Inside Our Partnerships With Seven Local Governments
My colleagues Kandi Marler and Eric Brandenburg and I just wrapped a multi-stop trip across Florida. The scenery and the weather were nice, but it was the connection with the people behind the seven jurisdictions we partner with that made the trip worthwhile. We sat down in person with tax collectors, code enforcement teams, compliance specialists, and inspectors general who use Rentalscape to run their short-term rental programs. Our conversations centered on what's working, what these teams are dealing with, and what changes when a jurisdiction gets real visibility into its rental property data.
This trip wasn't our only contact with the industry this year. Kandi Marler and I also attended the annual Florida Tourist Development Tax Association (FTDTA) conference, one of the venues where tax collectors and compliance directors from across the state compare notes on what's actually working with the Tourist Development Tax (TDT). That's exactly what Deckard Technologies' Tax Portal handles. It lets short-term rental operators file and pay their TDT online, synced with the compliance module to flag underreporting.
Those same conversations left something concrete behind. In more than one jurisdiction, the number of licensed properties grew notably. And in one case, properties grew from a handful of registered properties to several thousand in just a few years. In another, STR licensing translated into a real increase in local government revenue. And a third is already exploring how to cross Rentalscape's occupancy data with other municipal variables, like public services, to better understand tourism patterns in their region.
The state doesn't allow local governments to ban short-term rentals, nor to impose a minimum number of nights, under Florida Statute §509.032(7)(b), so each city or county ends up controlling just three things: that the property is registered, that it pays its taxes, and that it meets safety standards. On top of that, Florida has an unusual rule under Florida Statute §125.0104. The Tourist Development Tax (TDT) applies to stays of up to 179 nights, almost six months, while most systems for detecting informal rentals were designed for stays under 30 days. That leaves a significant part of the market (two- or three-month seasonal rentals) practically invisible, even though it still owes that tax. (For more on this, see the next link).
The landscape is about to get more complicated still. This November, Florida votes on Amendment 3 to its constitution, which would bring three major changes:
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It's precisely in a context like this that the data Rentalscape gathers becomes a key complement to the knowledge each government already has of its own territory. It gives these communities a way to better understand their rental market and act on it with more confidence. These are the partners who make Rentalscape actually work day to day.
Meeting them in person is a good reminder of the point of all this: local governments get information they can act on, and communities get a system that holds every rental to the same standard, whether it's registered yet or not.
This series will cover seven Florida jurisdictions where Rentalscape is actively deployed. Over the coming weeks, we'll introduce each one individually, with the full context behind every number, what challenge the jurisdiction was trying to solve, how its program is structured today, and what made that structure possible. Short-term rental compliance in Florida doesn't look the same from one county to the next. The Tourist Development Tax structure, the tourism profile, staffing, and the political environment all shape what a program can do and how fast it can move. That's why each story deserves to be told on its own. Some started with no rental registry at all. Others had one, but were capturing less than half of what they should have been. Some focused on code compliance and licensing first. At least one came in through tax collection and built outward from there.
Next week we'll introduce our first jurisdiction, where the story centers on the growth in registered properties over time. We'll share how the program came together, where it started, and what's changed since.
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In the meantime, if you're a Florida local government thinking about your own STR compliance program, whether you're starting from scratch or looking at what the tax module could add to something you already have in place, reach out to our team. Book a Demo |