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

Do you own a condo or a house in Bal Harbour and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, unfortunately, the answer is no, and it isn't a close call. Bal Harbour Village, the small oceanfront municipality in Miami-Dade County, Florida, that most people know for its shops and its beachfront hotels, won't let anyone occupy a dwelling unit for less than six consecutive calendar months. A weekend, a week, two weeks in February: none of it is legal in a home here.

The village does issue something called a Vacation Rental Certificate, which is where most of the confusion starts. Read the zoning code, though, and a "Short-Term Vacation Rental" here turns out to mean a stay of not less than six consecutive calendar months. So it covers seasonal tenants rather than travelers, and you can hold only two per property in any 12 months. Florida's preemption won't rescue you either, since the village adopted the ordinance on 31 May 2011, one day inside the statute's grandfather window.

So let's walk through what that means in practice in 2026: which code sections do the work, what the certificate costs and demands of you, the three layers of tax stacked on a compliant stay, how hard two code officers push in a village this small, and who to call at Village Hall. Every figure below comes from Bal Harbour Village's, Miami-Dade County's or Florida's own pages, checked in July 2026. Before you underwrite a purchase here on rental income, run the property through BNBCalc first.

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

That six-month floor does nearly all the work, so it's worth seeing exactly where it sits in the code.

Two provisions carry it between them, and the first is a definition that reads backwards to anyone arriving from another market. Bal Harbour Village's published Chapter 21 zoning text defines a Short-Term Vacation Rental as "any occupancy of a single-family, two-family, multi-family or townhouse dwelling unit for a period of time of not less than six consecutive calendar months."

The same test then extends to any unit advertised or held out to the public on those terms. So the minimum stay is written into the name of the thing.

The second provision is the prohibition itself. Section 21-363(c) says that "no person shall allow occupancy or possession of all or any portion of a dwelling unit for any period of time less than six consecutive calendar months."

Note that phrase, "all or any portion." Letting a spare bedroom by the night is caught as squarely as letting the whole house, so the hosted room-share that survives in some restrictive cities doesn't exist here either.

Every residential district in the village does list vacation rentals as a permitted use, which sounds encouraging until you follow the cross-reference. The R-1 single-family district at section 21-96(4), the RM-1 through RM-5 multiple-family districts at sections 21-166(4), 21-191(4), 21-211(4), 21-236(4) and 21-261(5), and the OF Ocean Front district at section 21-281(11) all permit "Vacation Rentals in accordance with section 21-363."

They point straight back at the same six-month rule. And in the single-family districts, section 21-362(a) closes the back door, since every use not specifically authorized there is prohibited outright.

One lawful nightly-stay market does exist inside the village boundary, though it isn't open to individual owners. Section 21-281(2) permits hotels in the Ocean Front district provided they contain not less than 100 guest rooms, while section 21-281(1) sets a floor of 24 dwelling units for apartment buildings there. That's resort-scale development on Collins Avenue, which is why Bal Harbour's visitor economy runs through a handful of large properties instead of thousands of listings.

Before you go hunting for the text yourself, one practical warning. Do check the certified text with the Village Clerk's office rather than trusting any online copy, including the one linked above. The village says as much on its own Village Code page, where the codified version online "consists of the Charter and those codified Ordinances that were in effect as of July 21, 2016 the date of the most recent Supplement (#64)."

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Bal Harbour

Chase down that certified text and the same sentence is waiting for you at the end of it. So, unfortunately for most people reading this, there's no nightly rental business here to start. Say your plan was to furnish an oceanfront condo, list it on Airbnb, and clear a premium nightly rate from a market with serious money in it. That plan is illegal in Bal Harbour and no permit unlocks it.

The village never built a compliance pathway for short stays, because it wrote them out of the definition instead.

What's left is a seasonal landlord business, which is a different trade with different economics. You furnish the unit, you find a tenant for six months or longer, and you collect one rent check a month instead of turning over forty bookings a year. Snowbird demand along this stretch of Miami-Dade is real and the rents are high, yet you're competing with the ordinary long-let market rather than with hotels, and the revenue ceiling reflects that.

