Miami, Florida Short-Term Rental Regulation: A Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Miami, Florida and are weighing whether to list it on Airbnb or VRBO? Well, the good news is, you're allowed to, at least in most of the city. Miami doesn't ban short-term rentals outright, but it does confine them to specific zones under its Miami 21 zoning code, and that detail trips up more hosts than any tax form ever will.

Here's where it gets confusing, and it's worth sorting out before you read another word: the City of Miami, unincorporated Miami-Dade County, and Miami Beach are three separate governments with three separate rulebooks. This guide covers the City of Miami specifically, the municipality that holds downtown, Brickell, Little Havana, Coconut Grove and Wynwood. If your property sits in unincorporated Miami-Dade or in Miami Beach, the zoning and permit rules below don't reach you directly, though the state and county tax layers mostly do either way.

So let's walk through what it actually takes to do this properly in 2026: which zones allow it, the state license and city permits stacked on top of zoning, what Florida, Miami-Dade County and the City of Miami each tax you on, and how hard Miami's code enforcement office comes down on hosts who skip all of it. Every figure below comes from Florida's or Miami's own pages and code, checked in July 2026. If you're weighing a Miami property against a market with a simpler rulebook, run both through BNBCalc first.

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

Three layers of law decide whether your Miami address can legally take a booking, and they don't always agree on the details.

The state sits at the bottom, and it's the layer that protects you. Under Florida Statute 509.032(7)(b), a local government "may not prohibit vacation rentals or regulate the duration or frequency of rental of vacation rentals," unless its ordinance predates June 1, 2011. That's why Miami can't ban Airbnb the way a city like New York does. What the state does require is a license: Florida Statute 509.242(1)(c) defines a vacation rental as a condo, co-op, or one-to-four-family house rented as a transient public lodging establishment, and 509.241 makes operating one without a license from the Department of Business and Professional Regulation a second-degree misdemeanor.

Miami-Dade County sits in the middle, and it's the layer most likely to trip you up if you assume it works the way a Google search suggests. The county does run its own vacation-rental Certificate of Use program under Section 33-28 of the county code, but that program applies only to unincorporated Miami-Dade. Your City of Miami address doesn't use it. What the county does reach you for, wherever you sit inside its borders, is tax: a discretionary sales surtax and a stacked tourist tax administered by its Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources.

The City of Miami sits on top, and it's the layer that actually decides your address. Miami organizes itself into transect zones under the Miami 21 zoning code, running from rural T1 through the high-rise urban core of T6, and lodging use isn't permitted evenly across all of them. Higher-intensity zones like T5 and T6 generally allow it; low-density, single-family T3 areas generally don't. Since amendments to that table happen fairly often, check your own parcel on the city's Miami 21 interactive zoning map rather than assuming your neighbor's rules apply to you. Wherever lodging use is allowed, the city still requires you to get a Certificate of Use before you advertise and a Business Tax Receipt before you operate, on top of whatever the state and county ask for.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Miami, Florida

That three-layer structure means the first real work isn't paperwork at all. It's confirming your specific address clears zoning before you spend a dollar on anything else. Pull up the interactive map, find your transect designation, and if lodging use isn't listed for your zone, stop there. No fee, LLC, or friendly conversation with a zoning clerk changes what the table says.

Assuming your zone clears, there's still another filter: what you actually own. A single-family house is treated differently than a condo unit, mostly because of what happens after zoning. If you own a house outright with no association above you, zoning and the licenses below are the whole story. Own a condo or co-op unit instead, and you're also bound by your association's governing documents, which sit completely outside the state preemption that protects you from the city. Florida law lets an association amend its declaration to restrict or ban rentals, though Section 718.110(13) grandfathers any owner who didn't vote for the amendment and already held title when it passed. Read your declaration and any amendments before you assume the building allows what the city allows. Buildings across Brickell in particular have been tightening these rules as complaints pile up, which the enforcement section below covers in more detail.

Once zoning and your association both check out, you're building a genuine short-term rental business rather than a side project, and that means treating it as one from day one. It's worth comparing your numbers against nearby counties on BNBCalc Markets before you commit any money, since a strict transect zone in Miami might make a Collier County or Osceola County property the easier path to similar income. You'll be stacking a state license, a county tax registration, and two separate city permits, roughly in that order, and each one depends on the last. Skipping ahead to advertise before the Certificate of Use comes through is exactly how hosts end up in the enforcement stories later in this guide.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Miami, Florida

Since everything above depends on getting the sequence right, here's the actual stack, state first.

