Tax Services for Hospitality & Hotels

No. Airbnb collects and remits Florida state sales tax and the Miami-Dade Tourist Development Tax on bookings made through its platform in Miami-Dade County, but that arrangement covers only part of what a host owes. The platform handles the transactional lodging taxes on the room charge it processes. Everything else stays your responsibility, and the everything else is where hosts get into trouble. You still report the gross rental income on your federal return, you still track and claim deductions, and you may still owe the Miami-Dade Convention Development Tax, the local discretionary surtax, and tangible personal property tax on the furnishings inside the unit.

Here is how the layers stack on a Miami-Dade short-term rental of six months or less. Florida charges 6 percent state sales tax on transient rentals. Miami-Dade adds a local discretionary surtax of 1 percent. The county Tourist Development Tax runs 6 percent across most of the county, though Miami Beach sits at 7 percent and Surfside and Bal Harbour at 4 percent. On top of that, the county Convention Development Tax adds 3 percent on rentals of 182 nights or fewer, and that one does not apply in Surfside or Bal Harbour. Outside the platform-collected taxes, you register for a Tourist Tax Account with the Miami-Dade Tax Collector and file monthly, separate from your Florida sales and use tax return with the state.

Work a real booking. Say you rent a downtown Miami condo at 300 dollars a night for a 4 night stay, so 1,200 dollars in room revenue. Florida sales tax at 6 percent is 72 dollars. The 1 percent county surtax is 12 dollars. The 6 percent Tourist Development Tax is 72 dollars, and the 3 percent Convention Development Tax is 36 dollars. That is 192 dollars in combined lodging tax on a 1,200 dollar stay, roughly 16 percent. If Airbnb remitted the state sales tax and the Tourist Development Tax for you, you would still owe the surtax and the Convention Development Tax on your own filing. A direct booking taken off-platform, by contrast, leaves all four layers on you to collect and remit.

The common mistake is assuming the Airbnb summary equals full compliance and then skipping the Convention Development Tax and the county registration entirely. We see hosts who booked exclusively through Airbnb for two years and never opened a Tourist Tax Account, only to face the 3 percent Convention Development Tax in arrears plus a 10 percent late penalty and 1 percent per month interest when the county catches up. The income side bites too. Hosts forget that the deductions only land if the income is reported, and platform 1099-K forms now report gross at low thresholds, so the IRS already has the number.

An edge case worth flagging. If you rent the same property partly through Airbnb and partly through direct bookings or another platform that does not collect, you file for the uncollected portion only, and you keep records that separate platform-collected nights from self-collected nights so you do not double-remit. Mixed-use is another one. If you rent a room inside your primary residence rather than a whole separate unit, only the business-use portion of expenses such as mortgage interest, insurance, and depreciation is deductible, and you compute that percentage by square footage or by rooms.

The federal reporting, the deduction work, and the monthly county filings are exactly the parts a platform will never do for you. If you run Miami short-term rentals and want the full stack handled correctly, our tax compliance team and our bookkeeping group set up the accounts, reconcile the platform reports, and file on time. See the IRS guidance at vacation home rental tax rules and start a conversation at our new client inquiry page.

Roughly 16 percent across most of Miami-Dade County once every layer is counted, though the exact figure depends on the municipality. The build is Florida state sales tax of 6 percent, a Miami-Dade local discretionary surtax of 1 percent, the county Tourist Development Tax of 6 percent in most of the county, and the county Convention Development Tax of 3 percent on stays of 182 nights or fewer. Add those and you collect about 16 percent on the room charge. Some municipalities run their own numbers. Miami Beach charges a 7 percent Tourist Development Tax rather than 6, and Surfside and Bal Harbour sit at 4 percent and are exempt from the Convention Development Tax.

The mechanics matter because these taxes do not all flow to the same place. Florida state sales tax and the discretionary surtax go to the Florida Department of Revenue on your sales and use tax return. The Tourist Development Tax and the Convention Development Tax go to the Miami-Dade County Tax Collector through a separate Tourist Tax Account, filed monthly. Two filers, two deadlines, two sets of penalties. The county return is due by the 20th of the month following collection, and a late filing draws a 10 percent penalty plus 1 percent per month interest on the unpaid balance.

Run the dollars on a typical Miami hotel night. A room at 250 dollars carries 15 dollars of state sales tax at 6 percent, 2.50 dollars of county surtax at 1 percent, 15 dollars of Tourist Development Tax at 6 percent, and 7.50 dollars of Convention Development Tax at 3 percent. That is 40 dollars of tax on a 250 dollar room, exactly 16 percent. On a 1,000 room night across a full property that is 40,000 dollars collected and held in trust until remittance. The same room in Miami Beach, at the 7 percent Tourist Development Tax, would carry an extra 2.50 dollars, landing near 17 percent.

The common mistake is treating the whole 16 percent as one tax on one return. Operators who file only with Florida and never open the county Tourist Tax Account miss the Tourist Development Tax and Convention Development Tax entirely, then face a county assessment for years of unremitted tax plus penalty and interest. The reverse error happens too, where a property remits the lodging taxes to the county but forgets the 6 percent state sales tax piece, leaving a state liability building quietly until an audit surfaces it.

