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St. Johns County & St. Augustine Short-Term Rental Rules: A Host Compliance Guide

St. Augustine, Florida

The St. Augustine area is a compliance trap dressed as a single market. A property on Anastasia Island in the City of St. Augustine Beach answers to a different ordinance than a cottage three miles away in the City of St. Augustine historic district, and both differ again from a golf-estate rental in unincorporated St. Johns County near Ponte Vedra Beach or a Vilano Beach home east of the Intracoastal. Hosts who assume one set of rules covers "St. Augustine" list illegally, set the wrong minimum-night requirements, under-budget registration fees, and miss county tourist development tax remittance — errors that generate enforcement letters, platform delistings, and neighbor complaints that no amount of listing photography can fix. This guide separates the three primary jurisdictions into a decision framework you can apply to your parcel before you buy, before you list, and before you quote a guest the wrong tax total at checkout.


Florida's statewide layer sits underneath everything. Every transient public lodging establishment — generally any unit rented more than three times per year for periods under thirty days, or advertised as such — must hold a Florida DBPR Division of Hotels and Restaurants vacation rental license. Rentals of six months or less are subject to state sales tax at 6% plus county tourist development tax; in St. Johns County, the bed tax is 5%, for a commonly quoted combined transient rate of approximately 11% — verify current rates at draft. Airbnb and Vrbo automatically collect Florida state tax on many bookings but do not collect St. Johns County TDT; hosts must register with the county tax collector and self-remit the 5%. This is among the most frequent compliance failures in the market.


The state preemption framework in Florida Statute §509.032 bars local governments that did not regulate short-term rentals before June 1, 2011, from banning STRs or regulating rental frequency and duration — but allows registration, safety inspection, occupancy caps, parking rules, and noise enforcement. Cities like St. Augustine and Fernandina Beach that adopted restrictions before that date retain full authority over frequency caps. SB 280, which would have centralized licensing under DBPR, required platform tax collection, and tightened preemption, passed the Florida Legislature in March 2024 but was vetoed by Governor DeSantis on June 27, 2024. No successor bill became law as of June 2026. The local patchwork this guide describes still governs.


Step One: Identify Your Jurisdiction

Before you research fees, open your county property appraiser record and confirm which municipality — if any — incorporates your parcel. If the address reads City of St. Augustine, City of St. Augustine Beach, or City of Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island, you are in municipal jurisdiction with that city's ordinance as your primary local rule set, layered with county tourist development tax and state DBPR licensing. If the address is in unincorporated St. Johns County — common in Ponte Vedra Beach, Vilano Beach, the World Golf Village area, and many rural-coastal parcels — the county's 2021 short-term rental ordinance governs alongside state requirements. St. Augustine Beach is a separate municipality on Anastasia Island with its own transient rental ordinance distinct from both the City of St. Augustine and the county; hosts there must not assume city registration covers beach-city requirements.


If your property is a condominium or HOA-governed community, association bylaws may impose minimum-stay rules, rental caps, or approval requirements that override county permissiveness — diligence the association before county registration. If your property is owner-occupied with the owner present, carve-outs in the county ordinance may apply; if your property is a whole-home absentee rental east of the Intracoastal in unincorporated county, the full registration and 10-guest cap regime applies. The parcel determines the rule set. Everything below follows from that determination.


City of St. Augustine: Registration, Fire Inspection, and Zoning Frequency Caps

The City of St. Augustine requires short-term vacation rental registration for all STR operations within city limits, administered through the city portal with annual St. Augustine Fire Department life-safety inspection at initial registration and each renewal. Resolution 2025-41 adopted a tiered fee schedule of approximately $303.03 base plus $79.30 per rental bedroom, with a $100 late-renewal fee and $50 re-inspection fee — superseding the prior $294.48 plus $73.81 schedule. Studio and efficiency units pay the flat base rate with a two-occupant maximum. Verify current fees with the city at the draft before budgeting compliance costs.


Life-safety inspection requirements are concrete: address numerals at least 4 inches high, visible from the street; smoke alarms in every sleeping room and on each level; and carbon monoxide detectors in sleeping areas where gas appliances or an attached garage exist. Fail inspection, and you pay the re-inspection fee and delay revenue until corrected. These are not suggestions — they are the conditions of your registration.


