Florida Business Tax Registration: Form DR-1 Filing and Entity Types

If you’re starting or expanding a business in Florida, Form DR-1 is the Florida Business Tax Application you file with the Department of Revenue to set up your sales tax, reemployment tax, and other state tax accounts before your first sale, rental, or payroll. Online submission is free and the Department asks you to allow about three business days for processing.¹ The form itself is short, but it asks for specific identifiers and entity details you’ll want in hand before you start.

Who Has to File Form DR-1

Florida law requires registration before you begin operating as a dealer. Under Section 212.18, that covers anyone selling or leasing tangible personal property at retail, renting short-term lodging such as hotels, vacation rentals, or RV parks, or charging admissions.² Each physical location needs its own Certificate of Registration. Vending machine and newspaper rack operators are the exception: one certificate per county.

You also need to register if any of the following apply:

You buy from out-of-state vendors who don’t charge Florida sales tax, which creates a use tax liability at the 6% state rate.
You hire employees in Florida, which triggers reemployment tax. New employers pay 2.7% on the first $7,000 of each employee’s annual wages until they’ve reported for 10 quarters.³
You sell remotely into Florida and had more than $100,000 in taxable sales of tangible personal property into the state during the previous calendar year.⁴

Registration precedes activity. Operating without a valid certificate is itself a violation, whether or not you’ve collected any tax yet.²

What to Gather Before You Start

Missing information will stall the application, so pull these together first:⁵

Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN) for partnerships, corporations, nonprofits, trusts, and estates. Sole proprietors without employees can use a Social Security Number.
Your NAICS code, the industry classification code describing what your business does. Look it up at census.gov/naics.
Legal business name plus any fictitious (“doing business as”) name you’ve registered with the Florida Division of Corporations.
Names, home addresses, and identification numbers for all owners, partners, or corporate officers.
The date you started or will start doing business in Florida and the month your fiscal year ends.
Your physical business address and a separate mailing address if you want tax correspondence sent elsewhere.

If you’ll operate under a trade name, Florida’s Fictitious Name Act requires you to register that name with the Division of Corporations before conducting business. Skipping that step is a second-degree misdemeanor.⁶ Handle that filing first, then come back to Form DR-1.

The application walks you through a section for each tax type: sales tax, reemployment tax, solid waste fees, and others. You’ll estimate your anticipated monthly tax liability, which determines whether you’ll file monthly, quarterly, or semiannually. You sign under penalty of perjury that everything is accurate.

Choosing Your Form of Ownership

Form DR-1 asks you to select one form of business ownership, and the choice affects which taxes apply.⁷

Sole proprietorship. You and the business are a single tax entity, and you’ll use your Social Security Number unless you have employees.
General or limited partnership. All general partners must be listed with their identification numbers and home addresses.
Corporation. You must indicate whether you’re a C-corporation or S-corporation. C-corps (and LLCs electing C-corp treatment federally) automatically become subject to Florida’s corporate income tax when they submit the form, even though that tax has no separate registration step.⁸
Limited liability company. You indicate whether the IRS treats your LLC as a corporation or a partnership, which drives your Florida corporate income tax obligation.
Nonprofit corporation. Nonprofits still file DR-1 if they engage in taxable activities. Qualifying organizations can separately apply for a Consumer’s Certificate of Exemption on Form DR-5 to make tax-free purchases for their own use.⁹

The C-corp versus S-corp distinction matters because Florida imposes a 5.5% corporate income tax on C-corporations. S-corporations are generally exempt because income passes through to individual owners, and Florida has no personal income tax.¹⁰ The corporate income tax exempts the first $50,000 of net income, so smaller C-corps may owe nothing.

How to Submit the Application

Online submission through the Department of Revenue’s e-Services portal is the fastest route and costs nothing.⁸ Create an account, enter your information, review it, and submit. Allow three business days before checking your application status.¹

To file on paper, mail the signed Form DR-1 to:

Account Management MS 1-5730
Florida Department of Revenue
5050 W Tennessee St
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0160

Paper applications take considerably longer. If you’re close to opening, use the online portal.

What You Receive After Approval

Depending on which taxes you registered for, the Department issues:

A Certificate of Registration for each business location. Florida law requires you to display it in a visible spot at your place of business at all times, and it isn’t transferable.²
An Annual Resale Certificate if you registered to collect sales tax. It lets you buy inventory and items for resale without paying tax up front, expires on December 31 each year, and renews automatically while your account stays active.¹¹
A reemployment tax account number if you registered as an employer.

