If you own a condo in South Florida, or you are about to buy one, a single question decides everything else: is your building actually allowed to be rented nightly?
Most owners find out the answer too late. They buy in a beautiful oceanfront tower, apply for a vacation rental licence, and then discover the declaration of condominium requires a six month minimum lease. The unit is fine. The building is fine. The paperwork is not.
Miami real estate investment works differently from almost every other American market, because the constraint is rarely the city and almost never the state. It is the building. At Stay Today we manage short term rentals across Miami-Dade and Broward, and we work inside six buildings in particular: Beachwalk Resort in Hallandale Beach, Hyde Beach House and Lyfe Resort and Residences in Hollywood, Trump International Beach Resort and Marenas Beach Resort in Sunny Isles Beach, and Brickell on the River in Miami.
Below is an honest comparison of all six, including the one where daily rentals are not permitted, and why that building teaches you more than the other five combined.
If you own somewhere else in Miami, skip ahead to the five question checklist. The same rules apply to any building in the county.
Table of Contents
What actually makes a Miami condo Airbnb friendly
Gate 1: Florida state law
Florida preempts short term rental regulation to the state. Under Florida Statute 509.032(7)(b), a city “may not prohibit vacation rentals or regulate the duration or frequency of rental of vacation rentals,” unless that local ordinance was adopted on or before 1 June 2011.
That single date explains most of the South Florida map. Hollywood’s programme dates from 2015 and Hallandale Beach’s from 2016, so neither city can impose a minimum stay. Miami 21, the City of Miami’s zoning code, was adopted in October 2009, before the cutoff, so its restrictions survived a court challenge in City of Miami v. Airbnb and remain enforceable today.
A widely reported 2024 bill, SB 280, would have overhauled the framework with a state registry. It was vetoed on 27 June 2024, and nothing has replaced it. The 2016 text is still the law in 2026. If you want the wider picture, we cover short term rental regulation across Florida in more detail.
Rent your unit more than three times a year for periods under 30 days and you need a DBPR vacation rental licence. For a single condo unit that runs $170 per year plus a one time $50 application fee. Rent for 30 days or more, advertise nothing shorter, and you fall outside the definition entirely.
Gate 2: Your city
Every city layers its own registration on top of the state licence.
- Sunny Isles Beach licenses any rental of six months or less: a $300 vacation rental licence plus a $100 business tax receipt, rising to $400 at renewal. Critically, the city will not issue the licence without a consent letter from your condo association or a copy of the by-laws.
- Hollywood charges $500 for a new licence, $350 to renew, plus a $225 inspection, and re-inspects every single year before renewal.
- Hallandale Beach charges $300 plus fees for a new registration and $250 to renew, with an annual re-inspection.
- City of Miami is the strict one. Under Miami 21, a multifamily building where units are rented for less than one month is reclassified as Lodging. That is a change of use, not a paperwork detail. It requires a new Certificate of Use, a commercial building permit, Fire and DERM inspections, and a new Certificate of Occupancy. The Lodging inspection fee alone is $313. This applies across Downtown Miami and Brickell.
Gate 3: Your building, and this is the one that kills deals
Neither the state nor the city can force your condo association to allow it. Under Florida Statute 718.110(13), if an association amends its declaration to prohibit rentals, change the minimum term, or cap the number of rentals per year, that amendment “applies only to unit owners who consent to the amendment and unit owners who acquire title to their units after the effective date.”
Read that twice. The grandfathering follows the owner, not the unit. A seller may be personally exempt from a rental restriction that will bind you completely the day you close. This is the single most important item of due diligence in a Miami condo purchase, and almost nobody checks it.
There is a second building level trap inside the City of Miami. If more than 25% of a building’s units are used transiently, the entire building must be brought up to R-1 hotel fire and life safety standards. Your eligibility can depend on how many neighbours got there first.