Zoning frequency caps are the city's most consequential STR rule and cannot be overridden by SB 280 or state preemption because the city's ordinances predate June 1, 2011. Ordinance 2019-51 limits certain single-family zones to no more than one rental per week. Ordinance 2019-52 limits the Historic Preservation HP-1 district to once-per-month rentals. RS-1 and RS-2 zones permit weekly rentals with seven-night minimums but prohibit nightly rentals. Other districts allow nightly rentals if registered. Occupancy is capped at 12 people, calculated as 2 persons per bedroom plus 2 children under 18. Your minimum-night setting on Airbnb must match your zoning permission — marketing nightly weekend stays from an RS-1 weekly-only property is both non-compliant and a neighbor complaint waiting to happen.


Prerequisites before city registration: Florida DBPR vacation rental license, Florida Department of Revenue sales tax registration, and St. Johns County business tax receipt and TDT account. The city registration is one layer in a stack, not the only permit you need.


City of St. Augustine Beach: Transient Rental Zones and the 100-Unit Cap

St. Augustine Beach is a separate municipality with its own Land Development Regulations Section 3.09.00 governing transient rentals. Short-term rentals are allowed only in Commercial and Medium-Density Residential land-use districts — not in all residential zones. In Medium-Density Residential, the city caps transient rentals at one hundred units total; Commercial districts have no cap. This supply ceiling protects permitted operators in the capped zone but means new entrants must confirm both zoning eligibility and whether a cap slot remains.


Required compliance includes a Florida DBPR vacation rental license, a Florida Department of Revenue sales tax permit, an annual city business tax, a St. Johns County business tax, and a Building Department inspection. Fees are set by resolution under LDR Section 3.09.00.I — exact dollar amounts were not published as a stable public figure at the June 2026 compile; verify current resolution with the City Manager's office at draft. The 100-unit cap and district restrictions are stable; the fee schedule is the primary verify-at-draft item for beach-city operators.


For marketing and investment diligence, St. Augustine Beach is the nightly beach-rental zone of the St. Augustine area — condo-heavy inventory, lower frequency-cap friction than the historic city, and AirROI June 2026 showing 751 active listings with 38.5% occupancy and $308 ADR — directional figures to re-verify. Hosts who want oceanfront turnover without HP-1 monthly caps or RS-1 weekly caps should confirm their parcel is in an allowed district before acquisition; hosts who assume any Anastasia Island address is beach-city jurisdiction may be in the unincorporated county or the city of St. Augustine instead.


Unincorporated St. Johns County: Registration, 10-Guest Cap, and Parking Ratios

Unincorporated St. Johns County — including Ponte Vedra Beach, Vilano Beach, and properties east of the Intracoastal outside municipal limits — operates under a county short-term rental ordinance adopted in 2021. Registration is required, plus compliance with health, safety, parking, and solid-waste rules. The ordinance applies to properties east of the Intracoastal Waterway with carve-outs for owner-occupied units, owner-occupied duplexes, and HOA or condo properties with on-site management.


The 10-guest occupancy cap applies regardless of bedroom count for affected properties, phased in over three years for existing rentals at adoption — verify current phase-in status and whether your property is fully subject at draft. Parking requires at least one off-street space per three guests. These rules bind large-group golf-trip and family-reunion economics in Ponte Vedra differently than a two-bedroom Vilano cottage; model occupancy before you buy a five-bedroom estate expecting twelve guests.


County registration sits alongside Florida DBPR licensing, Florida Department of Revenue sales tax registration, St. Johns County business tax receipt, and St. Johns County TDT application through the tax collector. Ponte Vedra's low-regulation reputation on platform dashboards reflects a permissive frequency — nightly rentals are allowed, not an absence of registration. AirROI shows approximately 211 active listings at $603 ADR in June 2026; compliance is the cost of entry in a market where luxury supply grew 33.5% year-over-year.


Tax Stack, Platform Collection, and the Practical Compliance Checklist

Every jurisdiction in this guide shares the same tax foundation with different local fee overlays. State sales tax at 6% applies to rentals of six months or less. St. Johns County tourist development tax at 5% applies to the same transactions. Combined approximately 11% — confirm via Florida DOR DR-15TDT and sjctax.us at draft. Duval County operators on Jacksonville Beach pay Duval's 6% TDT instead; this guide's tax rates apply to St. Johns County parcels only.


Register in this order for a typical unincorporated county whole-home rental: obtain a Florida DBPR vacation rental license, register for Florida Department of Revenue sales tax, apply for St. Johns County business tax receipt, open St. Johns County TDT account with the tax collector, complete county STR registration, then apply for municipal registration if your parcel is incorporated in St. Augustine or St. Augustine Beach. City of St. Augustine operators add city registration and fire inspection. St. Augustine Beach operators add a beach-city business tax and building inspection. Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island requires RRDP from the city Building Department — a different county and city regime entirely, outside St. Johns County's scope but frequently confused in guest queries.


