hosting three long weekends can land in different places.

Required Documents for Surfside Short-Term Rentals

Since that $100 is charged per rental period rather than per year, it's worth getting the paperwork right the first time. Sec. 90-41.1(a)(4) sets out what the application has to contain, and the town's form mirrors it line for line.

• The property, identified formally. Address plus lot, block and subdivision name, and the unit or apartment number.
• Owner details. Name, mailing address, daytime phone and email.
• A responsible party with a 24-hour number. Name, address and an emergency contact phone answered 24 hours a day, seven days a week by someone with authority to address or coordinate problems at the unit. Not a voicemail box.
• Proof of current ownership.
• The rental period and the money. Start date, end date, guest names, the total charged, and the 4% resort tax calculated on it. The form also asks outright whether the booking came through Airbnb.
• Signed owner acknowledgements, sworn before a notary, covering driveway-only parking, the town's noise ordinance, garbage containers out no earlier than noon the day before pickup and back in before midnight on pickup day, and the trespass warning the town wants owners to understand.

You also acknowledge receipt of the town's Short-Term Rental Sanitation, Safety and General Rental Standards, which are attached to the form and are more specific than most municipal checklists. The safety list is the part to sort out before a guest walks in:

• A Type 2ABC fire extinguisher, minimum five pounds, inspected and tagged by a state-licensed inspection company, charged and accessible in the kitchen.
• Smoke detectors inside every bedroom and in the hallway leading to the bedrooms, with alarms for the hearing impaired available on request at no charge.
• Emergency escape windows in all bedrooms, and no burglar bars on bedroom windows.
• At least one approved locking device on every outside and connecting door, no double deadbolts on entry and exit doors, and a door knob on each.
• Heating and ventilation capable of holding 68 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the dwelling, plus railings on stairways, porches and steps.
• In a condominium building with interior hallways, an escape route diagram showing the stairwells, posted on or near the main exit door.

The sanitation half matters too, and one requirement catches people out. Dishes and glassware have to be sanitized between guests using a three-component sink or a commercial dish machine, and where you can't do that, you post a notice in the kitchen telling guests the dishes weren't sanitized to public food service standards.

Cribs have to meet Consumer Product Safety Commission standards, ice buckets get sanitized or relined daily, and no room that isn't a habitable room may be used for sleeping.

Renewing the Certificate of Use and Local Business Tax Receipt pulls in a second stack. The town's packet asks every business for a copy of its Miami-Dade County Local Business Tax Receipt, corporation or LLC documents, fictitious name registration, the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue annual operating permit, and a plan of the property with square footage and dimensions.

Surfside Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you manage to get all of that filed and are able to start hosting, there's still tax to deal with, and Surfside's stack is unusual in a way that works in your favor.

Three charges attach to a stay of six months or less, and no others.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
Florida transient rental (sales) tax	6%	Florida Department of Revenue
Miami-Dade discretionary sales surtax	1%	Florida Department of Revenue
Surfside municipal resort tax	4%	Town of Surfside

Add them up and a guest pays 11% on top of the nightly rate, split across two collectors.

What's missing is the interesting part. Miami-Dade County's tourist and convention development taxes list Surfside as excluded from the 3% Convention Development Tax, the 2% Tourist Development Room Tax and the 1% Professional Sports Facilities Franchise Tax. Guests staying elsewhere in Miami-Dade pay all three. In Surfside they pay none of them, because the town levies its own resort tax instead.

The Department of Revenue's local option transient rental tax table records that in its Miami-Dade footnote: 4% for Surfside and Bal Harbour, 7% for Miami Beach, 6% for the rest of the county.

The town's charter explains why. Sec. 69-A lets Surfside levy up to 4% on room rent and up to 2% on food and beverage under a 1967 special act, and the receipts have to sit in a separate fund that can never be swept into the general fund. Surfside is one of only three municipalities in Miami-Dade County with that power, alongside Miami Beach and Bal Harbour.

The state layer is ordinary. Florida's 6% transient rental tax applies to living, sleeping or housekeeping accommodations rented for six months or less, and Miami-Dade adds a 1% discretionary sales surtax, which the Department's surtax guidance confirms is not subject to the usual $5,000 cap on transient rentals. Both go to the state, not the county.