Miami condos that allow Airbnb: the six buildings compared
| Beachwalk Resort | Hyde Beach House | Lyfe Resort and Residences | Trump International | Marenas Beach Resort | Brickell on the River | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| City | Hallandale Beach | Hollywood | Hollywood | Sunny Isles Beach | Sunny Isles Beach | Miami, Brickell |
| Built | 2015 | 2019 | 2017 | 2003 | 2005 | 2005 to 2007 |
| Stories | 33 | 41 | 41 | 31 | 27 | 43 north, 46 south |
| Units | 300 | 342 | 407 | 373 | 210 | 712 (385 plus 327) |
| Type | Condo hotel hybrid | Condo hotel hybrid | Condo hotel hybrid | Condo hotel | Condo hotel | Residential condo |
| Daily rentals | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Minimum stay | None on resort units | None | None | None | None | 30 days south, 6 to 7 months north |
| Owner use cap | 90 consecutive days | 150 days a year | 150 days a year | Reported 6 months a year | Not published | None |
| Position | Intracoastal, beach club | Intracoastal, beach club | Oceanfront | Oceanfront | Oceanfront | Miami River |
| Average HOA | $1.15 per sq ft | $1.68 per sq ft | $1.37 per sq ft | Flat share model | $1.81 per sq ft | $0.85 to $1.14 per sq ft |
| Average sale | $395 per sq ft | $686 per sq ft | $735 per sq ft | $417 per sq ft | $916 per sq ft* | $466 to $499 per sq ft |
| Outside manager | Permitted | Permitted | Permitted | Permitted | Permitted | Permitted, long term only |
HOA figures are dollars per square foot per month. Sale figures are average closed prices per square foot from publicly listed market data as of August 2026. Marenas trades thinly and its average rests on a very small number of closings, so treat it as orientation rather than appraisal.
Beachwalk Resort in Hallandale Beach
2600 and 2602 E Hallandale Beach Blvd. Built 2015. 33 stories. 300 units.
Beachwalk is a Related Group tower with interiors by Pininfarina, the Italian design house behind Ferrari, Maserati and Rolls-Royce bodywork. It was Related’s second residential collaboration with the firm, after Millecento on Brickell.
The structural detail that matters for owners: Beachwalk is one condominium with two unit classes and two street addresses. The 84 private residences at 2600 have unrestricted use. The 216 resort condo hotel units at Beachwalk, addressed at 2602, are the rental product. They may be rented daily, weekly or monthly, and the constraint runs the other way: the owner may occupy the unit for a maximum of 90 consecutive days.
Two more things worth knowing. First, Beachwalk is not on the beach. It sits on the Intracoastal, and ocean access is through a separate three story beach club directly on the sand, reached by complimentary shuttle. Guests love it, but it has to be set correctly in the listing or you collect avoidable one star reviews. Second, the economics are the friendliest of the six: an average HOA of about $1.15 per square foot per month against average sales around $395 per square foot, the lowest entry cost on this list.
Owners are not locked into the house programme. Independent managers operate openly in the building, and Stay Today currently runs 15 units here. If you own at Beachwalk or nearby, see our vacation rental management in Hallandale Beach.
Hyde Beach House in Hollywood
4010 S Ocean Drive. Built 2019. 41 stories. 342 units.
The newest building of the six, developed by Related with Key International and 13th Floor Investments, architecture by Cohen Freedman Encinosa, interiors by the Brazilian designer Debora Aguiar.
Hyde Beach House has the clearest rental language of any building we work in. Broker documentation states that units “can be rented daily, weekly, or monthly without Association restrictions.” The split is 265 resort condo hotel units on floors 2 to 34 and 77 condo residences on floors 35 to 41. Resort unit owners may personally occupy their unit up to 150 days a year.
The amenity package is genuinely unusual for a condo hotel and does real work on nightly rate: an outdoor movie theatre with fire pits, an indoor multi use court for racquetball, basketball and mini soccer, an Aqua Club on the Intracoastal renting jet skis, paddleboards, kayaks and kitesurfing gear, a private owners only rooftop lounge with jacuzzi, and barefoot butler service at the Hyde Beach Club across the street. Amenities at this level only convert into bookings when someone is actually working them, which is what our concierge service exists to do.
