Airbnb says Florida hosts generated $45.7M in tax revenue

In 2017, Airbnb collected and remitted $45.7 million in sales and local bed tax revenue to the Florida Department of Revenue and 39 counties that have signed agreements with the vacation rental platform, the company’s spokesperson said in a press release. Miami-Dade and Broward counties accounted for 40 percent of the total, or $18.3 million.

The $45.7 million in tax revenue is more than double the $20 million Airbnb remitted in 2016, according to the spokesperson, who attributed the increase to the continued growth of vacation rentals in Florida and six major tax agreements Airbnb secured in 2017 with Miami-Dade, Broward, Sarasota, Polk, Hillsborough and Leon counties.

In 2017, Airbnb hosts in Miami-Dade and Broward raked in $134.6 million and $45 million in income, respectively, the most of any other counties in the state. Both counties remitted roughly $13 million sales tax revenue to the Florida Department of Revenue.

In addition, Airbnb generated $3.3 million in bed tax revenue in Miami-Dade, where the company reached an agreement to collect three bed taxes totaling 6 percent from its 6,800 hosts in the county. In Broward, 3,200 Airbnb hosts generated $1.87 million from the collection of a 5 percent tourism tax. Both measures were enacted in April of last year and the counties began collecting the taxes a month later. Miami Beach, which enacted tough restrictions on short-term rentals, is excluded from the Miami-Dade bed tax collections.

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Aerial view of Florida (Credit: Pexels)