The two-certificate cap then shapes how you plan the calendar. Section 21-363(d) allows no more than two Vacation Rental certificates in any 12-month period, and a new certificate is required for each rental period, so two back-to-back six-month tenancies is the theoretical maximum. Most owners here run one winter season and keep the unit themselves the rest of the year, because a fresh certificate means a fresh inspection and a fresh $150.

Assuming nightly rates are what your model needs, the honest advice is to look at a different Florida jurisdiction, and there are plenty where whole-unit short-term rentals are lawful and well established. Our Florida statewide short-term rental guide maps how the preemption works across the state, the Collier County guide covers Naples and Marco Island, and the Osceola County guide covers the Orlando resort corridor, where purpose-built vacation-home communities are the norm rather than the exception.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Bal Harbour

Assuming a six-month seasonal let still works for you, there's then a licensing stack to clear, and it runs deeper than the single certificate most owners expect.

Section 21-363(c) sets two conditions before anyone may rent a unit as a vacation rental. You need a business tax receipt from the village under Chapter 9 of the code, and you need to comply with section 21-363 itself, which means holding a current Vacation Rental Certificate. Miss either one and the rental is unlawful no matter how long your tenant stays.

The Bal Harbour business tax receipt comes first in sequence. The village tells applicants to ring the Building Department on 305.865.7525 first, to confirm the intended business is permitted at that address. Processing then runs about one to two weeks.

Renewal falls due on 30 September every year, and a renewal counts as late from 1 October. Late is expensive rather than merely annoying, since the fee schedule adds 10% during October and another 5% after that, capped at 25%.

The village's business tax receipt application also demands a photocopy of your Miami-Dade County local business tax receipt, a Certificate of Use from the Bal Harbour Building Department, and your Florida Department of Revenue sales tax registration. So two more counters get involved before you file anything with the village.

Then comes the certificate. Bal Harbour's FY 2025-26 rates and fees schedule sets three charges under Resolution No. 2011-741 and section 21-363, as of July 2026:

• Application for a Vacation Rental Certificate: $150, payable per rental period rather than per year.
• Annual inspection or re-inspection "no show" fee: $300, charged when an inspector keeps an appointment and nobody is there to let them in.
• Application for appeal of Vacation Rental agent status: $150, if the Village Manager suspends or revokes your agent.

Timing is the part that catches people out. Section 21-363(e) requires the application no later than 15 days before the rental period is scheduled to start. Section 21-363(f)(1) then sends a Village Code Inspector into the unit before the certificate is approved, checking compliance with zoning, building, housing, density, life safety and fire codes.

Any violations found have to be corrected and the unit re-inspected before issuance. So a tenant who wants to move in three weeks from now is a tight run, and one who wants to move in next week isn't happening.

Inspections don't stop once you're approved, either. Units used for vacation rentals must be properly maintained and re-inspected annually. Where an inspector is denied admittance, or fails on three attempts because no adult was present, the village serves notice by certified mail and you get ten days from receipt or refusal to arrange access.

The agent requirement is the obligation owners underestimate most. Section 21-363(h) makes you designate a Vacation Rental agent on the application, and it hangs four duties on that person:

• Be available at the listed phone number 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• Be able and willing to come to the unit within three hours of notification from the village.
• Receive service of any notice of violation.
• Monitor the unit at least weekly for continued compliance.

You can serve as your own agent. Otherwise the agent has to be someone 18 or over who either is customarily present at a business location inside the village or actually resides there, which rules out a manager based in Aventura or downtown Miami unless they keep a Bal Harbour presence.

Keep in mind that the village maintains a written record of its contacts with agents, including whether the agent responded within the three hours and how the issue was resolved. That record is what a suspension gets built on. The Village Manager can suspend agent status for up to three months for minor violations, or revoke it for major or repeated ones, and a revoked agent can't reapply for six months.

