Sunrise Short Term Rental Regulation: A Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Sunrise, the Broward County suburb tucked between Fort Lauderdale and the Everglades, and are you weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is, Florida law is squarely on your side here: no city in the state, Sunrise included, gets to ban short-term rentals outright or dictate how many nights a booking has to run. That protection has been on the books since 2011, and it still holds in 2026.

Here's the part that surprised me going through Sunrise's own city pages: unlike several of its Broward neighbors, Sunrise doesn't appear to run a dedicated short-term-rental license or ordinance at all. Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Pompano Beach, Hallandale Beach and Deerfield Beach all built their own vacation-rental programs, complete with separate applications, inspections and per-night rules. Sunrise, from everything I could find on its official site, just folds a short-term rental into the same Local Business Tax Receipt every other small business needs. That's lighter than the norm around it, though it also means less written guidance if something about your specific property is unusual.

So let's walk through what actually applies in Sunrise: what the city requires, what Florida and Broward County add on top, the taxes that stack on every booking, and who to call when a question online can't answer for you. Every fact below is checked against Sunrise's, Florida's or Broward's own pages as of July 2026, and I've flagged the couple of things I genuinely couldn't confirm rather than guess at them. Run the property through BNBCalc first, so you know what the numbers look like before any of this paperwork costs you a dime.

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

Before any of that paperwork, it helps to know which government actually writes the rules that touch your listing, because in Sunrise three separate layers stack on top of each other. Florida sits at the bottom and does the most work. Fla. Stat. § 509.032(7)(b) says plainly that "a local law, ordinance, or regulation may not prohibit vacation rentals or regulate the duration or frequency of rental of vacation rentals," and it only exempts a local rule "adopted on or before June 1, 2011." I checked, and I couldn't find any Sunrise ordinance from before that cutoff touching short-term rentals, so this preemption applies here in full. That's the reason Sunrise can't tell you a booking has to be a week or longer, or cap how many times a year you rent.

The state also decides who needs a specific vacation-rental license. Under § 509.242(1)(c), a "vacation rental" is a licensed public lodging establishment, and Chapter 2025-113 (SB 606), effective July 1, 2025, rewrote the test for who counts: you're transient, and therefore need a license from the DBPR Division of Hotels and Restaurants, once you rent the property more than three times in a calendar year for stays under 30 consecutive days. Rent it out once or twice a year on a longer lease and you may sit outside that test, though the tax obligations below still apply regardless.

Above the state sits Broward County, and here's the useful nuance: Broward's own zoning code, Chapter 39, only governs the unincorporated Broward Municipal Services District, and Sunrise is an incorporated city, not BMSD. So county zoning never touches a Sunrise address. What Broward does reach is tax, which lands on every short-term stay in the county no matter which city it's in.

That leaves the city itself, and this is where Sunrise genuinely differs from its neighbors. I went through the Business Tax Receipts page, the Land Use & Zoning page, the Code Enforcement page and the Codes & Ordinances page on sunrisefl.gov, and none of them describe a short-term or vacation-rental-specific license, registration or inspection. What they describe instead is the ordinary Local Business Tax Receipt, required under Article II, Section 7-27 of the Sunrise Code of Ordinances of anyone "engaging in or managing any business, profession or occupation" in the city, which a short-term rental simply falls under like any other business.

Starting a Short Term Rental Business in Sunrise

That absence of a dedicated ordinance is good news on paper, though it leaves one real gap you'll want to close yourself: Sunrise's actual zoning code. The city's Land Development Code is Chapter 16 of its Code of Ordinances, and I'll be straight with you, I couldn't read its text. Sunrise runs its ordinances through Municode, and Municode's Sunrise library is a JavaScript application with no server-rendered version anywhere I could find, current or archived. So I can confirm the chapter exists and roughly what it covers, zoning districts, definitions, nonconforming uses, enforcement, but I can't tell you whether it names short-term rentals as a permitted use in your specific residential district. Before you list anything, call the Planning Division at (954) 746-3281 or email [email protected] and ask them to confirm your parcel's zoning treatment directly. It's a five-minute call that closes the one gap this guide honestly can't close for you.

Assuming zoning clears, the next thing to check is private, not governmental: your deed, HOA covenants or condo association bylaws. State preemption stops cities from banning rentals, but it does nothing to a private contract, and plenty of Sunrise's condo and HOA communities restrict rentals through their own documents regardless of what Florida law allows. Read yours before you furnish a guest bedroom.