The resale certificate is narrow in scope. You can only use it for property or services you plan to resell or re-rent. Using it to buy office furniture, supplies, or anything for your own use triggers use tax liability plus penalties.¹¹ If you buy something tax-free intending to resell it and then use it in your business, you must report and pay use tax on that item.

Keeping Your Registration Current

Registration isn’t a one-and-done task. You must notify the Department whenever you change your business name, mailing address, or location address within the same county. Those updates happen through the online portal at floridarevenue.com/taxes/updateaccount.⁵

Some changes require a brand-new registration rather than an update. File a fresh Form DR-1 if you:

Move your business from one Florida county to another
Add a new business location (the shorter Form DR-1A works for this)
Purchase or acquire an existing business
Change your form of ownership, such as converting a sole proprietorship to an LLC

If you acquire another business or ownership changes, you may also need to file Form RTS-1S to handle reemployment tax experience rating records. That form is due within 90 days of the acquisition date when there’s no common ownership between the old and new businesses.⁵

When you close or sell the business, file a final return with any remaining payment, then surrender your original Certificate of Registration and Annual Resale Certificate. The certificates are cancelled as of the date you stopped operating.¹² Don’t leave an inactive registration open. You’ll still be expected to file returns, and missed returns generate penalties even when no tax is due.

Penalties for Skipping Registration

Florida takes unregistered activity seriously. A dealer who fails to collect sales tax commits a first-degree misdemeanor. If the Department notifies you of your duty to collect and you still don’t, the criminal exposure scales with the amount of uncollected tax:¹³

Less than $300: second-degree misdemeanor on a first offense, escalating to a third-degree felony on a third offense.
$300 to under $20,000: third-degree felony.
$20,000 to under $100,000: second-degree felony.
$100,000 or more: first-degree felony.

On top of criminal charges, willful failure to collect after notice carries a civil penalty of 100% of the uncollected tax, meaning you’d owe double what you should have collected.¹³

Even registered businesses face routine late penalties. Late sales tax payments carry a 10% penalty of the unpaid tax with a $50 minimum. For reemployment tax, late reports incur $25 for every 30 days (or fraction) overdue, and an incomplete or inaccurate report triggers the greater of $50 or 10% of any tax due, capped at $300 per report. Interest on unpaid reemployment tax accrues at up to 1% per month.¹⁴

Local Business Tax Receipts Are Separate

Form DR-1 handles your state tax obligations only. Many Florida counties and municipalities also require a local business tax receipt (formerly called an occupational license) before you can operate within their jurisdiction, with a separate fee paid to the local government. Annual amounts vary by location and business type.

A 2021 state law preempted occupational licensing to the state, and any local licensing requirements that were in place before January 1, 2021, expired on July 1, 2025.¹⁵ Local business tax receipts are treated as a revenue measure rather than an occupational license, though, so most cities and counties still require them. Check with your county tax collector and your city’s business licensing office to confirm what applies at your address.

1
Florida Department of Revenue. Account Management and Registration
2
Florida Senate. Florida Code 212.18 – Administration of Law; Powers of Department; DOR Agents
3
Florida Department of Revenue. Reemployment Tax Rate Information
4
Florida Department of Revenue. Florida Sales and Use Tax
5
Florida Department of Revenue. Registering Your Business – Florida Business Tax Application (Form DR-1N)
6
Florida Department of State. Fictitious Name Registration
7
Florida Department of Revenue. Florida Business Tax Application (Form DR-1)
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Florida Department of Revenue. Instructions for Completing the Florida Business Tax Application (Form DR-1)
9
Florida Department of Revenue. Nonprofit Organizations and Sales and Use Tax
10
Florida Department of Revenue. Tax and Interest Rates
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Florida Department of Revenue. Annual Resale Certificate for Sales Tax
12
Florida Department of Revenue. Florida Sales and Use Tax Application for Release or Refund of Security (Form DR-29)
13
The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 212.07 – Sales, Storage, Use Tax; Penalties; General Exemptions
14
The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 443.141 – Collection and Payment of Contributions
15
Florida House of Representatives. Florida Statutes 163.211 – Licensing of Occupations Preempted to State