Required Documents for Bal Harbour Short-Term Rentals

Choosing that agent well is only part of the filing, mind you. Since the $150 buys a single rental period and doesn't come back, it's worth getting the paperwork right the first time. Section 21-363(e) lists twelve elements the application must contain at minimum, and the village's own Vacation Rental Certificate application form, which cites "Bal Harbour Village Ordinance 2011-549" on its face, turns them into an attachment checklist:

• Owner and agent contact details, plus a notarized letter authorizing the agent where the agent isn't the owner.
• A sworn acknowledgement that you've received section 21-363, reviewed it and understand what it requires.
• The unit's legal description: subdivision, lot, block, street address, folio number, zoning district and Future Land Use Map designation.
• A current Florida Department of Revenue sales tax number under Chapter 212, plus any permit, license or approval required under Chapter 509 and Rules 69A-43 and 69A-60 of the Florida Administrative Code, where applicable.
• The valid annual vacation rental inspection report required by section 21-363(f).
• A detailed floor plan sketch, which may be hand drawn, showing square footage, bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen, pool and parking areas.
• A site plan marking property lines, the building, and the number and location of parking spaces legally available to occupants, excluding public spaces.
• A pet policy, stating whether pets are allowed and any limitations.
• Any deed, subdivision or condominium restriction applicable to the unit, which matters a lot in a village where most housing sits inside associations with leasing rules of their own.
• The written owner-occupant agreement, naming every person who will occupy the unit and the license tag of every vehicle they'll park there, capped at the number of legal spaces shown on the certificate.

That last document carries more weight than its length suggests. The occupants have to acknowledge that their rights can't be transferred or assigned, and that breaching the agreement or the ordinance can mean immediate termination, eviction by the owner or agent, and liability for village fines.

Section 21-363(j) then adds a posting duty inside the unit for the duration of every stay. Seven things go on display: the agent's contact details, the maximum occupancy, the maximum number of vehicles with a sketch of the spaces, the location of the nearest hospital and police station, a legible copy of the certificate, a legible copy of section 21-363, and a copy of the agreement with the current occupants. Covered trash containers are on the owner too.

Be aware that signing the application authorizes village staff to inspect the premises annually and as necessary. And selling the unit resets the whole thing, because section 21-363(l) makes a new owner schedule and obtain an inspection before applying at all.

Bal Harbour Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you get through all that and are able to place a tenant, there's still tax to deal with, and Bal Harbour's stack is unusual enough that guidance written for Miami or Miami Beach will mislead you.

A taxable stay in the village carries three charges, and they land in two different places:

Charge	Rate	Collected by
Florida sales tax on transient rentals	6%	Florida Department of Revenue
Miami-Dade discretionary sales surtax	1%	Florida Department of Revenue
Bal Harbour resort tax on room rent	4%	Bal Harbour Village
Miami-Dade tourist, convention and sports taxes	not levied here	not applicable

That last row is the surprise, and it's worth knowing before you build a model. Miami-Dade County's tourist and restaurant taxes page excludes Bal Harbour, alongside Surfside and Miami Beach, from the 2% Tourist Development Tax and the 1% Professional Sports Facilities Franchise Tax. The county's food and beverage taxes skip the same three municipalities. Even the 3% Convention Development Tax gets collected countywide "with the exception of the cities of Surfside and Bal Harbour."

The village levies its own resort tax instead, and Florida's revenue department confirms it from the other direction. Form DR-15DSS puts the Miami-Dade discretionary sales surtax at 1%, as published in July 2026. Footnote 2 of Form DR-15TDT then records the local transient rental rate as "4% for Surfside and Bal Harbour, 7% for Miami Beach, and 6% for the rest of the county."

The village's resort tax registration page sets out mechanics that are tighter than the county's. Every operator subject to the tax must register with the Finance Director within 30 days after commencing business, and the fee schedule prices that registration at $100.

Collections then go to the Finance Department with the original reporting form on or before the 20th of the month following each calendar month. Remit on time and you deduct a 2% operator's commission on what you collected. Remit late and you lose the commission and pick up a 10% penalty under section 18-38 instead, with a further 10% stacked on top of the first for continued delinquency.

Now for the boundary that decides whether any of this touches you. Florida's GT-800034 guidance on sales and use tax taxes rental charges at the 6% state rate plus surtax for rental periods of six months or less, and exempts charges paid under a bona fide written lease for continuous residence longer than six months.

Bal Harbour's floor and the state's ceiling land on the same number, which is a coincidence with real consequences. A lease for exactly six months sits inside the taxable band. A seven-month lease generally falls outside it.

Make sure your lease term and your tax position get decided together rather than separately, because one extra month flips the answer.

One more piece, before you assume a platform handles any of this for you. Airbnb's list of where it collects occupancy taxes shows it collecting Florida's 6% transient rental tax on reservations of 182 nights and shorter, plus the discretionary sales surtax, and collecting the Miami-Dade county taxes with Bal Harbour, Surfside and Miami Beach carved out. It lists a 4% Surfside resort tax, mind you, and no Bal Harbour one.

