Miami's Tourist Development Tax: What Every Short-Term Rental Host Needs to Know
Armando Ramirez5 min read
If you’re renting out a condo, guesthouse, or spare room in Miami-Dade County for less than six months, you’re not just collecting a state sales tax. You’re stacking several layers of tourism-specific taxes on top of it, and getting the math wrong can trigger penalties before you even realize a filing was due.
The Baseline: Florida’s State Sales Tax on Transient Rentals
Every short-term rental in Florida starts with the state’s 6% sales tax on rental charges or room rates paid for living quarters or sleeping accommodations rented for six months or less, plus any applicable discretionary sales surtax. This covers hotel rooms, condos, single-family homes, and even RV or campground sites when the stay is short enough. On top of the state rate, counties can layer on their own local option transient rental taxes — tourist development, convention development, or municipal resort taxes — which are reported separately from the state return.
Miami-Dade’s Layered Tourist Tax Structure
This is where Miami gets more complicated than most Florida markets. Alongside the state’s 6% and Miami-Dade’s 1% discretionary sales surtax, the county collects a further 6% in tourism taxes, broken into a 3% Convention Development Tax, a 2% Tourist Development Tax, and a 1% Professional Sports Facilities Franchise Tax.
| Tax | Rate | Where it’s collected | What it funds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Convention Development Tax | 3% | Countywide, except Surfside and Bal Harbour | Tourist facilities, cultural centers, and the Miami Arena |
| Tourist Development Tax | 2% | Countywide, except Surfside, Bal Harbour, and Miami Beach | Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, cultural grants, and City of Miami tourist facilities |
| Professional Sports Facilities Franchise Tax | 1% | Countywide, except Surfside, Bal Harbour, and Miami Beach | Debt service on county professional sports facilities |
Add it up and a typical short-term rental host outside the exception cities is collecting 13%: 6% state sales tax, 1% county discretionary surtax, and 6% of county tourism taxes. The surtax is the layer most hosts forget, because it is quietly folded into the state return rather than appearing as its own line.
Miami Beach, Surfside, and Bal Harbour Play by Different Rules
Not every municipality in the county collects the same stack. Miami Beach still pays the 3% Convention Development Tax, but is exempt from the Tourist Development and Sports Franchise taxes; in their place the city charges its own 4% tax on room rent in hotels, motels, rooming houses, and apartment houses, along with a 2% tax on food, beverages, and alcohol sold in restaurants, bars, or nightclubs. Surfside and Bal Harbour sit outside all three county taxes entirely and run their own municipal resort tax instead.
Because those city taxes substitute for county ones rather than piling on top, the totals land closer together than the reputation suggests — a Miami Beach room runs about 14% against Miami’s 13%. What changes is not so much the rate as which government you register and file with. If your property sits in one of these three cities, check with the city directly before you set your listing price.
Filing Isn’t Optional, Even With Zero Bookings
One detail that trips up new hosts: a Convention and Tourist tax return must be filed monthly even if no tax was collected that month, and a delinquent return carries a minimum $50 penalty regardless of how much tax was actually due. Returns and payments are due on the 1st and considered late after the 20th of the following month.
Miss it and the penalty runs 10% of the tax owed for each 30 days the return goes unfiled, up to a maximum of 50% of the tax and never less than $50. Interest is separate, accrues daily at a floating rate, and is not capped — so an old unfiled month keeps getting more expensive long after the penalty itself has topped out.
Platform Bookings Can Simplify Registration, But Not Always
If you rent exclusively through certain major platforms, Miami-Dade has agreements with Airbnb, HomeAway and its affiliates including Expedia and Vrbo, and misterb&b to collect and remit the required taxes directly, which means the property owner is not required to separately register for a Convention and Tourist tax account. The moment you take even one direct booking, list on a platform without a county agreement, or use a property management company outside these arrangements, that exemption disappears and you are on the hook to register and file yourself.
Common Exemptions Worth Knowing
Not every rental gets taxed. A guest under a bona fide written lease for longer than six months is exempt, as is a renter who continuously occupies the same unit and has already paid tax for the first six months. Full-time students and active-duty military personnel present under official orders are also exempt, provided they supply the appropriate documentation.
The Bottom Line
Miami’s short-term rental tax structure isn’t a single flat rate. It’s a stack of state, county, and sometimes city-specific taxes that varies by exact location, and the filing obligation exists independently of whether you actually had a guest that month. Before listing a property, confirm which municipality it sits in, register with the right agencies up front, and set a recurring reminder for the 20th of every month. That is a great deal cheaper than a $50 minimum penalty on a month you earned nothing, growing at 10% per 30 days with uncapped interest behind it.