An edge case that catches new operators. Stays longer than six months are not transient rentals and fall out of the Tourist Development Tax and the state transient rental tax, while stays of 182 nights or fewer remain inside the Convention Development Tax window, so the two thresholds do not line up. A guest who books for seven months is exempt from the lodging taxes, but you should hold a bona fide written lease to support the exemption. Another wrinkle is mandatory resort fees, which are part of the taxable rental charge in Florida, so a 35 dollar resort fee gets taxed at the same combined rate as the room.

Who registers, collects, and remits. Any person or business renting transient accommodations for six months or less in Miami-Dade must register for a Tourist Tax Account, collect the county taxes from guests, and remit monthly, while also registering with the state for sales tax. If you operate a hotel, motel, or short-term rental in Miami and want the dual filing handled cleanly, our tax compliance service manages both returns and our business management team keeps the trust funds separated. Florida rules are at the Florida Department of Revenue sales and use tax page, and the IRS trust fund framework is at the trust fund recovery penalty guidance.

Yes, W-2 tipped employees in tip-customary occupations can deduct up to 25,000 dollars of qualified tips above the line on their federal return for tax years 2025 through 2028 under IRC section 224, which OBBBA-2025 section 70402 added. The deduction phases out starting at 150,000 dollars MAGI for single filers and 300,000 dollars MAGI for married filing jointly. Because Florida has no state individual income tax, the federal benefit lands clean for Miami workers. There is no state-level addback eating into it the way there is in states that tax wages and did not conform, so a Miami server keeps the full federal value of the deduction.

The mechanics run through the W-2 and the 1040. The employee must still report all tips, and FICA still applies on every dollar of reported tips, so Social Security and Medicare withholding do not change. What changes is the federal income tax. The qualifying tip amount comes off taxable income above the line, meaning the employee claims it whether or not they itemize. As the employer, you support this by reporting tips correctly in the relevant W-2 box so your staff can substantiate the qualified tip figure when they file. The deduction is the employee’s to claim, not the employer’s, but accurate payroll records make or break it, because a tip that never hit the W-2 cannot be deducted.

Put numbers on it. A Miami bartender earns 30,000 dollars in wages and 22,000 dollars in reported tips. Under IRC section 224 the full 22,000 dollars in tips falls under the 25,000 dollar cap and comes off federal taxable income above the line, so the bartender pays federal income tax on roughly 30,000 dollars of wages rather than 52,000 dollars combined. With no Florida income tax, nothing offsets that benefit. A server with 28,000 dollars in tips would deduct 25,000 and carry 3,000 as taxable, since the cap is a hard 25,000 dollar ceiling per year. At a 12 percent federal bracket, deducting 22,000 dollars saves the bartender about 2,640 dollars in federal tax.

The common mistake is treating the deduction as a reason to underreport tips or to stop running tip allocation. It is the opposite. The deduction only applies to reported tips, so sloppy tip reporting now costs the employee a real federal deduction. Employers who quietly let cash tips go unreported are handing their staff a smaller deduction and keeping the business exposed on the Form 8027 allocation side. Nothing about your tip allocation, your FICA tip credit, or your withholding changes because of section 224, so the back-office process stays the same while the employee benefit grows.

An edge case for owners and managers. The deduction applies to W-2 tipped employees and to self-employment tipped income, but the self-employment piece does not reduce self-employment tax, only income tax. Highly compensated front-of-house staff can also phase out. A captain or lead server whose total MAGI crosses 150,000 dollars single starts losing the deduction, so the benefit is strongest for rank-and-file tipped workers and thinner at the top of the tip pool. Tipped occupations that the rules recognize include servers, bartenders, hotel housekeeping, valet, and hosts. Service charges that the house distributes are wages, not tips, so a mandatory 20 percent banquet service charge does not qualify even though it reaches the worker.

Year-end communication is the practical task. Tell tipped staff before they file that the deduction exists, make sure the W-2 reflects reported tips accurately, and keep Pub 531 tip recordkeeping tight so the figures hold up. If you run a Miami restaurant or hotel and want tip reporting and payroll built to support this for your team, our business management team and our individual tax return preparers can help. The statute is at OBBBA P.L. 119-21 and tip income basics at IRS Topic 761.

You can deduct it, but not all in one year. A Miami liquor license is an intangible asset amortized over 15 years under IRC section 197, not expensed immediately. If you paid 180,000 dollars for a license, you deduct 12,000 dollars per year for 15 years. The annual state license renewal fee is a separate matter and is fully deductible as an ordinary business expense in the year you pay it. The big purchase price gets stretched. The recurring fee does not. Mixing those two up is one of the most common ways restaurant owners overstate a first-year deduction and invite an adjustment on audit.