So the village's 4% is yours to register for, collect and remit. Don't forget to file in months where you collected nothing, since the return is due either way.

I couldn't find a primary source stating whether Bal Harbour's own resort tax ordinance carries a duration threshold the way the state rule does, so ask the Finance Department directly rather than reasoning across from Chapter 212. Florida imposes no personal income tax, at least, so nothing else stacks on the profit.

Florida Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

The reason Bal Harbour can run a scheme like that, in a state famous for stopping cities from doing it, comes down to a single date.

Fla. Stat. § 509.032(7)(b) says a "local law, ordinance, or regulation may not prohibit vacation rentals or regulate the duration or frequency of rental of vacation rentals."

A six-month minimum regulates duration. A two-per-year cap regulates frequency. So on its face, Bal Harbour's scheme is the exact thing the statute forbids.

The same paragraph then grandfathers anything "adopted on or before June 1, 2011," and the code history on section 21-363 records it as "Ord. No. 549, § 3, 5-31-2011."

One day inside. That single line of legislative history is the whole legal foundation here, and it's why the six-month rule won't be argued away by pointing at state preemption.

The rest of the state layer still applies to you, mind you. Whether a rental needs a state license turns on the transient test in Fla. Stat. § 509.242, which Chapter 2025-113 rewrote with effect from 1 July 2025. Under the Senate's summary of SB 606, transient now means rented more than three times in a calendar year for periods of less than 30 consecutive days.

A compliant Bal Harbour let runs six months, so it isn't transient and generally doesn't trigger a DBPR vacation rental license at all. Section 21-363(e)(5) still asks for Chapter 509 documentation "where applicable" though, so confirm your own position with the Building Department instead of assuming it either way.

Registering with the Florida Department of Revenue is a separate matter and does apply whenever the stay is six months or less, since that's a tax registration rather than a lodging license.

Two legislative threads are worth tracking, although neither changes anything today. A 2024 package that would have expanded preemption and built a statewide registration system passed both chambers as SB 280 and was vetoed on 27 June 2024, and nothing equivalent has been enacted since.

A 2026 water-safety bill for vacation rentals near pools, CS/CS/SB 658, passed the Senate 37-0 in February and then died in Messages on 13 March 2026. Remember that a bill dying isn't the same as an idea dying, so both are candidates for a 2027 refile.

Anyone comparing Bal Harbour with the unincorporated county should note one more boundary. Miami-Dade's own residential short-term vacation rental program, with its certificate of use and annual inspection, applies only outside municipal boundaries. The county says as much, telling owners inside a municipality to contact that municipal government for its regulations. Inside Bal Harbour, the village's rules are the only rules.

Does Bal Harbour Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Since the village's rules are the only rules that reach you here, how hard it pushes them matters a lot. And it does push, for reasons that are structural rather than a matter of political mood.

Start with coverage. Bal Harbour's code enforcement unit runs "two (2) full-time Code Officers providing coverage 7 days a week from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m." across a village of a few thousand residents. That's an unusually thick ratio for a municipality this size, and it shows.

Building type helps them along. With a 24-unit floor for apartment buildings in the Ocean Front district, most of the housing stock sits behind a staffed lobby rather than a front door on the street. A stranger arriving with luggage, in a building where the desk knows every resident, isn't a discreet event.

The enforcement design does the rest. A certificate can't issue until an inspector has been inside and signed off, so the village verifies compliance before the money starts rather than chasing it afterwards. That's the opposite of the complaint-driven model most cities run on.

Then look at how the penalties compound. Section 21-363(g)(2) treats each day of renting without a valid certificate as "a separate and distinct violation" of the section. The village's fee schedule then sets the civil penalty for any code section carrying no specific penalty at $250 per day for a first violation, rising to as much as $500 per day for a repeat one under section 2-191.

Do the math on a two-week booking. Fourteen separate violations, not one.

Other charges stack alongside it. Using property in a residential district for unpermitted purposes draws $250 under section 21-362, failing to obtain a local business tax receipt draws another $250 under section 9-28, and failing to post the receipt adds $50. Where a Code Enforcement Special Magistrate finds a violation, section 21-363(g)(1) folds the cost of every required inspection and re-inspection into the administrative costs the village assesses, and those costs go into any lien filed against the property.