You pay for all of it. At roughly $1.68 per square foot per month, the HOA is the highest of the Hollywood and Hallandale buildings. But the building also turns over fastest, with average days on market around 86, less than half of Lyfe or Beachwalk. That tells you the buyer pool understands the product.
Stay Today manages 10 units here.
Lyfe Resort and Residences, the former Hyde Resort and Residences
4111 S Ocean Drive. Built 2017. 41 stories. 407 units.
Here is a fact most listings for this building still get wrong. Lyfe is the former Hyde Resort and Residences, the original flagship of the Hyde hotel brand launched jointly by Related and sbe. The condo association filed the trademark “LYFE RESORT AND RESIDENCES” on 7 June 2024, alongside two alternative names it considered the same day. The brand is now owned by the association itself rather than by a hotel company.
That is not trivia. It means the amenities and hotel services are supplied by the condominium association rather than by an operator taking a cut, and it is the reason so many independent managers compete for units here. It is also why you will still find the building listed under old Hyde URLs on booking platforms, and why the old name still carries real search demand.
Structurally there are 367 resort condo hotel units, delivered fully furnished and move in ready, plus 40 decorator ready condo residences on floors 22 to 41. Resort owners have the same 150 day per year personal use cap as Hyde Beach House. If you bought one of the decorator ready units, furnishing it to a standard that photographs well is not optional, and our interior design team handles exactly that.
Unlike Beachwalk and Hyde Beach House, Lyfe is directly oceanfront. No shuttle, no crossing Ocean Drive. That is worth real money per night in the peak January to March window, and it shows in the resale data: average sales around $735 per square foot, the highest of the three Hollywood area buildings.
One caution for buyers. The average HOA has climbed to roughly $1.37 per square foot per month, against about $0.95 quoted in original 2016 marketing, a 44% increase in under a decade. Model your projections on today’s number, not the brochure’s.
Stay Today manages over 10 units in the building. For owners in either Hollywood tower, see short term rental management in Hollywood.
Trump International Beach Resort in Sunny Isles Beach
18001 Collins Ave. Built 2003. 31 stories. 373 units.
A correction worth making, because it appears wrong nearly everywhere online. This resort opened in April 2003, not 2008. Miami-Dade County property records list the year built as 2003, and Sonesta’s own SEC filings confirm the opening date. The building spent its first five years as the Trump International Sonesta Beach Resort. Sonesta gave notice in October 2007 and exited in April 2008, which is where the 2008 date comes from. The Sonesta name still survives inside the legal condominium name to this day.
Developed by Dezer Development in a joint venture with Donald J. Trump, architecture by Sieger Suarez, on 11 acres with 1,000 feet of beach, as part of the larger Trump Grande complex. Worth knowing: the Trump Organization has never owned it. The name is used under licence.
For owners the picture is straightforward. Units may be rented daily, and MLS documentation is explicit that owners may use “either the hotel rental program, a management company, or [rent] by yourself.” At launch every unit was placed in a mandatory rental pool. That requirement is long gone.
The quirk to understand before you buy is the fee structure. Every deed carries an undivided 1/373 interest in the common elements. A 457 square foot studio and a 1,477 square foot two bedroom own exactly the same slice of the building. Because assessments track that share rather than square footage, small units carry a brutal cost per square foot while large units look cheap. Average days on market runs over a year. This is a building where unit selection matters more than in any other on this list, and where professional listing management and disciplined revenue management are the difference between a performing asset and a standing charge.
Entry pricing is the most accessible of the oceanfront options, with listings starting around $210,000 and average sales near $417 per square foot.
Stay Today manages over 10 residences here.
Marenas Beach Resort
18683 Collins Ave. Built 2005. 27 stories. 210 units.
Marenas has changed its name more often than any building on this list. It opened as Le Meridien, was renamed Marenas on 16 November 2009 when Benchmark Hospitality took over management, and today is distributed as Marenas Beach Resort by FMM. The legal condominium name has never changed at all. It is still M Resort Residences Condominium Association, Inc., which is what you will see on the MLS and on your closing documents. The name itself is a Spanish pun the operator explained at the time: mar y arenas, sea and sand.
