Can Florida HOAs and Condos Ban Airbnb? A Board's 2026 Guide to Short-Term Rental Restrictions

Owners renting their units on Airbnb is the single most-asked Florida community-association question of 2025-2026. Boards see neighbors complaining about strangers at the pool, lost amenity capacity, parking spillover, and the kind of transient turnover that erodes the residential character a declaration was written to protect. The natural response is to ask: can we just ban it? The honest answer is yes — but only through the declaration amendment process, only with the right supermajority vote, and (for condos) only against owners who consent or who take title after the amendment date. Florida statute deliberately makes this hard. Here is what your board can and cannot do, what the case law says, and how to run the amendment process without getting sued.

This article is general information about Florida community-association law and is not legal advice. Drafting a rental-restriction amendment is fact-specific and requires a Florida community-association attorney who can review your governing documents, your owner roster, and your local government regulations. Always engage counsel before scheduling a vote.

The short answer for boards

Yes, a Florida HOA or condo association can restrict or ban short-term rentals. The mechanism is a declaration amendment passed by the supermajority vote specified in the governing documents (default two-thirds of voting interests under FS 720.306(1)(b) for HOAs and FS 718.110(1)(a) for condos, though most declarations require more). The Florida Supreme Court confirmed in Woodside Village Condominium Ass'n v. Jahren, 806 So. 2d 452 (Fla. 2002) that properly enacted declaration amendments enjoy a "very strong presumption of validity," and owners take title with constructive notice that the declaration is amendable.

The catch is the grandfather rule. The 2004 condo statute (FS 718.110(13)) and the 2021 HOA statute (FS 720.306(1)(h)) both shield existing non-consenting owners from new rental restrictions. The HOA rule has two crucial carve-outs that bind every owner regardless of grandfather status. The condo rule has none. This single distinction is the most-misstated point in published Florida short-term rental analysis, and it dictates how a board should structure the amendment vote.

What counts as a short-term rental under Florida law

Florida's transient lodging statute, FS 509.013(4)(a)(1), defines a "transient public lodging establishment" as any unit "rented to guests more than three times in a calendar year for periods of less than 30 consecutive days." A related provision, FS 509.242(1)(c), defines a "vacation rental" as a transient unit in a condo, cooperative, single-family home, or duplex/triplex/quadplex that is not a timeshare project.

The three-times-per-year-and-under-thirty-days formula matters because it is the same formula the HOA statute borrows. An amendment that caps rentals at three per calendar year exactly tracks the transient-lodging definition, which is why FS 720.306(1)(h)(2) lets that specific amendment bind every owner. The Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) licenses vacation rentals under FS 509 separately from any association-level restrictions, so a unit may be both a licensed DBPR vacation rental and a covenant violation under the declaration. Boards do not need a DBPR license to enforce the declaration; the two regulatory systems run in parallel.

The two statutes that govern everything

Two short statutory subsections decide what every Florida board can do at the declaration-amendment level. Read them carefully. Their differences are the entire game.

The exact statutory text of FS 720.306(1)(h)(1): "any governing document, or amendment to a governing document, that is enacted after July 1, 2021, and that prohibits or regulates rental agreements applies only to a parcel owner who acquires title to the parcel after the effective date of the governing document or amendment, or to a parcel owner who consents, individually or through a representative, to the governing document or amendment." Subsection (h)(2) then carves out: "an association may amend its governing documents to prohibit or regulate rental agreements for a term of less than 6 months and may prohibit the rental of a parcel for more than three times in a calendar year, and such amendments shall apply to all parcel owners."

FS 718.110(13) for condos reads: "An amendment prohibiting unit owners from renting their units or altering the duration of the rental term or specifying or limiting the number of times unit owners are entitled to rent their units during a specified period applies only to unit owners who consent to the amendment and unit owners who acquire title to their units after the effective date of that amendment."

Notice what the condo statute does NOT contain: any equivalent of the HOA's six-month carve-out or three-rentals-per-year carve-out. A condo amendment regulating rental term, frequency, or duration is grandfather-protected, full stop. This is the most consequential difference between Chapter 720 and Chapter 718 for short-term rental purposes.