One detail is easy to miss and expensive to learn. Under section 21-363(h)(5), the owner or the agent is deemed the "violator" for the purposes of F.S. § 162.06, and service of notice on the agent counts as service on the owner, the tenant and the violator. Appointing a careless agent doesn't create a buffer. It creates a second point of failure.

The village is clear-eyed about what the rule buys it, too. The Strategic Tourism Plan its consultants presented to the Village Council in June 2024 says flatly that short-term rentals such as Airbnb and Vrbo "are not allowed in Bal Harbour Village."

It files that under the hotels' competitive strengths, because "this decreases competition for existing lodging in the Village."

All of which points at why any of this stays a priority. Resort tax is real money in Bal Harbour, and it gets tracked property by property, month by month.

In the minutes of the 11 May 2026 Resort Tax Committee meeting, staff reported March 2026 as the village's highest March ever and its highest month ever, with revenue about 10 percent over the prior year. They also flagged a revenue gap opening up, because the Ritz-Carlton "brought in close to $400,000 during the last six months" and closed on 6 April 2026.

When a single hotel closing is a line item at committee, unlicensed inventory competing with those hotels isn't going to be a low priority.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Bal Harbour

With enforcement that attentive, the order of the steps below matters even more than it looks. Working them out of sequence tends to cost you a whole rental period rather than a bit of time.

1. Decide whether a six-month minimum works at all. Section 21-363(c) isn't waivable, and section 21-363(n) even bars a vacation rental from the special-event variance under section 11-30. Where your model needs nightly turnover, stop here and look at another jurisdiction.
2. Read your condominium or subdivision documents. The application requires you to attach any deed, subdivision or condominium restriction, and plenty of Bal Harbour associations impose leasing minimums longer than the village's own.
3. Get the Miami-Dade County local business tax receipt and a Certificate of Use from the Bal Harbour Building Department, since the village application asks for both.
4. Apply for the Bal Harbour business tax receipt, allowing one to two weeks, and put the 30 September renewal in your calendar.
5. Register with the Florida Department of Revenue for sales tax, then register for resort tax with the Village Finance Director within 30 days of commencing business.
6. Line up your Vacation Rental agent before you apply, and confirm they can honestly meet the 24-hour availability and the three-hour attendance duty. This is the requirement most likely to fail in practice.
7. Book the inspection early and file at least 15 days ahead of the rental start date, with the $150 fee, the floor plan, the site plan and the parking allocation.
8. Paper the tenancy properly, with the written owner-occupant agreement naming every occupant and vehicle tag, and get the in-unit postings up before anyone moves in.
9. File resort tax monthly by the 20th, even in a month with no collections, and keep the 2% commission by never being late.
10. Re-apply for each new rental period, remembering the two-certificate ceiling in any 12 months and the annual re-inspection that comes with it.

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

Whichever step you get stuck on, almost everything runs out of one building at 655 96th Street, which makes this easier than most cities.

Zoning, certificates, inspections and permitted uses

The Bal Harbour Village Building Department administers section 21-363, issues the Certificate of Use, and performs the vacation rental inspections.

• Address: 655 96th Street, Bal Harbour, FL 33154
• Phone: 305.865.7525
• Office hours: Monday to Friday, 8:00am to 3:00pm
• Building Official: Eliezer Palacio, [email protected]
• Online: the Building Department page carries permit forms and inspection scheduling

Business tax receipts

• Phone: 305.866.4633
• Email: [email protected]
• Renewal deadline: 30 September each year, late from 1 October

Resort tax

The Village Finance Department handles registration, the monthly reporting form and the 2% operator's commission.

• Email: [email protected]
• Phone: 305.866.4633
• Filing deadline: the 20th of the month following each calendar month

The certified text of an ordinance

The Village Clerk is who to ask for anything newer than the online code, and the Clerk's office says it can provide copies of ordinances not yet codified.