From there, the business itself is straightforward. A whole-home rental, a room in your own house, a condo you own outright, all of them can operate in Sunrise as far as city rules go, and none of Sunrise's own pages mention an owner-occupancy requirement or a cap on how many guests you can host, the way Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood both do. What decides whether you need the state DBPR license is that three-times-a-year test above, and what decides whether the math works at all is the property itself, so run the address through BNBCalc before you spend a dollar on any of the steps ahead.

Short Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Sunrise

Assuming you're clear on zoning and the numbers still work, licensing in Sunrise is genuinely lighter than in most of Broward County. Three separate pieces apply, and they come from three different governments, so it's worth keeping straight which one issues each.

License or receipt	Who issues it	Cost	Renews
City Business Tax Receipt	City of Sunrise Business Tax Office	Set by classification under Sec. 7-51; confirm the exact fee with the office, since the schedule has no line item written specifically for a short-term rental	Annually, on or before September 30
Broward County Business Tax Receipt	Broward County Tax Collector	Set by the county	Annually, October 1 through September 30
DBPR Vacation Rental License (if you clear the three-times-a-year test)	Florida DBPR, Division of Hotels and Restaurants	$50 application fee plus $170/year for one unit, or $180/year for 2 to 25 units	Annually, on a staggered schedule set by DBPR

The city receipt is issued out of the Business Tax Receipt office inside Community Enhancement and Code Compliance, open Monday through Thursday 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., at (954) 572-2352. I went through the actual fee schedule PDF, Sec. 7-51 of the city code, and it lists more than 160 business categories by fee, from barber chairs to bowling alleys, but nothing called "vacation rental" or "short-term rental." The closest fit is the hotel and apartment category, priced per room or per unit, and it's not obviously built for a single whole-house rental either. Do check with the Business Tax Office directly on which classification applies to your listing before you assume a number.

Miss the September 30 renewal and the penalties climb fast: 10% on October 1, 15% on November 1, 20% on December 1, and 25% on January 1. Operate without a receipt at all and the city's own page states a penalty of up to $250, on top of the tax itself, court costs and attorneys' fees if it goes unpaid more than 150 days after notice. That's not a figure worth testing.

Required Documents for Sunrise Short Term Rentals

Since that renewal clock and those penalties are real, it's worth getting the paperwork assembled once rather than piecing it together after a rejected application. Sunrise's own BTR requirements checklist, still the version linked from the live page as of this year, lists what a new business needs:

• A copy of the owner's or applicant's driver's license
• Proof of corporate or fictitious name filing with the state, through sunbiz.org (850-245-6058)
• Any business or professional license required by the county or state, where applicable, which for most short-term rentals means the DBPR vacation rental license once you clear that three-times-a-year threshold
• A State Sales Tax Number from the Florida Department of Revenue
• Your FEIN or SSN, required under Fla. Stat. § 205.0535(6)
• A passed fire inspection, scheduled with Fire-Rescue at (954) 746-3470, covering tagged extinguishers, working illuminated exit signage and clear egress space
• A Certificate of Occupancy or Certificate of Completion, if applicable, confirmed with the Building Division at (954) 572-2354

Renting out of your own home adds a shorter, separate checklist: a driver's license matching your Sunrise address (or an original utility bill in your name if it doesn't), the homeowner's name and address if that's someone other than you, and the legal description of the property, which you can pull from Broward County's property appraiser site. Keep in mind the city's own paperwork is blunt about one more thing: it tells every applicant, in its own words, that "all businesses must obtain a Broward County business tax receipt" as well, so budget the county's application into your timeline alongside the city's.

Sunrise Short Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you get through all of that and are able to start hosting, there's still tax to collect on every booking, and it comes from two governments rather than one. Nothing here is city-specific, since Sunrise doesn't layer on its own hotel or resort tax the way some Florida cities do, but the state and county pieces together add up to a meaningful cut of your nightly rate.

Tax	Rate	Collected by
Florida state sales tax	6%	Florida Department of Revenue
Broward discretionary sales surtax	1%	Florida Department of Revenue
Broward County Tourist Development Tax	6%	Broward County (self-administered)
Combined total	13%	all three layers together

Both the Florida Department of Revenue's own guidance and the Broward TDT page confirm these apply to any rental of six months or less, and the DOR guidance is specific that "the $5,000 surtax limitation does not apply to charges for transient rentals," so don't expect the surtax to cap out on a longer or pricier stay. Airbnb's own tax collection page confirms it collects and remits all three of these automatically on your behalf. Vrbo's Broward-specific collection wasn't something I could confirm on an official page, so check your own payout statement rather than assume it matches Airbnb's.

