Florida Resort Tax: County Rates, Exemptions, and Filing

The Florida resort tax is the informal name for the Tourist Development Tax, a county-level charge on any rental of living quarters for six months or less. Counties set their own rate by ordinance, currently ranging from 1% to 6%, and it stacks on top of the state’s separate 6% sales tax on transient rentals. A guest booking a Florida vacation home almost always pays both.

Which Rentals Trigger the Tax

Florida Statutes Section 125.0104 treats any short-term rental of living quarters as taxable. If someone rents accommodations for six months or less, the person collecting that rent owes tourist development tax on the transaction. The statute reaches hotels, motels, apartment hotels, condominiums, timeshare resorts, rooming houses, mobile home parks, and recreational vehicle parks.¹ The language is broad enough to sweep in vacation homes and single-family houses rented to tourists, even though the statute doesn’t name those property types individually.

What matters is the length of the stay, not the type of building. A condo rented to a snowbird for seven continuous months under a written lease falls outside the tax. That same condo, rented week by week to vacationers, is taxable every time. Owners who switch between long-term and short-term use need to track each rental period on its own.

Two Taxes on the Same Booking

One of the most common mistakes Florida rental owners make is treating the tourist development tax as the only tax on short stays. There are two layers.

The first is the 6% state sales tax under Florida Statutes Section 212.03, which applies to every short-term rental in the state.² Counties may also impose a discretionary sales surtax on top of that. Both go to the Florida Department of Revenue.³

The second layer is the local tourist development tax under Section 125.0104, which stays in the county. In many counties it is collected by the local tax collector or comptroller rather than the state. Do the arithmetic on a real booking: in a county with a 5% tourist development tax and a 1% surtax, the guest pays 12% in combined taxes on top of the nightly rate — 6% state sales tax, 1% surtax, and 5% tourist development tax. Owners register separately for each and file to the correct agency.

How High the County Rate Can Go

Each Florida county sets its own tourist development tax rate by local ordinance, subject to caps in state law. The statute allows several levies to stack: a base levy of 1% or 2%, an additional 1% available to most counties, a professional sports levy, a high tourism impact levy for counties where tourist-related sales exceeded $600 million in the prior calendar year (or hit at least 18% of total taxable sales with a $200 million minimum), and an additional promotion levy for counties that already adopted the sports levy.¹

A county that qualifies for every available layer can charge up to 6%. The Florida Department of Revenue notes that depending on eligibility, the maximum rate a county can reach ranges from 3% to 6%.⁴ Most tourist-heavy counties land between 4% and 6%. Check your county’s current ordinance before setting your prices, since rates can change when voters approve new levies.

What Counts as Taxable Rent

The tourist development tax applies to the total consideration charged for the rental, not just the base nightly rate. Charges bundled into the rental or required as a condition of the stay are taxable. That covers cleaning fees, pet fees, utility surcharges, damage insurance fees, and charges for extra amenities like rollaway beds.⁵

The same principle governs the 6% state sales tax: it’s calculated on the total rental charged for the accommodations.² Charge a guest $1,500 for a week and add a $200 cleaning fee and a $75 pet fee, and the taxable base is $1,775. Owners who calculate on the nightly rate alone come up short at audit.

Who Is Exempt

Florida Administrative Code Rule 12A-1.061 carves out several exemptions from both the state transient rental tax and the local tourist development tax.⁶

Anyone who signs a written lease for continuous residence longer than six months is not subject to the tax. The lease has to be genuine, not a sham arrangement covering a series of short stays.
Active-duty service members present in the area under official military orders are exempt. They must show either a copy of their orders or an overflow certificate from a branch of the U.S. Armed Services. Military personnel in the area without official orders to be there don’t qualify.
Full-time students enrolled at a postsecondary institution are exempt when staying in transient accommodations, on a written declaration from an appropriate official at the institution confirming full-time enrollment.
Entities holding a valid Florida sales tax exemption number from the Department of Revenue, such as qualifying nonprofits and religious organizations, are exempt as well.

Collect and keep the supporting documentation for every exempt transaction. Orders or overflow certificates for military guests, the institutional declaration for students, the exemption certificate for a nonprofit. These records are what protect you in an audit.