Developed by Fortune International under Edgardo Defortuna, with architecture by Kobi Karp, it is the smallest and most intimate of the six. 210 units on a quiet stretch of Sunny Isles Beach near Bal Harbour Shops and Oleta River State Park.
Two features make it a genuine investor product. First, there are no rental restrictions. Daily, weekly and monthly are all permitted, and owners can choose the hotel programme or a third party manager. Second, and this is the interesting one, the two bedroom units are lock outs. One deed, two independently rentable keys. An owner can occupy one side while the other side rents, or list both separately during high season. Very few Miami buildings offer that flexibility, and it materially changes the revenue model.
A word of caution on the numbers. Marenas is a small, thinly traded building, and the widely quoted average sale price per square foot is derived from a very small number of closings. Do not build a purchase model on it. The HOA is also relatively high at about $1.81 per square foot per month, and what it includes is not publicly documented. Request the association budget before you commit.
Stay Today manages 12 properties at Marenas. For owners in either Sunny Isles tower, see Airbnb management in Sunny Isles Beach.
Brickell on the River
31 and 41 SE 5th St. Built 2005 to 2007. 43 and 46 stories. 712 units.
We include Brickell on the River deliberately, because it is the building on this list where you cannot run a nightly Airbnb, and understanding why teaches you more than the other five combined.
Brickell on the River is not a condo hotel. It is a standard residential condominium: two towers by Groupe Pacific International, architecture by Cohen Freedman Encinosa, with interiors of the South tower by Andres Escobar. All 327 South tower residences are bi-level lofts with double height ceilings, a genuinely unusual thing to build 46 stories up. The Fifth Street Metromover station sits immediately adjacent to the North tower, and both towers score a Transit Score of 100.
The rental rules differ by tower and are strict:
- North tower: leases of roughly six to seven months minimum, with a limit of about two rentals per year.
- South tower: listings consistently reference a 30 day, one month minimum with no annual cap.
Both towers are zoned T6-48B-O under Miami 21. Renting under one month there is not a rules infraction, it is a change of use to Lodging, requiring a Certificate of Use, permits, Fire and DERM sign off, a new Certificate of Occupancy, and an operational management plan signed by the association.
The consequences are not theoretical. In July 2025 more than thirty owner families sued the South tower board, alleging it permitted short term rental activity that turned the building into what their counsel called a hotel in everything but name. The board disputed the claims. Separately, in August 2026 a different Brickell building received a City of Miami cease and desist over hundreds of unpermitted short term rentals.
For an owner, the takeaway is simple. Brickell on the River is a strong mid term rental asset. Thirty day plus corporate, relocation and snowbird tenants, at $0.85 to $1.14 per square foot in HOA against roughly $466 to $499 per square foot in value. It is not a nightly Airbnb asset, and any manager who tells you otherwise is putting your title at risk, not just your licence. That is precisely the gap our furnished corporate housing programme fills, and it is why we run Brickell vacation rental management on compliant terms.
Stay Today operates over 10 properties there.
If your building is not on this list: the five question checklist
Most Miami owners we speak to are not in these six towers. They are in Coconut Grove, Coral Gables, Edgewater, Aventura or North Miami. Run these five questions on any building in the county before you commit a dollar. If you are a realtor advising a buyer on this, our realtor program exists for exactly that conversation.
- Pull the recorded declaration, and every recorded amendment with its date. You are looking for the minimum lease term, any cap on rentals per year, and any amendment that added a restriction. Remember 718.110(13): a restriction the current owner is exempt from will bind you in full.
- Check the MLS style field. “Condo-Hotel” is a meaningful legal signal. A plain “Condo” in the City of Miami almost always means 30 days minimum at best.
- Get the zoning right, not the height. In Miami it is the transect suffix that decides. T6-48-O and T6-48-L permit Lodging by right, T6-48-R does not, at any height. Pull a Zoning Verification Letter rather than guessing from a map.
- Confirm the building’s occupancy classification. Residential towers are certified R-2. Transient use is R-1. Converting is a permitted change of occupancy, not a formality, and the 25% building threshold may already be closed.