Now the mechanics, since this is where operators get hurt. Under Sec. 70-116 you file a resort tax return on or before the 30th day of the month following each calendar month, including a zero return in a month with no rentals, and you attach copies of the tax receipts you filed with the county and state. Sec. 70-115 gives you a 2% collection credit capped at $50 per monthly remittance, forfeited entirely if you're late.

The penalties escalate on a schedule. Sec. 70-117 adds 10% of the tax the moment you're delinquent, another 10% if it's still unpaid 30 days later, 25% where the town manager finds fraud, and 1% per month in interest on the tax itself. Keep in mind that Sec. 70-109(c) makes the operator solely responsible for paying the town regardless of whether the guest ever paid you.

There's one genuine convenience. Airbnb's occupancy tax page lists "Surfside Resort Tax: 4% of the listing price including any cleaning fee for reservations 182 nights and shorter," alongside the Florida transient rental tax and the discretionary surtax, and the town's own registration form confirms that arrangement has run since March 1, 2017. Vrbo's position I couldn't confirm on a primary source this pass, so treat it as something to check with the platform before you assume anyone is remitting on your behalf.

Records go back three years under Sec. 70-113, and the town can audit them whenever it likes.

Florida Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

Those tax rules are state-administered, and so is a good deal of the authority Surfside is working under, which is where this town gets legally interesting.

Florida preempts a lot of local control. Fla. Stat. § 509.032(7)(b) says a local law "may not prohibit vacation rentals or regulate the duration or frequency of rental of vacation rentals." Read that against Surfside's three-registrations-per-year rule and the tension is obvious, because frequency is precisely what Surfside regulates.

The answer sits in the next sentence of the statute. The preemption doesn't reach local laws "adopted on or before June 1, 2011," and Surfside adopted Ordinance No. 1573 on May 10, 2011, three weeks inside the window.

The ordinance was then amended in 2013 and 2014, though, and how far a grandfathered rule can be amended and keep its protection is not something the statute answers cleanly. I'd treat the cap as live and enforced, since the town still administers it daily, while noting the question has never been settled in Surfside's case as far as my research goes.

The rest of the state layer is stable. Attempts to rewrite it have failed twice: CS/SB 280, which would have added a statewide registration and advertising-platform framework, passed both chambers in 2024 and was vetoed on June 27 that year, and the 2026 water-safety bills SB 658 and HB 79 died on March 13, 2026 without becoming law.

What did change is the transient test. Chapter 2025-113, effective July 1, 2025, redefined transient occupancy as renting more than three times in a calendar year for periods of fewer than 30 consecutive days, counted in consecutive days rather than calendar months, and dropped the old presumption based on the operator's stated intent. Occupancy is now presumed temporary unless a written lease says otherwise, which is another reason to put a long Surfside let in writing.

Licensing itself runs through Fla. Stat. § 509.241, which requires each public lodging establishment to hold a DBPR license, renewed annually on a staggered schedule, with address changes reported within 30 days. And Florida charges no personal income tax, so the profit lands on your federal return and nowhere else at state level.

How different the rest of Florida looks is worth seeing before you settle on Surfside. The Florida statewide guide maps the whole framework, while the Osceola County guide covers the Orlando-adjacent vacation home belt and the Collier County guide covers Naples on the Gulf side. Both of those markets let a property turn over weekly all year. Surfside doesn't.

Does Surfside Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Enforcement is where a rule like the three-registration cap either bites or quietly doesn't, so it's fair to ask how hard Surfside pushes.

The system is complaint-driven by design. Sec. 90-41.1(a)(4)(j) says that whenever a violation occurs or is alleged to have occurred, any person may file a written complaint with the town manager. In a town this dense, with condo boards and neighbors who can see your driveway, that's a low bar to clear.

Who gets cited is the part that should make property managers pay attention. The ordinance authorizes any code compliance officer to issue notices. And it says violations "shall be issued to the owner, manager, real estate broker or agent, or authorized agent, or any other individual or entity that participates in or facilitates the violation." Your management company is exposed alongside you, and so is the agent who listed it.

Notice reaches you whether you want it to or not. If you're not present when the violation is issued, a copy goes by certified mail to the mailing address in the property appraiser's records, and where that comes back unclaimed or refused, the town may post the violation on the property itself.