The HOA and condo rental amendment rules look identical at first glance. The carve-outs are everything. Click to zoom.

Woodside Village: why your amendment clause matters more than you think

Woodside Village Condominium Ass'n v. Jahren, 806 So. 2d 452 (Fla. 2002) is the single most-cited Florida case on rental restrictions in community associations. A Clearwater condominium amended its declaration to (1) cap leases at nine months per twelve-month period and (2) prohibit leasing during the first twelve months of ownership. Long-term owner-investors who relied on the prior unrestricted leasing right sued, arguing the amendments were unreasonable, arbitrary, and applied retroactively. The Second District Court of Appeal invalidated the amendments. The Florida Supreme Court reversed.

The Court held that condo declaration amendments enjoy a "very strong presumption of validity" when adopted through the declaration's amendment procedure. Purchasers take title with constructive notice that the declaration is amendable, and they assume the risk that future amendments may restrict rentals. The Court declined to apply ordinary contract or restraint-on-alienation analysis, treating the declaration instead as a hybrid governance document with covenant-like and constitutional dimensions. An amendment can be struck down only if it is arbitrary, against public policy, or violative of constitutional rights — a high bar.

Woodside is the constitutional ceiling on what an amendment can do. The 2004 statutory grandfather rule under FS 718.110(13) was the legislature's response: the case allowed amendments to bind existing owners, but the legislature reinstated grandfather protection by statute. After 2004 for condos, and after July 1, 2021 for HOAs, declaration amendments that touch rentals are constrained by both Woodside's reasonableness standard AND the statutory grandfather rule. The carve-outs in FS 720.306(1)(h)(2) for HOAs are how the legislature chose to balance them.

The HOA carve-outs that bind every owner

For HOAs, the practical question is which amendment to pass. The grandfather rule under FS 720.306(1)(h)(1) makes a general "no rentals" amendment limited in reach: it binds new buyers but lets existing non-consenting owners continue renting indefinitely. The carve-outs under FS 720.306(1)(h)(2) solve this problem by binding every owner regardless of when they took title.

Carve-out 1: minimum rental term of 6 months or longer

An HOA may amend its declaration to "prohibit or regulate rental agreements for a term of less than 6 months." This binds every parcel owner. Practical effect: no Airbnb. No weekly vacation rentals. No 29-day stays. Every rental must be at least six months in duration. The amendment does not prohibit rentals as a category; it makes short-term rentals impossible. This is the strongest single tool the HOA statute gives boards, and most Florida HOAs that have moved against Airbnb in 2024-2026 have used it.

Carve-out 2: cap of 3 rentals per calendar year

An HOA may also amend to "prohibit the rental of a parcel for more than three times in a calendar year." This binds every parcel owner. Practical effect: an owner cannot run a true vacation-rental business out of the unit. The cap exactly tracks the FS 509.013 "transient" definition: rent four or more times a year and the unit becomes a transient public lodging establishment; the carve-out prevents the unit from crossing that threshold. Boards sometimes pair the 3-rental cap with a minimum 30-day term to layer the protection.

What the HOA cannot do, even with the carve-outs

The carve-outs are narrow. An HOA cannot rely on them to ban all rentals (the general no-rentals amendment is grandfather-protected). An HOA cannot use the carve-outs to set a minimum rental term longer than six months and have it bind existing non-consenting owners. The carve-outs say "less than 6 months" and "more than three times" — anything stricter falls back into general grandfather protection.

The condo grandfather rule: stricter, no carve-out

Condominium associations operate under a tighter constraint. FS 718.110(13) mirrors the HOA grandfather rule but does NOT include the six-month or three-rentals carve-outs. Every amendment that prohibits rentals, alters rental duration, or limits rental frequency is grandfather-protected against non-consenting existing owners.

For a condo board this means: a new amendment binds only consenting owners (rare, especially among owner-investors actively renting) and future buyers who take title after the effective date. Non-consenting owners renting today can continue renting under the pre-amendment rules indefinitely. Their grandfather status only ends if the unit changes hands in an arms-length sale.