Florida requires a vacation rental license from the Division of Hotels and Restaurants at DBPR once you rent an entire unit more than three times a year for stays under 30 days, or advertise it that way. The application runs through an online account, and DBPR's own vacation rental guide puts the new single-unit fee, as of July 2026, at $170 for a full year plus a $50 application fee and a $10 Hospitality Education Program charge, so budget $230 the first time and $180 on renewal. Online applications typically clear in one to two business days. The license runs annually and can't be transferred if you sell.

Miami-Dade County doesn't issue you a vacation-rental permit for a City of Miami address, but it does still want two things from you. First, a Miami-Dade Local Business Tax Receipt, which sits alongside your city receipt rather than replacing it, since Florida counties and their municipalities both charge a separate local business tax. Second, registration for the county's transient rental taxes through its Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources, which took over that function from the Tax Collector's office on October 1, 2024.

The City of Miami is where the real gatekeeping happens. You need a Certificate of Use from the Planning and Zoning Department before you advertise anywhere, confirming your parcel's transect zone actually permits lodging use, and a Business Tax Receipt from the Finance Department before you take your first booking, which the city won't issue until your Certificate of Use is valid. I couldn't confirm an exact, current Certificate of Use fee on an official city page, so call the Zoning Office directly to get today's number before you budget around it. The Business Tax Receipt fee is set by City Code Section 31-50 and varies by classification, receipts renew annually with the tax year running October 1 to September 30, and a late renewal draws a 10% penalty in October plus 5% for every month after, capped at 25%.

Required Documents for Miami, Florida Short-Term Rentals

Getting that sequence right the first time matters, because none of these fees come back if your zone doesn't qualify. Here's what the actual applications ask you to have ready.

The DBPR vacation rental license application packet won't accept anything without five things:

• A DBPR online account.
• A Florida sales tax number, or proof of exemption from the Department of Revenue.
• A federal EIN, or for an individual owner, a Social Security number or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN).
• The address of every rental unit you're licensing.
• For buildings three stories or taller, a completed Certificate of Balcony Inspection.

For the City of Miami Business Tax Receipt, the Finance Department asks for valid identification plus your federal EIN or Social Security card, your sales tax number where one applies, and emergency contact information for three people. Add current documentation for any state-regulated profession involved, and active Florida registration if you're operating through a corporate entity. A home-based rental also needs an Accessory Use Certificate before the Business Tax Receipt gets issued.

Beyond the paperwork the agencies actually require, do check your own condo or HOA documents for anything they ask of owners who rent short-term, since an attestation that you're not violating your declaration is common practice even where the city doesn't mandate one. Make sure you keep proof of adequate liability insurance on hand too, regardless of whether anyone asks for it at the counter. A single bad weekend is the fastest way to turn a profitable listing into a lawsuit.

Miami, Florida Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you get through all that licensing and are able to start hosting, there's still tax to deal with, and Miami stacks more layers of it than most Florida cities.

Tax	Rate	Collected by
Florida state sales tax	6.0%	Florida Department of Revenue
Miami-Dade discretionary sales surtax	1.0%	Florida Department of Revenue
Miami-Dade Convention Development Tax	3.0%	Miami-Dade County (RER)
Miami-Dade Tourist Development Tax	2.0%	Miami-Dade County (RER)
Miami-Dade Professional Sports Franchise Facility Tax	1.0%	Miami-Dade County (RER)
Combined total	13.0%	State and county combined

That state sales tax and surtax apply to the full rental charge with no cap, since Florida's usual $5,000 surtax limit doesn't apply to transient rentals. The three county taxes are what Florida's own rate chart lists as 6% for "the rest of the county", meaning everywhere in Miami-Dade except Surfside, Bal Harbour and Miami Beach, which run their own separate rates. Both the discretionary surtax and that county tourist rate have held steady into 2026.

A few exemptions are worth knowing before you assume every booking gets taxed the same way. Guests who stay more than six consecutive months owe none of it, retroactive to their first day once they cross that line. Full-time college students and active-duty military on official orders are exempt too, provided you keep the paperwork proving it.

Most listing platforms now collect and remit the state pieces on your behalf. Don't take that for granted with the county taxes, though, since Miami-Dade registration is a separate step through its Regulatory and Economic Resources department. The responsibility to register falls on you, even if a platform is quietly remitting the state side.

