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

Do you own a place in Groveland and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is you're allowed to, and the city's own zoning code says so in as many words. Groveland's Community Development Code lists "Short Term Rental" as one of eight residential and hospitality uses, then marks it permitted by right across almost every residential district in the city. No special exception to win, no public hearing to sit through, and no cap on how many nights a year the place gets rented.

The catch sits in a different chapter of the code, mind you, and it's older than most hosts expect. Back in 2010 Groveland adopted a rental license ordinance that reaches any dwelling somebody pays to sleep in, and it brings an inspection, a decal in your front window, a designated local agent with a Lake County phone number, and a rule that the city won't turn the water on until the license exists. One thing you've almost certainly been told to do, on the other hand, no longer applies at all: a City of Groveland business tax receipt stopped being a requirement in September 2020, when the council repealed the business tax outright.

So let's walk through what it takes to do this properly in 2026: which zones allow it, what the city license and inspection cost, the state license sitting above them, the three layers of tax on a Lake County booking, how enforcement works in practice, and who to call when something doesn't line up. Groveland is a city in Lake County, on the western edge of the Orlando metro, so everything below is city-and-county specific rather than general Florida advice. Before you spend a dollar on furniture, run the property through BNBCalc first.

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

Two documents do most of the work, and they were written twelve years apart by people solving different problems.

The first is the Community Development Code, the form-based zoning code Groveland adopted in 2022 and last amended by Ordinance 2023-20 in September 2023. Section 5.3 defines the use plainly: "Short Term Rental. A facility or dwelling where the length of stay ... is typically less than 180 days," a definition that expressly sweeps in timeshares, condominium hotels, resort residential, resort villas and transient rentals. Note that 180-day line, because it's much wider than the state's test. A four-month furnished let is a short term rental for Groveland zoning purposes even though Florida wouldn't call it a vacation rental at all.

The second is Article IV of Chapter 105, the Groveland Residential Rental Inspection Ordinance, adopted in April 2010 and amended in November 2011. It never mentions Airbnb, Vrbo or vacation rentals. It covers rented dwellings generally, which is exactly why it catches short-term hosts who came looking for a short-term-rental ordinance and concluded there wasn't one.

Start with the zoning, since that's the part that either works or doesn't. Section 5.3 gives every use a letter in each zone: "P" means permitted by right, "S" means a special exception through the Planning and Zoning Board and City Council, and a blank space means the use is prohibited there. Short term rental gets a P nearly everywhere.

Zone or district	Short term rental	Where it's listed
Town, Village and Hamlet: Edge, Center, Core	Permitted	Table U1
Green Swamp Town: Edge, Center, Core	Permitted	Table UG1
Single Family Limited, Single Family Residential, Low Density Residential, Moderate Density Residential	Permitted	Table EN1
Green Swamp Low Density	Permitted	Table EN1
Planned Unit Development	"See PUD"	Table EN1
Green Swamp Rural	Blank, so prohibited	Table EN1
Agriculture	Permitted	Table SD1

Two rows in that table deserve a second look. Green Swamp Rural is the one residential district where the use table leaves the cell empty, and under the code's own key that reads as prohibited.

Planned Unit Development is the bigger practical problem, though, because a lot of Groveland's newer housing sits inside a PUD, and the use table simply points you back to whatever that PUD's approved documents say. Two houses a mile apart can land on opposite answers for that reason alone.

One small trap while you're matching your address to a column. The district names in the use table don't quite match the names in section 5.1 that formally establishes the districts, where the same neighborhoods appear as R1-A, R1, R2, R3, GS1 and GS2. So confirm the district code for your parcel with Planning rather than matching a label by eye.

Above all of this sits Florida law, which is why no Groveland ordinance bans the practice outright. 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," with a grandfather clause for local rules adopted on or before June 1, 2011. Cities keep their ordinary zoning, life-safety, building and noise powers. What they haven't been able to do since 2011 is ban the use or cap how often you rent.