Two implications:

• Condo board moves are slower and more strategic. The amendment binds new buyers but lets existing owner-investors persist. Boards plan a multi-year sunset, not an immediate ban.
• Disclosure becomes the lever. Even before grandfather rights expire, prospective buyers reviewing the declaration will see the amendment. Owner-investors who want to sell to other owner-investors will find the buyer pool shrunk. Market pressure does most of the work the amendment cannot.

This is the most commonly misstated point in published Florida short-term rental analysis. Boards (and law-firm blog posts) frequently conflate the HOA and condo rules, suggesting condos have access to the 6-month or 3-rental carve-outs. They do not.

Does grandfather status transfer when a unit sells?

The statutes are silent on this. The Florida Bar, Becker, Shuffield Lowman, and Rabin Parker Gurley have all addressed it in published commentary, and the prevailing practitioner reading is consistent:

• Transfer to heirs: Grandfather status follows the parcel/unit to the next-of-kin who inherits via probate or trust. The rationale is that the inheriting party is not a new arms-length buyer.
• Transfer to affiliated entities: Transfers to an entity controlled by the original owner (LLC restructuring, asset-protection trusts, etc.) generally preserve grandfather status. The form changes but the underlying ownership does not.
• Arms-length sale to a third party: Grandfather status terminates. The new buyer takes title with constructive notice of the amended declaration and is bound by it.

This reading is consistent but not statutory. A board treating a sale as the moment grandfather status terminates should still expect potential challenge, particularly in cases involving family transfers structured as sales for valuation reasons. Counsel involvement is essential when enforcement begins against the buyer of a previously grandfathered unit.

The "residential use only" trap

One of the most common board mistakes is relying on the existing declaration's "residential use only" covenant to ban Airbnb without an amendment. Boards reason that short-term rental is "transient" or "commercial" use that violates the residential-use restriction. Florida case law says otherwise.

In Santa Monica Beach Property Owners' Ass'n, Inc. v. Acord, 219 So. 3d 111 (Fla. 1st DCA 2017), the First District Court of Appeal addressed exactly this scenario. Owners were running vacation rentals; the HOA argued the rentals violated the declaration's "residential use only" and "no business use" covenants. The court held that the duration of the occupancy is not the controlling factor. The actual use is. Short-term renters who eat, sleep, and use the property as a temporary residence are using it residentially. Renting it for compensation is no more "business use" than a homeowner who rents their unit to a long-term tenant.

The court treated this as a case of first impression in Florida and noted that thirteen other state and federal courts had reached the same conclusion. The upshot for boards: a generic "residential use only" or "no commercial use" covenant in your existing declaration almost certainly does NOT prohibit Airbnb. You need an express rental restriction — usually added by amendment under the grandfather-protected procedure.

Rules vs. amendments: the lever boards pick wrong

Florida community-association law distinguishes between (1) the declaration / covenants of record, which create substantive use restrictions and require supermajority amendment to change, and (2) board-adopted rules and regulations, which fill in operational details and require only board action. The two are not interchangeable.

A short-term rental ban is a substantive limitation on the use of property. The Florida appellate courts treat such restrictions as declaration-level, not rule-level. A board that adopts a "rule" prohibiting rentals less than six months, or capping rentals, when the declaration is silent on rentals, will face a strong argument that the rule is invalid because it materially expands restrictions beyond the declaration. Some Florida courts have used a "reasonableness" test for board rules; others have applied a "strict consistency with the declaration" test. Either way, an STR-banning rule is on thin ice.

What a board CAN do at the rule level (without amendment):

• Require tenants to register with the association before move-in
• Limit guest access to amenities during stays under a certain length
• Require key fobs or access devices to be reissued for new tenants
• Restrict where commercial cleaning crews park
• Charge reasonable transfer fees for tenant onboarding (subject to statutory caps)
• Impose noise rules, trash rules, and pool rules that apply equally to owners and tenants

These rules are operational, not substantive. They do not ban the rental; they regulate how it operates. A board considering a short-term rental crackdown should think of rules as the supporting infrastructure for a substantive declaration amendment, not a substitute for one.

The fining playbook after HB 1203

HB 1203 (2024), effective July 1, 2024, materially rewrote the fining procedure for Florida HOAs. The condo fining procedure under FS 718.303 remains largely the same as before. The HOA procedure under FS 720.305 is tighter and more pro-owner.