The code never states the fine amounts. It defers to a schedule the commission adopts by resolution, and I couldn't find that schedule published anywhere on the town's site, so I won't quote figures I haven't read. What the code does tell you is how those fines grow, and that matters more than the starting number.

Sec. 15-11 doubles the scheduled penalty for a first repeat violation, then doubles it again for each subsequent repeat up to the schedule maximum, and adds the town's costs of bringing the property into compliance. Each day beyond the civil violation notice counts as a separate violation carrying its own penalty, and Sec. 1-8 says the same thing for the Code generally. That's not a one-time fine. It accrues daily, and that compounding is where owners who ignore the first notice get badly hurt.

The ceiling comes from state law. Fla. Stat. § 162.09 caps a special magistrate at $250 per day for a first violation and $500 per day for a repeat, with up to $5,000 for a violation found irreparable or irreversible, and it lets local governments of 50,000 people or more adopt higher tiers instead.

Two further levers sit behind the fines. Unpaid penalties, fees and costs become a lien against the violator's real property under Sec. 1-8(f), and the town may seek injunctive relief in addition to or in place of a fine.

The tax side has its own teeth. Sec. 70-108 makes failing to register or file a violation punishable under Sec. 1-8 and lets the town, in its sole discretion, revoke your certificate of occupancy, certificate of use and other licenses. Sec. 70-121(b) gives Surfside the same powers the Florida Department of Revenue holds under Chapter 212, including its collection procedures, and a special master who affirms the town adds administrative hearing costs of not less than $200 under Sec. 70-119.

Be aware that the town's own renewal packet says the quiet part out loud: failure to comply with the Certificate of Use, Local Business Tax Receipt, Resort Tax, Short-Term Rental and Home-Based Business ordinances "will result in Fines, Penalties, and Revocation of Licenses."

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Surfside

Given how the fines compound, the order of these steps matters, because the early ones tell you whether the later ones are worth paying for.

1. Read your condo declaration or HOA documents first. A private rental restriction can end this before the town ever sees your name, and § 718.110(13) decides whether a later amendment reaches you based on when you took title.
2. Decide which model you're running. Three registrations of any length, or one written lease longer than six months that steps outside the regime altogether. Make sure you pick before you furnish, because the two need different setups and different insurance.
3. Get the Certificate of Use and Local Business Tax Receipt. The license year runs October 1 to September 30, applications open August 21, and everything is due by September 30 to avoid penalties. Email [email protected].
4. Register for resort tax within 30 days of commencing business and post the certificate conspicuously in the unit.
5. Settle your state position with DBPR before the first booking, using the more-than-three-times-a-year transient test as your starting point, and don't assume the answer.
6. Fit the safety kit. Tagged Type 2ABC extinguisher in the kitchen, smoke detectors in every bedroom and the hallway, escape windows clear of burglar bars, no double deadbolts, and the escape diagram by the door if you're in a condo with interior hallways.
7. File the short-term rental registration for that specific rental period, notarized, with the $100 fee, to [email protected]. Don't forget that it has to be in before the guest arrives, not after.
8. Track your three. Keep a running count against a rolling 12 months, because a fourth registration doesn't exist and a fourth booking without one is unlawful.
9. File the resort tax return by the 30th of the following month, every month, including zero months, with the county and state receipts attached.

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

Whichever of those steps stalls, almost everything runs out of one building, which does at least make the phone tree short.

Short-term rental registrations and code enforcement

The Code Compliance Division takes the registration form, issues the registration, and is also the division that responds when a neighbor complains about you.

• Address: 9293 Harding Avenue, Surfside, FL 33154
• Phone: 305.861.4863
• Fax: 305.861.1302
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Certificate of Use, business tax receipt and resort tax

The Finance Department handles the annual Certificate of Use and Local Business Tax Receipt renewal, resort tax registration, and the monthly returns.

• Address: 9293 Harding Avenue, Surfside, FL 33154
• Phone: 305.861.4863
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
• Online: the town's Certificate of Use, Local Business Tax Receipt and Resort Tax page carries the current packet and forms

Tourism and resort tax policy

The Tourism Department administers the resort tax program and the Tourist Bureau side of it, and it's the right call for questions about how the tax is used rather than how it's filed.