Going through both codes section by section, I found no short-term-rental-specific ordinance in Groveland at all. There's no STR permit, no registry, no minimum stay, no occupancy formula, no parking rule aimed at guests, and no neighbor-notification requirement. What exists instead is a zoning use, a general rental license, and the state and county layers on top.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Groveland

Since the zoning is the part that can kill a deal outright, do check it before anything else. The city's zoning map is on file with the Community Development Department under section 5.1 of the code, and the Planning and Zoning Division will confirm a specific parcel at 352-429-2141 or [email protected]. Two questions decide most of it: which district the parcel sits in, and whether it's inside a PUD.

Assuming your address clears both, private restrictions are the next thing that bites. Groveland's use table permits short term rentals; your HOA's covenants may not, and the city won't referee that fight for you. Keep in mind that a recorded covenant is enforceable by your neighbors whatever the zoning says, so pull the community's declaration before you list.

After that the work is administrative rather than discretionary, and it splits three ways:

• The city wants a rental dwelling unit license and a passed inspection under Chapter 105, Article IV.
• The state wants a vacation rental license from the DBPR Division of Hotels and Restaurants, plus a sales tax registration with the Department of Revenue.
• Lake County wants a tourist development tax account with the Tax Collector.

What the city no longer wants is a business tax receipt, and this is where most published advice about Groveland has gone stale. Ordinance No. 2020-25, adopted September 21, 2020, repealed Article II of Chapter 70 in full, repealed all business tax fees, and repealed "any requirements set forth in the code for a person or entity to provide a county or City of Groveland business tax receipt."

You can see the result in the code today, where Chapter 70, Article II now sits reserved and empty, under an editor's note recording the repeal of former sections 70-19 through 70-40. Be aware that the city's fee schedule still carries the old business tax table, including a $40.00 line for rental property owners, pointing at code sections that no longer exist. It's a leftover, not a live charge.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Groveland

That leaves the city license as the one piece of Groveland paperwork you can't skip, and it's cheap enough that people underestimate how much rides on it. Section 105-588 makes it "unlawful for any property owner ... to operate or cause to be rented any rental dwelling unit, without owner having first obtained a rental license."

The definition doing the heavy lifting is "rental dwelling unit," and it's written broadly. It covers any structure or part of a structure used as a home, residence or sleeping place, occupied by tenants, for which the owner receives rent "or compensation in any other form." Only a short list is carved out: bed and breakfasts, hotels, motels, medical and educational institutions, and assisted living facilities. A DBPR-licensed vacation rental isn't among them, so on the face of the ordinance a whole-home Airbnb is a rental dwelling unit.

The fees come from Appendix A of the code and, as of July 2026, they're modest: $25.00 a year for one rental dwelling unit, $45.00 for two, and $65.00 for three or more. The inspection is $32.50, a re-inspection is another $32.50, and failing to show up for an inspection you booked costs $32.50 per unit on top of both. The license year runs April 1 to March 31, and section 105-591 prorates it, so a license taken out between October and March costs half. Miss the deadline by more than 30 days and section 105-598 adds a delinquency penalty of 10% of the fee.

Getting the license is only half the exercise, since the inspection carries its own obligations under section 105-592:

• A code inspector applies an inspection decal to a front window of the unit, and removing it is itself a code violation.
• The certificate of inspection is valid up to 36 months, or until a change in tenant occupancy, whichever comes first.
• The city may not inspect without the owner's or occupant's consent, or an administrative inspection warrant.
• Where a site has more than four rental units, the inspector may sample between 30% and 100% of them.
• Under section 105-596, no water is supplied to the unit until the license and certificate exist.

Read that second bullet again if you're planning nightly stays. The ordinance defines a change in occupancy as any change in the majority of adult occupants, which taken literally would mean a fresh certificate after every booking. Nothing in the city's code, forms or published guidance says how Groveland actually applies that to a property turning over weekly, and I couldn't find an official answer either way, so call Code Compliance and get their position in writing before you build a calendar around it.

