Glossary
Can a Florida City Ban Short-Term Rentals?
Under Florida Statute 509.032(7)(b), a local law, ordinance, or regulation may not prohibit vacation rentals or regulate the duration or frequency of rental. The exception is the grandfather clause: rules adopted on or before June 1, 2011 are exempt, which is why a handful of cities still enforce bans newer ordinances could not impose.
The statute is short and unusually blunt. Section 509.032(7)(b) states that “a local law, ordinance, or regulation may not prohibit vacation rentals or regulate the duration or frequency of rental of vacation rentals.” That single sentence removes the two levers cities most want to pull: an outright ban, and a minimum-stay rule long enough to make short-term renting pointless.
The whole question then turns on timing. Subsection (7)(c) provides that the paragraph “does not apply to any local law, ordinance, or regulation adopted on or before June 1, 2011.” A city that already had restrictions on the books before that date keeps them and may continue enforcing them. A city that did not cannot go back and enact them now. This is why South Florida looks so inconsistent from the outside: the map reflects which cities happened to legislate before mid-2011, not a considered policy consensus.
Preemption is not deregulation, and reading it that way is how owners get fined. Local governments retain real authority over vacation rentals — registration and licensing programs, noise, parking, solid waste, occupancy limits, and inspection for compliance with the Florida Building Code and Florida Fire Prevention Code under ss. 553.80 and 633.206. A city that cannot ban your rental can still require you to register it, and can still cite you for operating unregistered.
Separately from local rules, state-level obligations apply everywhere: a Department of Business and Professional Regulation vacation rental license for transient dwellings, plus collection and remittance of state sales tax, the county discretionary surtax, and the local tourist development tax on stays under six months. Preemption governs whether a city can stop you; it does not exempt anyone from licensing or tax.
The practical consequence for anyone booking or listing a property is that “is this legal?” is an address-level question rather than a regional one. Confirm the specific municipality’s current ordinance and registration requirements before money changes hands, because the answer can differ between two houses a few blocks apart.