• Village Clerk: Juan D. Garcia
• Email: [email protected]
• Phone: 305.866.4633
• Office hours: Monday to Friday, 9:00am to 5:00pm

Complaints and code enforcement

• Non-emergency police line: 305.866.5000
• Coverage: two code officers, seven days a week, 8:00am to 6:00pm

County and state

• Miami-Dade County tourist taxes: 305-375-5550, at 11805 SW 26th Street, Suite 230, Miami, FL 33175. County tourist taxes aren't levied in Bal Harbour, so this line matters mainly if you also own elsewhere in the county.
• Florida Department of Revenue: register for sales tax through floridarevenue.com.
• DBPR Division of Hotels and Restaurants: licensing information for anyone whose use does turn out to be transient.

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

Call any of those numbers and you'll get the same answer, which is roughly why host discussion about Bal Harbour looks nothing like the arguments you see in contested markets. What follows is my read of the recurring themes in public investor discussion rather than any kind of survey, so do weigh it accordingly.

The dominant theme is absence. Investors researching short-term rentals in north Miami-Dade talk about Miami, Miami Beach, Sunny Isles Beach and North Bay Village, while Bal Harbour barely comes up, because there's nothing left to debate once the six-month rule is understood. Threads that do reach it tend to end quickly, and the follow-up question is usually about Sunny Isles or Surfside instead.

The second theme is confusion imported from the neighbors, and that one gets expensive. Surfside, immediately to the south, runs its own registration scheme with different numbers, and Miami Beach's rules differ again by district and have been litigated for years. Owners assume the beach towns share a rulebook. They don't, and the figure you half-remember from a Surfside thread will not be the figure on your Bal Harbour certificate.

The third theme is the association layer, which comes up more often than the ordinance does. Most Bal Harbour housing sits in condominium buildings whose declarations impose leasing minimums, approval processes and waiting periods on new owners, and several of them are stricter than the village. Anyone treating six months as their planning assumption should read their own declaration before they read the zoning code.

Assuming you want to weigh a compliant seasonal let against what a legal nightly market next door produces, the Miami Beach market is the natural benchmark. It's the nearest big market where short-term rentals stay lawful in defined districts, and the nightly data there runs deep enough to model against.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Bal Harbour in 2026?

No. Bal Harbour Village Code section 21-363(c) prohibits allowing occupancy or possession of all or any portion of a dwelling unit for any period of time less than six consecutive calendar months. That catches a single rented room as squarely as a whole home, so nightly and weekly stays on Airbnb or Vrbo are unlawful in a Bal Harbour residence. The only legal nightly accommodation in the village is a hotel, and hotels in the Ocean Front district must contain at least 100 guest rooms.

What is a Bal Harbour Vacation Rental Certificate and what does it cost?

It's a per-rental-period permit for a stay of six consecutive calendar months or longer, not a short-term rental license. The application fee is $150 under the village's FY 2025-26 fee schedule, and no more than two certificates may be issued for a property within any 12-month period. Applications are due at least 15 days before the rental period starts, and a Village Code Inspector has to inspect the unit and clear any violations before the certificate issues.

How much tax do you pay on a Bal Harbour rental?

A taxable stay carries 6% Florida sales tax, a 1% Miami-Dade discretionary sales surtax, and a 4% Bal Harbour resort tax on room rent, for 11% in total. Miami-Dade's convention development, tourist development and professional sports taxes are not levied in Bal Harbour. The village's resort tax goes to the Finance Department by the 20th of the following month, and a bona fide written lease for longer than six months is generally exempt from the state tax and surtax.

Why does Florida's state preemption not override Bal Harbour's six-month rule?

Because of when the ordinance was adopted. Fla. Stat. § 509.032(7)(b) bars local governments from prohibiting vacation rentals or regulating their duration or frequency, but it does not reach any local law adopted on or before 1 June 2011. Bal Harbour's code history records section 21-363 as Ordinance No. 549, adopted 31 May 2011. That places it one day inside the grandfather window, so the village keeps the power to enforce a six-month minimum.

What happens if you rent a Bal Harbour property for less than six months?

Each day of renting without a valid Vacation Rental Certificate is a separate and distinct violation under section 21-363(g)(2), so a two-week booking generates fourteen of them. The village's fee schedule sets $250 per day for a first violation where no specific penalty is prescribed, and up to $500 per day for a repeat.

One line in a zoning code can outweigh a hundred pages of permit process, and it's usually the line nobody reads first. So go and find yours before you underwrite anything.

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