Your rental income is still ordinary taxable income on your federal return either way, though Florida charges no state personal income tax on top of it, which is one layer you don't have to think about here. If you're weighing whether a Sunrise listing clears enough after that 13% comes off the top compared to another Broward suburb, BNBCalc Markets breaks that down at the neighborhood level rather than the county average.

Sunrise wide Short Term Rental Rules

Once taxes are handled, what's left is the ordinary code every Sunrise property owner already lives under, short-term rental or not. There's no citywide occupancy cap, minimum-night rule or 24-hour local contact requirement on Sunrise's own pages, the kind Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood both spell out for their registered vacation rentals. What does apply is the general nuisance and safety code.

Noise is the one most likely to actually generate a complaint against a rental. Sunrise's noise regulations sit in Chapter 9 ("Nuisances"), Article II, Sections 9-16 through 9-23 of the city code, which the city amended to add clearer, decibel-based sound standards. The ordinance states its own intent plainly: the city means "to prevent, prohibit and provide for the abatement of excessive, loud or disturbing noises" that affect the "health, comfort, convenience, safety, welfare and peace and quiet" of its residents. A loud group of guests at 2 a.m. is exactly the kind of thing that ordinance exists for.

Building and permitting rules apply too, and they matter more than they might sound like for a rental setup. If you're adding a pool, a fence, a screen enclosure or a room addition to make the property guest-ready, all of that needs a city Building Permit first, per the Information for Single Family Homeowners page, and pools specifically need approved safety barriers under Florida's Residential Swimming Pool, Spa and Hot Tub Safety Act. Bear in mind these apply to any Sunrise homeowner, but a short-term rental with paying strangers using that pool is exactly the property where skipping the permit is the least forgivable.

Does Sunrise strictly enforce STR rules?” Is Sunrise Airbnb friendly?

Given how light Sunrise's own licensing footprint is, it reads as more Airbnb-friendly than most of Broward, at least on paper. That doesn't mean nothing is watched. Enforcement here runs through the city's Community Enhancement and Code Compliance division, and it's complaint-driven rather than patrol-driven: a neighbor has to actually call it in. Florida law backs that structure directly, since the state bars code enforcement officers from opening an investigation off an anonymous tip, and Sunrise's own page states that a complainant must supply their name and address before the city acts. That's a real practical filter on how much gets reported in the first place.

When a case does get opened, it goes before a Special Magistrate under Florida Statutes Chapter 162, with hearings the third Monday of every month at 1:00 p.m. at the Flamingo Park Meeting Hall. The magistrate has the authority to assess fines for violations, and the clerk's office fields questions about a scheduled case at (954) 572-2347.

So the honest read is this: Sunrise doesn't strictly enforce a short-term-rental-specific rulebook, because it hasn't written one. What it does enforce is the same nuisance, noise and permitting code every property owner in the city answers to, and a rental that draws neighbor complaints will get the same Special Magistrate treatment as any other code violation. Airbnb-friendly here means low paperwork, not zero accountability, and that's a fair trade for most hosts.

How to Start a Short Term Rental Business in Sunrise

That distinction, low paperwork rather than no rules, is worth carrying into the actual sequence, because skipping a step here tends to cost you money rather than just time.

1. Confirm your zoning and any HOA or condo restriction first. Call Planning at (954) 746-3281 or email [email protected], and read your own deed or association documents before anything else.
2. Check whether you clear the DBPR three-times-a-year test. That decides whether the state vacation-rental license applies to you at all.
3. Apply for your Sunrise Business Tax Receipt, with your driver's license, fictitious name filing, FEIN or SSN, and any required state or county license in hand.
4. Apply for a Broward County Business Tax Receipt as well, since the city's own paperwork tells every applicant to get one.
5. Register with the Florida Department of Revenue for a sales tax number, and with Broward County for Tourist Development Tax if you'll be collecting either yourself rather than through a platform.
6. Schedule your fire inspection with Fire-Rescue at (954) 746-3470, and confirm any Certificate of Occupancy question with Building at (954) 572-2354.
7. Pull any building permits your setup needs, pools and fences included, before guests ever arrive.
8. Apply for the DBPR license, if you cleared the three-times-a-year test in step 2, through the Division of Hotels and Restaurants.
9. List the property, keep every tax and license number current, and diarize your September 30 city renewal alongside DBPR's own renewal date.