• Director: Frank Trigueros
• Phone: 305.586.8427
• Address: 9293 Harding Avenue, Surfside, FL 33154
• Hours: Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Zoning, building and the state agencies

Zoning and building questions go to the Building Department at the same address, on 305.861.4863, during the same hours.

Anything above the town line belongs elsewhere. Vacation rental licensing is the DBPR Division of Hotels and Restaurants, and sales tax registration and the 6% transient rental tax belong to the Florida Department of Revenue. Neither of them can help with a Surfside registration, and the town can't help with a state license.

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

Since so much of this comes down to how the rules feel in practice, sentiment is worth weighing. One caveat first, though: Reddit blocks the tools I read the web with, so I can't quote threads from there. What follows is my read of the recurring themes, not a survey.

• Investors mostly don't argue with Surfside. They leave. The conversation about buying a Miami-area short-term rental tends to move quickly to markets where a unit can turn over weekly, and the frequency cap is the reason. Nobody spends long looking for a workaround, because there isn't one to find.
• The people who do host here are usually residents, not investors. A cap of three fits an owner who spends part of the year elsewhere far better than it fits a portfolio. That's the profile the ordinance was written for, and the profile it still serves.
• Condo boards get blamed more often than the town does. Declaration restrictions are the wall people actually hit, and they're private, so the town has nothing to do with them and nothing it can do about them.
• The tax side draws surprisingly few complaints. Airbnb's automatic remittance of the 4% resort tax removes the step most hosts elsewhere find fiddliest, and the absence of Miami-Dade's county bed taxes means Surfside guests pay less than guests a few blocks inland.

If you're weighing Surfside against the market next door, what you're really comparing is what each property can earn, and the Miami Beach market data is the fairest comparison point on the island. Just remember that Miami Beach's own restrictions are tighter than Surfside's in most residential districts, so a stronger revenue number there may sit on a property you can't legally list.

The broader lesson holds well past this one town. A market that caps how often you can rent is a harder constraint than one that caps how much you can charge, because a rate cap trims your margin while a frequency cap decides whether the model exists at all. Whenever you look at a new jurisdiction, find that number first.

Frequently Asked Questions

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

Yes, though only three times a year. Town Code Sec. 90-41.1 requires a registration for each rental period of a single-family, two-family, multi-family or townhouse dwelling unit, and no more than three registrations may be issued for a property within any 12-month period. A short-term rental is defined as any stay from one day up to six months, so a winter lease counts the same as a weekend. There's no minimum night requirement.

How much does a Surfside short-term rental registration cost?

The Town of Surfside charges $100.00 per registration, payable when the form is submitted, and each registration covers a single rental period, not a whole year. The form must be notarized and goes to the Code Compliance Department. Separately, every business in town needs an annual Certificate of Use and Local Business Tax Receipt, with the license year running October 1 to September 30 and applications due by September 30.

What taxes apply to a short-term rental in Surfside?

Three. Florida's 6% transient rental sales tax and Miami-Dade's 1% discretionary sales surtax both go to the Florida Department of Revenue, and Surfside's own 4% municipal resort tax goes to the town, for 11% in total. Miami-Dade's county tourist development, convention development and sports facility taxes do not apply in Surfside. Airbnb collects and remits the 4% resort tax on reservations of 182 nights or shorter.

Does Surfside have a minimum stay for short-term rentals?

No. Surfside limits frequency rather than duration, so a one-night booking is permitted with a registration. The constraint runs the other way: the ordinance defines a short-term rental as any stay from one day up to six months, and only three of them may be registered in a 12-month period. A written lease longer than six consecutive months falls outside the ordinance and outside the town's 4% resort tax.

What happens if you rent a Surfside property without registering?

It's unlawful under Sec. 90-41.1 both to allow the occupancy and to offer the rental within the town. Any code compliance officer may issue a notice, and the violation can be written against the owner, manager, real estate broker or agent, or anyone else who facilitates it. Fines are set by town resolution, a first repeat violation doubles the scheduled amount, and each day of a continuing violation counts separately. Unpaid amounts become a lien on the property.

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