The post-HB 1203 HOA fining workflow

• $100 per violation, $1,000 aggregate cap unless governing documents authorize more
• 3-member fining committee appointed by the board, none of whom may be officers, directors, employees, or relatives of officers/directors/employees
• 14 days' written notice of the alleged violation before any hearing
• Hearing within 90 days of the notice (new under HB 1203)
• Written findings within 7 days of the hearing (new under HB 1203)
• No fine if cured before the hearing (new under HB 1203 — a major change)
• Lien threshold $1,000 aggregate — HOA fines may become a lien only once aggregate exceeds $1,000

The condo fining workflow (largely unchanged)

• $100 per violation, $1,000 aggregate cap
• Same 3-member committee + 14-day notice structure as HOAs
• Condo fines may NEVER become a lien — this is a fundamental Chapter 718 difference from Chapter 720
• Common-element use rights may be suspended after 90 days past due; voting rights may be suspended once an owner owes more than $1,000

For STR enforcement specifically, the HB 1203 "no fine if cured" rule matters. An owner who pulls the Airbnb listing before the hearing and stops accepting reservations cannot be fined for that specific violation, even if the conduct continued for weeks before the cure. Repeat violations restart the clock. Boards relying on fines as their primary STR enforcement tool will find the financial pressure capped at $1,000 per series of violations — meaningful, but rarely existential for a dedicated short-term renter. Injunctive relief in circuit court is the bigger stick. For the full workflow, see our HOA violation letter guide.

Selective enforcement: the easiest way to lose

The single fastest way for a Florida board to lose a rental-restriction enforcement case is selective enforcement. The doctrine traces to White Egret Condominium, Inc. v. Franklin, 379 So. 2d 346 (Fla. 1979), where the Florida Supreme Court held that an association that knowingly permitted six unit-owners to live with children under twelve in violation of an age restriction was estopped from suddenly enforcing against a seventh family. The restriction was reasonable on its face. The selective application was not.

In the short-term rental context, the analog is obvious: if your board has ignored Airbnb at units A, B, and C for two years and then begins enforcement against unit D, unit D's lawyer will argue selective enforcement. The argument often succeeds. Boards that begin STR enforcement should either:

• Open enforcement against every known violator simultaneously, after sending a single uniform pre-enforcement notice letter; or
• Adopt a formal "going forward" enforcement resolution, communicated to all owners, that draws a bright line between past tolerated violations and prospective enforcement starting on a specific date.

The second approach — the prospective-notice or "Chattel Shipping" approach — was endorsed in Chattel Shipping & Insurance Co. v. Brickell Place Condominium Ass'n, 481 So. 2d 29 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985), and has been used successfully by Florida boards to "reset" a history of non-enforcement. The resolution must clearly state that the restriction will henceforth be enforced and must apply only to violations occurring after the resolution's effective date. Existing violations cannot be punished retroactively, but new ones can.

What SB 280 (2024) would and would not have done

Boards considering rental restrictions in 2026 occasionally encounter confusion about Senate Bill 280 (2024), which Governor Ron DeSantis vetoed on June 27, 2024. The veto did not affect community-association power over rentals.

SB 280 would have:

• Required DBPR registration for short-term rental properties on a more comprehensive basis
• Required vacation rental platforms (Airbnb, VRBO, etc.) to collect and remit local tourist development taxes
• Preempted certain local government short-term rental ordinances
• Established a statewide regulatory framework for vacation rentals

SB 280 did NOT:

• Change FS 718.110(13) or FS 720.306(1)(h)
• Affect any HOA or condo association's ability to amend its declaration
• Impose any new restriction or relaxation on declaration-level rental restrictions

Boards considering rental amendments today operate under the same Chapter 718 and Chapter 720 framework that existed before SB 280 was introduced. No equivalent vacation-rental preemption legislation has passed in the 2025 or 2026 Florida legislative sessions. The veto matters because it preserved local government authority to regulate short-term rentals, but the association-level rules in Chapters 718 and 720 were never on the SB 280 chopping block.