Two more requirements catch out-of-town owners in particular. Section 105-605 requires you to name a local agent with a current local telephone number and a permanent local address, not a post office box, inside Lake County or a county adjacent to it. And section 105-597 makes the license unit-specific: it can't be moved to a different property, though it does travel with the same property to a new owner, provided the transfer application lands within 30 days of the sale.

One exemption is worth knowing about, because it removes the whole burden for a certain kind of host. Section 105-589(c)(1) says no rental license or inspection is required of a unit "occupied by the property owner even though it is also occupied by a tenant." Renting a spare room in the house you live in therefore sits outside the ordinance entirely, while renting the whole house does not.

Then there's the state license, which is separate money and a separate agency. Florida requires a vacation rental license from the DBPR Division of Hotels and Restaurants under § 509.241, in one of two classifications, Vacation Rental Dwelling or Vacation Rental Condo. The Division's lodging fee schedule puts a single unit at a $50 application fee plus $170 for a full year (or $90 for a half year), with a 2-to-25-unit license at $180 full year, and a $10 Hospitality Education Program fee on every license. It renews annually on a staggered schedule.

Required Documents for Groveland Short-Term Rentals

Since the city license is the piece with a form attached, it's worth getting that packet right the first time. Groveland's rental registration form is short, and its own header warns in capitals that incomplete forms will be returned, so a missing notary line costs you a round trip. The packet is really three documents stapled together.

• The Rental Registration Form itself. Property address, primary tenant name, date of occupancy, number of occupants, and then an ownership block that changes shape depending on whether you hold the property as an individual, a partnership, a corporation, or through a property manager. A corporation has to name a local person in charge with a phone number, plus every officer, director and trustee.
• A notarized Property Owner-Agent Authorization Affidavit, addressed to the Building Department, naming whoever is allowed to file on your behalf. Where the owner is a corporate entity, the form asks for proof the signatory is authorized, "through corporate resolution, power of attorney, printout from sunbiz.org, etc."
• A notarized Code Enforcement affidavit and hold harmless agreement, in which you state that no major or minor code violations exist on the property as defined by City Ordinance 2010-04-10.

After you file, the form tells you to allow two business days to be contacted by a code enforcement officer, who arranges the inspection. Don't forget the lease language either: section 105-603 requires every lease agreement to carry a specific notice telling the occupant the property is regulated by the Groveland Residential Rental Inspection Ordinance and that they may request an inspection.

Three more registrations sit outside City Hall. The DBPR application covers the state vacation rental license. The Florida Department of Revenue registration is what lets you collect and remit sales tax, and it's a tax registration rather than a lodging license, so holding one doesn't satisfy the other. Lake County's tourist tax account is opened through TouristExpress, which the Lake County Tax Collector runs at lake.county-taxes.com/tourist: register, confirm the email, add the property, and the system assigns your account number.

Groveland Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you get through all that and are able to start hosting, there's still tax to deal with, and it arrives from two different governments that don't share a filing system. Three charges stack on a Groveland booking, and the total is 11%.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
Florida transient rental (sales) tax	6%	Florida Department of Revenue
Lake County discretionary sales surtax	1%	Florida Department of Revenue
Lake County tourist development tax	4%	Lake County Tax Collector
Groveland local business tax	none since 2020	not applicable

The 6% comes from state law, which taxes rentals of living, sleeping or housekeeping accommodations for six months or less at the general rate, per the Department of Revenue's GT-800034 guidance. Lake County's 1% discretionary surtax took effect on January 1, 1988 and runs to December 31, 2032 on the Department's DR-15DSS surtax schedule. One caveat there: the edition served at that link is the calendar-2025 one, and since the Department reissues the form each November, do confirm the rate before your first return.

The 4% is the one that behaves differently. Form DR-15TDT lists Lake County's local option transient rental tax at 4.0% and marks it as collected by the county rather than by the state, which is the part that changes your paperwork. The Lake County Tax Collector charges it on the total gross rental amount for stays of six months or less. Returns are due on or before the 20th of the following month, and filing electronically and on time earns a collection allowance of 2.5% of the tax, capped at $30.00. File late and you forfeit that allowance, then owe penalties and interest as well.

