Hillsborough County · Florida
Tampa Vacation Rental Market
Tampa has no city-specific short-term rental ordinance we can point to in the current code, and Florida law blocks cities from banning vacation rentals or setting rental-length limits through ordinances adopted after June 2011. You still need the state DBPR vacation rental licence, a city business tax receipt, and you still owe state sales tax, the county surtax and the 6% Hillsborough tourist development tax. Separately, unincorporated Hillsborough County approved a registry with an annual fee, inspections and a 24-hour contact in September 2026, reported to start in January 2027 — that applies outside the city limits, not inside them.
Rules last checked September 10, 2026
Can you operate a short-term rental here?
Yes — no city short-term rental ordinance identified
Minimum stay
No city minimum identified
City registration required
None identified
Taxes
13.5% total — 6% state sales tax, 1.5% Hillsborough surtax, 6% county tourist development tax
Revenue and occupancy
Not published yetWe do not publish revenue, ADR or occupancy figures for Tampa. We have no sourced first-party benchmark for this market yet, so use the calculators with your own assumptions instead.
Model it with your own assumptionsWhat owners run into here
Tampa is the one market on our list where the city itself is largely hands-off, which owners often read as "no rules". The exposure here is the county line: an address a few streets outside the city is unincorporated Hillsborough and falls under the new registry. Check which jurisdiction the parcel is actually in before you buy.
County and jurisdiction notes
Unincorporated Hillsborough County approved a short-term rental registry on 2 September 2026 with a reported $200 annual fee, inspections and a 24-hour local contact, reported to take effect January 2027. We have only news coverage of the vote, not the filed ordinance text, so we are treating the detail as unverified.
See the full Tampa rulesThinking about renting out a Tampa property?
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