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

Whichever step trips you up, one of these six offices almost certainly owns the answer.

Business Tax Receipt Office (city)

Part of Community Enhancement and Code Compliance, Community Development Department.

• Address: 10770 W. Oakland Park Boulevard, Sunrise, FL 33351
• Phone: (954) 572-2352
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: Monday–Thursday 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m., Friday 8:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.

Planning Division (zoning questions)

• Phone: (954) 746-3281
• Email: [email protected]
• Maps and GIS: (954) 746-3270

Community Enhancement and Code Compliance (complaints and enforcement)

• Address: 10770 W. Oakland Park Boulevard, Sunrise, FL 33351
• Phone: (954) 572-2344
• Email: [email protected]
• Special Magistrate Clerk: (954) 572-2347, hearings the third Monday of each month, 1:00 p.m., Flamingo Park Meeting Hall, 12855 NW 8 Street, Sunrise, FL 33326

City Clerk (pending code revisions)

• Phone: (954) 746-3333

Florida DBPR, Division of Hotels and Restaurants (state vacation-rental license)

• Mailing address: 2601 Blair Stone Road, Tallahassee, FL 32399-0783
• Phone: 850-487-1395, Monday–Friday 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. Eastern

Broward County Tourist Development Tax Section (county tax)

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

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

I'll be upfront about this one: I went looking for a Sunrise-specific thread on BiggerPockets and didn't find one, and I'm not going to invent host sentiment I haven't actually read. What I can offer instead is a pattern that shows up across Broward's short-term rental market generally, based on the same research pass that covered Sunrise's neighboring cities for this project.

Investors comparing Broward suburbs tend to gravitate toward the ones with a written vacation-rental ordinance, even a strict one, over a city with no ordinance at all, because a known process is easier to underwrite than an unknown one. Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood publish their fees, their inspection requirements and their occupancy limits in black and white, so a buyer can price compliance into an offer before closing. Sunrise, by comparison, asks a host to make a couple of phone calls and read a fee schedule that doesn't quite name their business, which is a smaller lift in absolute terms but a less comfortable one for anyone used to a checklist.

That gap is exactly why this guide leans on primary sources and flags what it couldn't confirm rather than filling in the blank with a plausible-sounding guess. If you're weighing Sunrise against a city with a fuller written framework, the honest move is the same one I made here: call the Planning Division before you buy, and treat forum sentiment as a starting point rather than a substitute for that call.

Frequently Asked Questions

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

Yes. Florida's preemption law stops Sunrise from banning short-term rentals or setting a minimum night count, and Sunrise's own pages don't describe a separate vacation-rental license or ban. What you do need is the standard city Business Tax Receipt under Article II, Section 7-27 of the Sunrise Code, a Broward County Business Tax Receipt, and a Florida DBPR vacation rental license once you rent the property more than three times a year for stays under 30 days.

Does Sunrise require a special short-term rental permit?

Not as far as any official Sunrise page describes. Unlike Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Pompano Beach, Hallandale Beach or Deerfield Beach, Sunrise doesn't appear to run a dedicated vacation-rental ordinance with its own license, inspection or occupancy cap. What applies instead is the same Local Business Tax Receipt every business in the city needs, plus the state and county licenses and taxes that apply anywhere in Broward.

How much tax do you have to collect on a Sunrise short-term rental?

A combined 13%: 6% Florida state sales tax, a 1% Broward discretionary surtax, and Broward County's 6% Tourist Development Tax, all on rentals of six months or less. Airbnb collects and remits all three automatically on bookings made through its platform. Check your own payout details if you're using Vrbo or another channel, since that collection behavior wasn't confirmed on an official source.

What happens if you operate a short-term rental in Sunrise without a business tax receipt?

The city's own page states a penalty of up to $250, on top of the unpaid tax itself, and if it goes uncollected more than 150 days after notice you're also exposed to civil action, court costs and attorneys' fees. Renewing late carries its own escalating penalty, from 10% in October up to 25% by January, so treat the September 30 renewal date as a hard deadline rather than a suggestion.

Does an HOA or condo association in Sunrise override city rental rules?

Yes, in practice. Florida's preemption law only restricts what cities and counties can regulate; it does nothing to private contracts. A Sunrise HOA or condo association can restrict or ban short-term rentals through its own covenants even where the city allows them, so read your specific association's documents before you assume state law settles the question for your 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.