- Ask the association in writing whether it will sign a consent letter. In Sunny Isles Beach the city will not issue your licence without one. Everywhere else, the answer tells you where you actually stand.
The numbers behind the returns
Two figures owners routinely underestimate.
Taxes. A short term stay in the City of Miami or unincorporated Miami-Dade carries 13% in combined transient taxes: 6% Florida sales tax, 1% county discretionary surtax, 3% Convention Development Tax, 2% Tourist Development Tax, and a 1% Professional Sports Franchise Facility Tax that is very commonly left out of projections. Miami Beach runs higher at roughly 14%. Bal Harbour and Surfside come in lower at about 11%. Airbnb and Vrbo collect and remit the county portion under agreement, but if you take direct bookings or list on a platform without an agreement, you must register with Miami-Dade and file monthly, even for a zero dollar month.
Operating costs. Budget the DBPR licence at $170 annually plus $50 the first time, the city licence at $300 to $500 depending on municipality, the business tax receipt, the annual inspection, insurance, and turnover. Cleaning and maintenance on a high turnover oceanfront unit is a materially larger line than most first time owners assume, and under-budgeting it is the commonest reason a promising pro forma disappoints.
Note the renewal calendar too. DBPR licences in Miami-Dade renew 1 October, Broward 1 December, and most city licences expire 30 September. Missing those dates costs more than the licence itself. If you would rather not track any of it, we handle the licensing for you.
Want a number rather than a range? Run the numbers on your own unit with our cash flow calculator.
Frequently asked questions
The reliable category is condo hotels, buildings legally structured for transient occupancy where daily rentals are permitted by the declaration. Of the buildings we operate in, Beachwalk, Hyde Beach House, Lyfe, Trump International and Marenas all fall into that category. Standard residential condominiums in the City of Miami, including Brickell on the River, generally require a minimum of 30 days or longer.
A condo hotel, sometimes called a condotel, is a building where individual units are sold to private owners under a declaration that permits transient occupancy, while the building operates hotel style services such as a front desk, housekeeping and concierge. Owners hold title to a specific unit and may rent it nightly. Most condo hotels cap how many days a year the owner can personally occupy the unit, commonly 90 to 150 days.
In South Florida, yes, when the building permits it. Condo hotels come furnished, carry hotel grade amenities that guests will pay for, and have front desks that absorb check in. The variable that decides your return is not the building, it is occupancy and rate management across a market with sharp January to March seasonality, backed by 24/7 guest support.
Miami is one of the strongest short term rental markets in the United States, with year round demand and a deep international guest base. It is also one of the most heavily regulated. The upside is real, and so is the compliance burden.
Yes. Neither state law nor city zoning overrides your declaration. An association can also amend the declaration to restrict rentals, binding every future purchaser even where current owners are grandfathered.
In all five condo hotels above, yes. In house programmes are optional and independent managers operate openly in each building. Compare the revenue split, the marketing reach and who controls your pricing calendar before you sign anything. Our co-hosting option suits owners who want to keep some control, and what we charge is published rather than quoted case by case.
Where Stay Today fits
We manage over 67 properties across these six buildings: 15 at Beachwalk, and over 10 each at Hyde Beach House, Lyfe, Trump International, Brickell on the River and Marenas. That density is the point. We know which lines rent, which HOA budgets are moving, which floor plans photograph well, and where each association draws the line. You can read more about Stay Today and see how owners track performance through our owner app.
We also tell owners when the answer is no. If your building’s declaration requires 30 days, we will build you a mid term strategy rather than an enforcement problem.
Own a condo in Miami, Miami Shores, Hollywood, Hallandale Beach, Sunny Isles Beach or Fort Lauderdale? Send us the building name and we will tell you what your unit can legally do, and what it should realistically earn.
Partner with us for full service vacation rental management across South Florida.
Regulatory details, fees, HOA figures and pricing above reflect publicly available information as of August 2026 and change frequently. Nothing here is legal or tax advice. Always confirm rental rules against your recorded declaration and its current amendments, and verify licensing requirements with your municipality before advertising a unit.