The mechanics turn on what you actually bought. Florida quota liquor licenses are limited in number and trade on a secondary market, so a full liquor license in Miami-Dade can sell for well into six figures because supply is capped. When you buy one, you acquire an intangible asset with value beyond the year of purchase, which is precisely what section 197 forces you to amortize over 180 months. The same logic covers the purchase of an existing license from another operator, the transfer fees that ride along with it, and legal costs to acquire it, all folded into the amortizable basis. Amortization runs ratably, the same deduction every month, with no acceleration even though the cost was real cash out the door on day one.

Work the numbers on a real acquisition. You buy a quota license for 240,000 dollars and pay 10,000 dollars in transfer and legal costs, so your amortizable basis is 250,000 dollars. Divided over 15 years, that is 16,667 dollars of amortization deduction each year. If you instead tried to expense the full 250,000 dollars in year one, an examiner would disallow 233,333 dollars of it and reset the deduction to the correct annual figure, then layer on accuracy penalties and interest on the resulting underpayment. Stretching it correctly protects the deduction and the rest of the return. Over the full 15 years you still recover every dollar, just on the schedule the statute sets.

The common mistake, beyond expensing the purchase, is forgetting that section 197 amortization continues even if the license appreciates. Operators sometimes stop amortizing once the license is worth more than they paid, thinking there is nothing left to deduct. The amortization is tied to your cost basis, not to market value, so you keep deducting the annual amount until the basis is fully recovered regardless of what the license would sell for today. The renewal fee, again, is the only piece that hits the current year in full, and it is deducted in addition to the amortization, not instead of it.

An edge case on disposition. If you sell the business and the license with it, the unamortized basis offsets the sale proceeds when you compute gain, and the character of that gain interacts with section 1245 and section 197 recapture rules. A license you have amortized for six years still carries nine years of unrecovered basis, and that figure flows into the closing math. Another wrinkle is a license tied to a specific location. If you relocate, the costs of amending or transferring the license to a new address may add to basis rather than being currently deductible, so keep those invoices with your fixed asset file.

Liquor license treatment sits next to your buildout depreciation, your tip reporting, and your sales tax, and they interact on the return. If you are buying, selling, or renewing a license for a Miami establishment and want the basis and amortization handled right, our corporate return team and our tax compliance group can structure it. The amortization rules are at IRS business expense guidance and section 197 reporting at the Form 4562 instructions. Start at our new client inquiry page.

Tangible personal property tax is an annual Florida county tax on the business equipment and fixtures you use to run a hotel or restaurant, and yes, it almost certainly applies to you if you own those assets. Furniture, kitchen equipment, point-of-sale systems, walk-in coolers, signage, and similar property all count. You file a DR-405 return with the Miami-Dade Property Appraiser by April 1 each year, listing the assets and their values. The first 25,000 dollars in assessed value is exempt, but you must file to claim that exemption, and skipping the filing forfeits it and can trigger an estimated assessment instead.

The mechanics start with an asset inventory. The county wants a list of your tangible business property with original cost and acquisition year, from which it applies depreciation schedules to reach an assessed value. That assessed value then carries the local millage rate to produce the tax. This is a property tax, not an income tax, so it is owed whether the business made money or not. A restaurant that bought 200,000 dollars of kitchen equipment and furniture three years ago still reports those assets, now at their depreciated assessed value, every year it holds them. New purchases get added each year and aging assets step down the schedule.

Put dollars to it. Suppose your Miami restaurant carries 150,000 dollars in depreciated assessed value of equipment and fixtures after the appraiser applies its schedules. Subtract the 25,000 dollar exemption and you have 125,000 dollars subject to tax. At a combined millage near 20 mills, or 20 dollars per 1,000 of value, the bill is roughly 2,500 dollars for the year. The number rises as you add equipment and falls as assets depreciate, so a major buildout one year pushes the assessment up before depreciation pulls it back down over time. Budget for the bill as a recurring fixed cost, not a one-time event.

The common mistake is not filing because the owner assumes the assets fall under the exemption. The exemption is not automatic. You claim it by filing the DR-405, and a first-year filing is what establishes the waiver of filing in later years for properties that qualify. Operators who never file get an estimated assessment from the appraiser with no exemption applied, often higher than reality, plus a 25 percent penalty on the assessed value for failure to file. Filing on time, even at a value under the exemption, protects you and creates the record the county needs to grant the waiver.

An edge case on leased equipment. If you lease your POS terminals or kitchen line rather than own them, the reporting can shift to the lessor, but you still list leased equipment on your DR-405 in the section for property you hold under lease so the appraiser does not double-assess. Another wrinkle is assets fully depreciated for income tax but still in service. Those remain reportable for tangible personal property tax at a residual assessed value, because the county uses its own schedules, not your federal depreciation, so a fully written-off oven still shows up on the county return.

The DR-405 ties directly to your fixed asset records and your federal depreciation schedule, so clean books make the filing simple. If you run a Miami hotel or restaurant and want the annual tangible property return handled alongside your other filings, our bookkeeping team keeps the asset ledger current and our tax compliance group files the DR-405 on time. Florida property tax basics are at the Florida Department of Revenue property tax page, and the depreciation rules behind your asset records are at the IRS Form 4562 instructions.