Airbnb, VRBO, and Owner Responsibility

If you list on a platform like Airbnb or HomeAway (VRBO), the platform may collect and remit the tourist development tax and state sales tax on your behalf. Whether it does depends on the platform and the county. In Sarasota County, for example, Airbnb and HomeAway automatically handle the tourist tax for bookings made through their sites, but if you also list on Booking.com or Craigslist, you remain responsible for collecting and remitting the tax on those bookings yourself.⁵

Since July 1, 2021, marketplace providers have been required to collect and remit Florida sales tax on sales they facilitate.³ Local tourist development tax agreements, though, vary by county and platform. If the platform doesn’t collect the local tax, or if your county doesn’t have an agreement with that platform, you owe it.⁷ Confirm with your county tax collector which taxes each platform actually handles before you assume you’re covered.

Registering Before Your First Booking

Before you collect a dollar of tax, register in two places. First, register with the Florida Department of Revenue to collect the 6% state sales tax on transient rentals; the DOR lists “renting short-term living accommodations” as an activity that requires registration.³ Second, set up an account with your county’s tax collector or comptroller for the local tourist development tax. Some counties want the state registration done first.

Expect the registration process to ask for your federal employer identification number or Social Security number, the property’s parcel identification number from the county property appraiser, and a description of the rental activity. Both registrations should be complete before you advertise or accept a booking. Operating without them exposes you to penalties at the state and local level, and in some counties local code enforcement can impose daily fines on an unregistered short-term rental.

Filing, Deadlines, and Records

State sales tax returns go to the Florida Department of Revenue, typically monthly. The local tourist development tax is filed separately with your county’s tax collector or comptroller. Most counties use the same deadline: the return and payment are due the first of the month following collection and become delinquent if not postmarked by the 20th of that month.⁸

Electronic filing and payment through ACH or credit card are standard. Filing state sales tax electronically comes with a small perk: a collection allowance of 2.5% on the first $1,200 of tax due per period, up to $30, as compensation for collecting and remitting on time.⁹

Keep tourist development tax records for at least three years and be ready to produce them for audit. That includes guest folios, general ledgers, financial statements, sales tax payment records, and copies of any leases.⁸ Don’t assume that platform collection lets you off the record-keeping hook. Save booking confirmations and platform payout statements so you can prove what was collected and remitted on your behalf.

Penalties for Late or Missing Payment

The tourist development tax is enforced under the same framework as the state sales tax in Chapter 212, and the penalties compound quickly. A late return or late payment triggers a penalty of 10% of the tax due or $50, whichever is greater.¹⁰ Interest accrues on top at a floating rate updated twice a year.⁸

Continued noncompliance escalates. Underreport the tax on a return and the penalty is 10% of the underpayment for the first 30 days, plus another 10% for each subsequent 30-day period, up to a maximum of 50% of the unpaid amount. A fraudulent return or willful evasion carries a 100% penalty on the unreported amount and is a third-degree felony. Failing to file six consecutive required returns with willful intent to evade the tax is also a third-degree felony.¹⁰

Local code enforcement is a separate track. Many Florida counties have adopted their own penalties for unregistered short-term rental operators. State law caps these local fines at $1,000 per day for a first offense and $5,000 per day for repeat violations, and individual county ordinances set their own schedules within those limits.

1
Florida Statutes. Florida Code 125.0104 – Tourist Development Tax; Procedure for Levying; Authorized Uses; Referendum; Enforcement
2
Florida Statutes. Florida Code 212.03 – Transient Rentals Tax; Rate, Procedure, Enforcement, Exemptions
3
Florida Department of Revenue. Florida Sales and Use Tax
4
Florida Department of Revenue. Florida Department of Revenue – Local Option Taxes
5
Sarasota Tax Collector. Tourist Development Tax Overview
6
Florida Administrative Code. Florida Administrative Code Ann. R. 12A-1.061 – Rentals, Leases, and Licenses to Use Transient Accommodations
7
Lee County Clerk of Court, FL. Tourist Development Tax
8
Orange County Florida Comptroller. Finance – Tourist Development Tax
9
Florida Administrative Code. Florida Administrative Code Ann. R. 12A-1.056 – Tax Due at Time of Sale
10
Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 212.12 – Dealer’s Credit for Collecting Tax; Penalties for Noncompliance