Your rental income is also ordinary federal income, with one real carve-out worth knowing. Under the IRS's 14-day rule, if you rent your home for fewer than 15 days in a year, you don't report the income at all, and you don't deduct the expenses either. Cross 15 days and everything becomes reportable, typically on Schedule E, with expenses split between the rental and personal-use portions. Running the actual numbers on a Miami property against that tax stack is exactly the kind of thing BNBCalc is built for before you commit to a purchase.

Florida Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

That federal carve-out sits on top of a state framework that's worth understanding on its own, since it's the reason Miami can regulate zoning but can't touch your right to rent at all.

The core rule hasn't moved since 2011. Section 509.032(7)(b) preempts local bans and duration or frequency limits on vacation rentals to the state, and grandfathers only ordinances that predate June 1, 2011. Lawmakers have tried to go further since. In 2024, SB 280 passed both chambers and would have centralized vacation rental licensing further under DBPR while expanding preemption, but Governor DeSantis vetoed it on June 27, 2024, so the older 2011 framework, as amended in 2014, is still what governs in 2026.

What the state does require, rather than merely permit, is the DBPR license described above, plus one piece of operational compliance that's easy to miss. Section 509.096 requires annual human trafficking awareness training for anyone doing housekeeping or check-in and check-out duties, training within 60 days for anyone new, and, since January 1, 2025, a posted notice at least 11 by 15 inches, in at least 32-point type, carrying the Florida Human Trafficking Hotline. Skip it and the fine is $2,000 a day, with a 45-day window to fix a first violation before it compounds.

The one thing state preemption never touches is your condo or HOA's own governing documents, which is why Section 718.110(13) matters even though it lives in a completely different chapter than the vacation rental rules. An association can still vote to ban or restrict short-term rentals inside its own building, and that authority comes from condominium law rather than anything the city or county does. Keep in mind that the Florida statewide guide covers this preemption framework as it plays out across every Florida market, not just Miami-Dade.

Does Miami City Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Given how much stacking the rules above involve, the natural next question is whether anyone actually checks. In Miami, yes, and the fines are large enough that ignoring the rules is a genuinely bad bet.

The clearest example is a 4,500-square-foot house in North Grove known locally as Villa Utopia, bought for $2.1 million in 2021 and advertised on Instagram and event-booking sites at up to $3,500 a day. After roughly two years of violations, the city's Code Enforcement Board ordered the owners to stop in April 2023 and imposed a $5,000-per-day fine for every day they didn't comply. As of late 2024, the property was reportedly still listed for rent despite that ruling, and a separate West Brickell property has racked up more than $2 million in accumulated fines while continuing to advertise nightly stays. Robert Santos-Alborná, the city's Code Compliance director, put it bluntly to a local outlet: "It's everywhere. It's really adversely impacting all our neighborhoods."

That same reporting found 319 single-family homes cited for short-term rental violations in a recent 12-month period, with only 28 cases fully resolved and more than 1,000 code cases backlogged across the department. Condo towers get the same attention. Brickell's condo association has pushed the city to act after code inspectors logged more than 120 short-term rental complaints since January, a dozen of which turned into property liens, with association president Ernesto Cuesta warning that Brickell risks becoming "like South Beach" without stricter enforcement. Airbnb itself has said it coordinates with the city on flagged listings, which tells you the platform doesn't see unregistered Miami listings as a fight worth having.

Be aware that state-level enforcement adds another layer on top of the city's. DBPR can suspend or revoke a vacation rental license outright for operating standards violations, and that $2,000-a-day human trafficking training penalty from the section above is a separate enforcement lever the state can pull regardless of what the city is doing. Between a city willing to fine a single house tens of thousands of dollars and a state that can pull your license entirely, treat every requirement above as one an inspector might genuinely check, not a formality to file away.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Miami City, Florida

Given how aggressively the city polices this, working through the steps in order isn't optional, it's the difference between a licensed business and a Code Enforcement Board case with your address on it.