Platform collection takes most of this off your desk, at least on one platform. Airbnb's Florida tax page names Lake County directly and says Airbnb collects the 6% Florida transient rental tax, the 0.5% to 1.5% discretionary surtax, and Lake County's 4% tourist development tax on reservations of 182 nights and shorter.

Vrbo is a different story, and an honest one: its help pages didn't list Florida jurisdictions in any form I could open, so I can't confirm what Vrbo collects for Lake County. Check that in your own dashboard, listing by listing, rather than assuming parity, because the account that's registered stays liable for anything a platform doesn't remit.

Florida imposes no personal income tax, so there's no state layer on your profit, though the federal return still applies. And the city takes nothing at all, since the business tax went away in 2020.

Florida Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

Those tax accounts are the state's most visible presence in a Groveland rental, yet the more consequential state rule is the one that stops the city legislating in the first place. Section 509.032(7)(b) preempts local bans and local limits on how long or how often a vacation rental may be rented, and the grandfather clause reaches only ordinances adopted on or before June 1, 2011. Groveland's rental inspection ordinance dates from April 19, 2010, comfortably inside that window, although it regulates neither duration nor frequency, so the question never arises for it.

The state also decides what counts as a vacation rental in the first place. Section 509.242(1)(c) defines one as a unit in a condominium or cooperative, or a single-family through four-family dwelling, that's also a transient public lodging establishment. Whether yours counts as transient changed recently. Chapter 2025-113, formerly SB 606, took effect July 1, 2025 and rewrote the test, so transient now means rented more than three times in a calendar year for periods of less than 30 consecutive days, counted in consecutive days rather than calendar months, with a stay presumed temporary unless a written lease says otherwise. Rent the house four times a year for a fortnight each and you're inside the licensing regime.

Watch out for the reform bills that don't land, because plenty of guidance treats them as law. A 2024 package that would have expanded preemption and created a statewide registration system was vetoed and never took effect. In the 2026 session, CS/CS/SB 658 would have required vacation rentals within 150 feet of a pool or water body to install water-safety features and certify compliance at licensure; it passed the Senate 37 to 0 on February 19, 2026, then died in Messages on March 13, 2026. Neither is law, though I'd expect the water-safety idea to come back in a future session.

The rest of Florida is where the variation lives, and Lake County's neighbors are not interchangeable. Our Florida statewide guide sets out the framework in full, while the Orange County guide and the Osceola County guide cover the two Orlando-area counties most Groveland investors end up comparing against.

Does Groveland Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Groveland enforces nothing like the way those bigger counties do, mind you, and the reason is structural: it has no short-term-rental program to enforce. What it has is an ordinary code compliance operation, and it runs on complaints. The Code Compliance Division documents violations by observation, photograph and written report, and it points out that under Fla. Stat. § 162.06(1)(b) a person reporting a violation has to give their own name and address before an enforcement proceeding can start, unless the problem is an imminent threat to public health, safety or welfare. Anonymous complaints don't begin cases.

The numbers, when a case does begin, are worth knowing:

• Rental license violations go before the city's special magistrate, and section 105-598 allows a civil penalty of up to $250.00 per rental dwelling unit per day of violation, plus a lien on the property.
• Revocation follows either a failure to correct within 14 days of notice, or five notices of violation inside 12 months. After a revocation you wait six months to reapply, and pay the full fees again.
• Citations under section 18-49 carry a maximum civil penalty of $500.00 per violation plus costs, and each violation counts separately.
• Noise, the complaint most guest-driven cases start with, runs on decibels rather than opinions. Section 46-33 sets 75 dBA from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and to 11:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, dropping to 70 dBA overnight.
• Noise penalties under section 46-37 run $50 for a first violation, $100 for a second, and $250 for a third and each one after, with every day a separate violation. Contest a citation in county court and you waive that cap, exposing yourself to up to $500.