A 6-step board action checklist

Boards moving from "we should ban Airbnb" to a passed amendment typically follow a six-step path. The checklist below is the practical synthesis of how Florida community-association attorneys handle these engagements.

The six-step path from "we should ban Airbnb" to a passed amendment. Click to zoom.

• 1. Audit your current declaration. Do you already have a rental restriction? If yes, you may be able to enforce existing rules without an amendment — subject to selective-enforcement risk. If the declaration is silent or has only a "residential use only" covenant, you need an amendment.
• 2. Identify grandfather-protected owners. Pull the title roster as of the proposed amendment date. Every owner who took title before that date and does not consent will be grandfather-protected unless you use an HOA carve-out. Map the owner-investor pool; this determines the practical reach of any amendment.
• 3. Choose your lever. For HOAs: six-month minimum rental term, three-rentals-per-year cap, or general ban (carve-outs vs. grandfather-protected scope). For condos: general ban or duration-altering amendment, knowing it binds only consenting owners and future buyers.
• 4. Engage Florida community-association counsel to draft the amendment. The amendment language must be consistent with your declaration's amendment procedure and avoid drafting traps that invalidate the amendment. Do not use sample language pulled from a blog post. Florida courts scrutinize amendment text closely.
• 5. Schedule and properly notice a supermajority vote. For HOAs, follow the procedure in our HOA board meetings guide and our HOA bylaws amendment guide. For condos, follow the procedure in our condo board meetings guide. Special-meeting notice rules apply.
• 6. Stand up the post-HB 1203 fining workflow. Appoint a 3-member fining committee (no insiders or relatives), set the 14-day notice template, schedule hearings within 90 days, deliver written findings within 7 days, and apply the "no fine if cured" rule consistently. For enforcement that exceeds fining authority, plan for circuit-court injunctive relief.

Key takeaways

• Florida HOAs and condos can restrict short-term rentals via declaration amendment. The amendment threshold is at minimum two-thirds of voting interests (FS 720.306(1)(b) and FS 718.110(1)(a)); most declarations require more.
• The HOA statute has two carve-outs that bind every owner. FS 720.306(1)(h)(2) permits amendments setting a minimum rental term of six months or longer, and capping rentals at three per calendar year. Both apply to all parcel owners regardless of when they took title.
• The condo statute has no carve-outs. FS 718.110(13) makes every rental-related amendment grandfather-protected against non-consenting existing owners. Condo boards plan for multi-year amendment reach, not immediate ban.
• Woodside Village v. Jahren controls the reasonableness analysis. Declaration amendments enjoy a "very strong presumption of validity" when properly enacted. Owners take title with constructive notice that the declaration is amendable.
• A "residential use only" covenant alone does not ban Airbnb. Santa Monica Beach v. Acord (Fla. 1st DCA 2017) held duration is not the controlling factor — short-term renters using the property as a temporary residence are using it residentially.
• Boards cannot ban Airbnb by rule. Substantive rental restrictions live in the declaration, not in board rules. Rules can regulate how rentals operate; they cannot prohibit them.
• The post-HB 1203 fining workflow has a "no fine if cured" rule. Owners who pull the Airbnb listing before the hearing cannot be fined for that specific violation. Injunctive relief in circuit court is the bigger enforcement lever for persistent violations.
• Selective enforcement is the most common way boards lose. White Egret v. Franklin estoppel applies. Either enforce uniformly against every known violator, or adopt a prospective-notice resolution under the Chattel Shipping approach to reset the enforcement baseline.

Frequently asked questions

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Property Exemption Team

Written and fact-checked using Florida Statutes Chapter 718 and Chapter 720, the published opinions in Woodside Village v. Jahren (Fla. 2002), Santa Monica Beach v. Acord (Fla. 1st DCA 2017), White Egret v. Franklin (Fla. 1979), and Chattel Shipping v. Brickell Place (Fla. 3d DCA 1985); the Florida Senate bill records for HB 1021, HB 1203, and SB 280; and published analyses from Becker, Shuffield Lowman, Rabin Parker Gurley, Berger Singerman, Siegfried Rivera, and Pavese Law. All references reflect statutes and case law effective May 2026. This article is general information, not legal advice. About Mosaic