1. Check your transect zone first. Use the Miami 21 interactive map before spending anything else. If lodging use isn't listed for your zone, nothing below changes that.
2. Read your condo or HOA documents. Confirm nothing in your declaration or its amendments already bars short-term rentals, keeping the Section 718.110(13) grandfather rule in mind if you bought before a restrictive amendment passed.
3. Apply for the Florida DBPR vacation rental license. Set up your online account, gather your sales tax number, EIN or SSN, and balcony certificate if it applies, and budget roughly $230 for a new single-unit license.
4. Register with the Florida Department of Revenue and Miami-Dade County. You need a state sales tax number regardless, plus county registration for the Convention Development, Tourist Development and Professional Sports Franchise Facility taxes through RER.
5. Apply for a City of Miami Certificate of Use. File with Planning and Zoning before you advertise anywhere, and remember this step confirms your parcel's zoning, not just your intent.
6. Get your City of Miami Business Tax Receipt. The Finance Department won't issue this until your Certificate of Use is valid, so don't apply for both on the same day expecting a shortcut.
7. Obtain the Miami-Dade Local Business Tax Receipt. This runs alongside the city receipt rather than replacing it.
8. Secure liability insurance and set up your guest and tax records. Keep proof of coverage, a running log of stays, and your tax registrations in one place before your first guest checks in.
9. List the property, with every license number visible. Add your DBPR license number and any city permit numbers to your listings, since that paper trail is exactly what code enforcement checks first.

Who to Contact in Miami City, Florida about Short-Term Rental Regulations and Zoning?

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

City of Miami Planning and Zoning Department handles Certificates of Use, transect zone questions, and whether your parcel permits lodging use at all.

• Address: Miami Riverside Center, 444 SW 2nd Avenue, 2nd Floor, Miami, FL 33130
• Phone: (305) 416-1495
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., closed 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. for lunch; Certificate of Use applications are accepted only until 11:00 a.m.

City of Miami Finance Department, Business Tax Receipt Section issues your Business Tax Receipt once your Certificate of Use is valid.

• Address: 444 SW 2nd Avenue, 6th Floor, Miami, FL 33130
• Phone: (305) 416-1570
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Miami-Dade Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources, Business Section handles county transient rental tax registration, the Convention Development, Tourist Development and Professional Sports Franchise Facility taxes, and the Miami-Dade Local Business Tax Receipt.

• Address: 11805 SW 26th Street, Suite 230, Miami, FL 33175
• Phone: 305-375-5550
• Fax: 305-375-5594
• Hours: Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Florida DBPR, Division of Hotels and Restaurants issues and renews the state vacation rental license and handles complaints against licensed properties.

• Address: 2601 Blair Stone Road, Tallahassee, FL 32399-1011
• Phone: 850-487-1395
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Florida Department of Revenue, Taxpayer Services answers questions on state sales tax, the discretionary surtax, and registration.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

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

Yes, in most of the city, though it depends entirely on your transect zone under the Miami 21 code. Higher-intensity zones like T5 and T6 generally allow lodging use, while low-density single-family T3 zones generally don't. Check your specific parcel on the city's interactive zoning map before assuming anything. Beyond zoning, you'll need a Florida DBPR vacation rental license, a City of Miami Certificate of Use and Business Tax Receipt, and Miami-Dade County tax registration before you can legally accept a booking.

How much does it cost to license a short-term rental in Miami?

Budget roughly $230 for a new single-unit Florida DBPR vacation rental license in the first year, $180 to renew it. The City of Miami's Business Tax Receipt fee is set by city code and varies by classification, and the city's Certificate of Use fee isn't published in a way that could be confirmed here, so call the Zoning Office for the current number. Add Miami-Dade County's Local Business Tax Receipt on top, since it runs alongside the city receipt rather than replacing it.

What happens if you rent out a Miami property without the right permits?

The City of Miami's Code Enforcement Board has fined violators as much as $5,000 per day for continued unpermitted operation, and one North Grove property has accumulated fines in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, while a West Brickell property has passed $2 million. Florida's DBPR can separately suspend or revoke your state license, and skipping the human trafficking training requirement alone carries a $2,000-a-day penalty. Miami's code compliance office actively investigates complaints, so treat every layer above as one that gets checked.

Do you have to collect tax on a Miami Airbnb?

Yes. Expect a combined rate of about 13%: 6% Florida sales tax, a 1% Miami-Dade discretionary surtax, and three stacked county tourist taxes totaling 6% more. Guests staying more than six consecutive months, full-time students, and active-duty military on orders are exempt. Many booking platforms remit the state portion automatically, but county tax registration through Miami-Dade's Regulatory and Economic Resources department is still your responsibility as the host.

Can a condo association ban short-term rentals even though the city allows them?

Yes. State preemption stops the city or county from banning vacation rentals outright, but it doesn't reach your condominium's own governing documents. Under Florida law, an association can amend its declaration to restrict or prohibit short-term rentals, though owners who already held title and didn't vote for the amendment are grandfathered under their prior rules. Read your declaration and any recent amendments before assuming your building allows what the city's zoning does.

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