That $250-a-day figure is the one to sit with, because it accrues per unit per day rather than landing once, and it attaches to the property as a lien rather than to you personally. An unlicensed rental that runs a whole season before anyone complains isn't looking at a parking ticket.

Still, I want to be straight about what I could and couldn't establish. Groveland publishes no short-term-rental case data, no revocation counts and no complaint statistics, and I found no evidence of the proactive listing sweeps larger Florida cities run. My read is that this is a small city enforcing on complaint, where the practical risk sits with your neighbors rather than with an inspector browsing Airbnb. That's a judgment, so treat it as one.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Groveland

Given how much of the above turns on facts about your specific parcel, the order of these steps matters more than it looks, and the early ones are the cheapest place to find out the plan doesn't work.

1. Confirm the zoning district for your exact address. Check the zoning map, then confirm with Planning and Zoning at 352-429-2141 or [email protected]. Green Swamp Rural doesn't list short term rental as a permitted use.
2. Find out whether the parcel sits inside a PUD. Once it does, the PUD's own approved documents govern the use, not Table EN1.
3. Read the HOA declaration. City zoning permits the use; a recorded covenant can still forbid it, and your neighbors enforce that one.
4. File the rental registration packet with the Building Department, including both notarized affidavits, then expect a call from a code enforcement officer within two business days.
5. Pass the inspection and pay the fees. Budget $25.00 for a single-unit annual license plus $32.50 for the inspection, and remember an October to March start is prorated to half the license fee.
6. Name a local agent with a permanent local address and phone number in Lake County or an adjacent county, since the application requires one.
7. Apply to DBPR for a Vacation Rental Dwelling or Vacation Rental Condo license, allowing for the $50 application fee, the annual fee, and the $10 education fee.
8. Open the two tax accounts, one with the Florida Department of Revenue for the 6% and 1%, one with the Lake County Tax Collector through TouristExpress for the 4%.
9. Check what your platform collects, listing by listing, and diarize the tourist tax return for the 20th of each month even in a month with no bookings.

Before step one, though, it's worth pressure-testing whether Groveland earns its place on your shortlist at all. The Florida market data puts the wider state's short-term rental performance side by side, which matters here because Groveland is a commuter and retiree town rather than a beach or theme-park address, and it competes with much better-known Lake County names for the same Orlando overflow.

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

Whichever of those steps stalls you, and the PUD question stalls people most often, four offices between them own nearly every answer. Note that the city publishes two addresses, so check which building you need before driving over.

Zoning, use questions and the PUD problem

The Planning and Zoning Division sits inside Community and Economic Development and handles zoning districts, use interpretations and PUD documents.

• Phone: 352-429-2141
• Email: [email protected]
• Staff: DeWayne Jones, Planning and Zoning Division Manager; Alan Booker, Senior Planner
• Department address: 6825 SR 50, Groveland, FL 34736, per the Community and Economic Development page

The rental license, the form and the inspection

The Building Division issues permits and handles the registration paperwork, and it publishes its own hours.

• Address: 6825 SR 50, 2nd Floor, Groveland, FL 34736
• Phone: 352-429-2141, ext. 2
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: Monday to Thursday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. in person and 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. remote, per the Building Division page
• Inspections: scheduled through the city's eTrakit portal

Complaints, violations and the special magistrate

Code Compliance is who a neighbor calls about your guests, and who you should call about how the inspection ordinance applies to nightly turnover.

• Manager: William Longhini
• Phone: 352-306-6493
• Email: [email protected]
• Address: 156 S Lake Ave, Groveland, FL 34736

City Hall itself is at 156 S Lake Avenue, on 352-429-2141 with a fax on 352-429-3852, open Monday to Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. according to the city directory. The rental registration packet lists the Building Department at that same Lake Avenue address, with a permitting fax on 352-429-3046.

Taxes and the state license

• Lake County Tax Collector, for the 4% tourist development tax: 325 N. Barrow Ave., Tavares, FL 32778, 352.343.9602
• Florida Department of Revenue, Taxpayer Services, for the 6% and the surtax: 850-488-6800, Monday to Friday
• DBPR Division of Hotels and Restaurants, for the state vacation rental license: (850) 487-1395, the call center number Groveland's own Community Development Code prints for the Division

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

Since those offices publish so little about short-term rentals specifically, hosts tend to fill the gap with each other, and that's where the record gets thin. I want to be plain about it: I couldn't find a single Groveland-specific thread on either forum that I was able to read and verify, and I'm not going to characterize conversations I haven't seen. What follows is my read of the documentary record, not a survey.

• The Lake County advantage is real, and it's the thing investors notice first. The city's use tables permit short term rentals by right in nearly every residential district, which is a materially different starting point from the parts of the Orlando metro where whole-home rentals fight the zoning.
• The confusion I'd expect is about which rulebook applies. Groveland has no vacation rental ordinance, so a host searching for one finds nothing, concludes there's nothing to do, and misses a 2010 rental license ordinance filed under buildings and housing.
• The business tax receipt advice circulating online is stale. It was repealed in September 2020, and the city's own fee schedule still lists it, which is exactly how an obsolete requirement stays alive in guidance for years.
• The unanswered question is turnover. A certificate of inspection that expires on a change in occupancy is a sensible rule for annual leases and an awkward one for three-night stays, and nothing published resolves it.

There's a wider lesson in that last point. The rules that bite hosts are rarely the ordinances with your business model in the title. They're the older, duller ones written for somebody else that happen to be worded broadly enough to reach you. Whatever market you're buying into, the useful hour isn't the one you spend reading the short-term rental page. It's the one you spend reading the licensing chapter nobody has bothered to update.

Frequently Asked Questions

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

Yes. Groveland's Community Development Code lists "Short Term Rental" as a defined land use and marks it permitted by right in the Town, Village, Hamlet and Green Swamp Town zones, in the Single Family Limited, Single Family Residential, Low Density Residential, Moderate Density Residential and Green Swamp Low Density districts, and in Agriculture. Green Swamp Rural leaves the cell blank, which the code reads as prohibited, and property inside a Planned Unit Development follows that PUD's own approved documents.

Do you need a license to rent a house short-term in Groveland?

Two of them. The City of Groveland requires a rental dwelling unit license and a passed inspection under Chapter 105, Article IV of its code, costing $25.00 a year for a single unit plus a $32.50 inspection fee. Florida separately requires a vacation rental license from the DBPR Division of Hotels and Restaurants, which costs a $50 application fee plus $170 for a full year and a $10 education fee for one unit. A unit occupied by its owner is exempt from the city license.

Does Groveland require a business tax receipt for short-term rentals?

No. Ordinance No. 2020-25, adopted September 21, 2020, repealed the city's entire business tax article, repealed all business tax fees, and repealed any requirement to produce a county or City of Groveland business tax receipt. Chapter 70, Article II of the code now sits reserved and empty. The city's fee schedule still prints an old business tax table pointing at those repealed sections, so guidance quoting a $40 rental owner fee is out of date.

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

Eleven percent in total. Florida's transient rental tax is 6% and Lake County's discretionary sales surtax is 1%, both remitted to the Florida Department of Revenue. Lake County's tourist development tax is 4%, remitted directly to the Lake County Tax Collector, with returns due by the 20th of the following month and a 2.5% collection allowance capped at $30 for on-time electronic filing. Airbnb collects and remits all three for Lake County bookings of 182 nights and shorter.

How much can Groveland fine you for renting without a license?

Up to $250.00 per rental dwelling unit for each day of violation, imposed after a hearing before the city's special magistrate, with a lien attaching to the property. Code enforcement citations carry a separate maximum civil penalty of $500.00 per violation plus costs. A license can also be revoked for failing to correct a violation within 14 days, or for five notices of violation within 12 months, after which you wait six months before reapplying.

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