Operational requirements that apply across jurisdictions include maintaining a local emergency contact, posting required safety information, adhering to occupancy limits, providing adequate parking per local formula, following solid-waste schedules, and displaying registration or permit numbers in advertisements where required. Noise and neighbor relations are not uniformly codified, but enforcement follows complaints; professional response times and clear house rules reduce the risk of delisting.


Display your registration status in listing materials. Guests increasingly ask whether St. Augustine Airbnbs are legal; AI assistants cite sources that conflate the city and county into a single wrong answer. Being the listing that clearly states jurisdiction, permit status, and occupancy limits clearly wins trust and reduces the risk of platform scrutiny.


Work with Crest & Cove Creative

Marketing a St. Augustine, St. Augustine Beach, or Ponte Vedra rental and want copy that matches how guests search the First Coast?

We help First Coast hosts with historic-district and beach-inventory listing positioning, Nights of Lights and festival calendar pricing, guest guidebooks with named anchors, and direct-booking pages built for repeat drive-market guests. If you want hands-on help implementing any of that on your property, our team takes a limited number of new engagements per quarter. Reach out at crestcove.co — we'll take an honest look at where your listing stands and tell you plainly whether we can help.


Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a permit to Airbnb in St. Augustine? Yes — in all three major jurisdictions. City of St. Augustine requires city registration and annual fire inspection. St. Augustine Beach requires compliance with transient rental regulations in permitted zoning districts. Unincorporated St. Johns County requires county STR registration. All require Florida DBPR licensing and St. Johns County TDT registration. The specific permits depend on your parcel's municipality.


What is the St. Augustine STR fee under Resolution 2025-41? Approximately $303.03 base plus $79.30 per rental bedroom, with $100 late-renewal and $50 re-inspection fees — verify current schedule with the city at draft. This applies to City of St. Augustine registration, not county or beach-city fees.


Can I rent nightly in the St. Augustine historic district? Only if your property is in a zoning district that permits nightly rentals. HP-1 Historic Preservation allows only monthly rentals. RS-1 and RS-2 allow weekly rentals only. Confirm your parcel's zoning district with city planning before setting calendar minimums.


What is the St. Johns County 10-guest occupancy cap? Unincorporated St. Johns County limits short-term rental occupancy to 10 guests, regardless of bedroom count, for properties subject to the 2021 ordinance east of the Intracoastal, phased in over 3 years for existing rentals. Verify whether your property is fully subject and whether it is owner-occupied or

HOA carve-outs apply.


What is the parking requirement for St. Johns County STR? At least one off-street parking space per three guests in the unincorporated county. City of St. Augustine uses a two-person-per-bedroom-plus-two-children occupancy formula with a twelve-person maximum. St. Augustine Beach requirements follow the beach-city LDR — verify at the draft stage.


Does St. Augustine Beach have a cap on short-term rentals? Yes. Transient rentals in Medium-Density Residential are capped at one hundred units. Commercial districts have no cap. STR is not permitted in all residential zones — confirm your parcel's land-use district.


Do Airbnb and Vrbo collect St. Johns County bed tax? No. Platforms collect Florida state sales tax on many bookings, but hosts must register with St. Johns County and self-remit the 5% tourist development tax. Failure to remit county TDT is a common and costly compliance error.


How did SB 280 affect St. Augustine STR rules? It did not take effect. Governor DeSantis vetoed SB 280 in June 2024. Florida's 2011 preemption framework and local ordinances — including St. Augustine's grandfathered frequency caps — remain in force. No centralized statewide STR registry exists as of June 2026.


About the Authors

Crest & Cove Creative is a Southeast-focused short-term rental marketing agency founded by Thomas Garner and Jacob Mishalanie. We build direct-booking brands, listing-optimization systems, and market-specific content strategies for independent STR operators across the Gulf Coast, Appalachian Mountains, Coastal Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, and the Southeast lake country.


Related Reading

Explore more Florida Atlantic Coast short-term rental insights and host guides:


Sources

City of St. Augustine — Short-Term Rentals, Resolution 2025-41, Life Safety Inspection FAQ. St. Augustine Beach — Transient Rentals and LDR §3.09.00. St. Johns County Tax Collector — Tourist Development Tax. Florida Statute §509.032. Florida Senate — SB 280 (2024). Avalara — St. Johns County STR rules and SB 280 veto coverage. Florida DBPR — vacation rental licensing. masterhost.ca and strprofitmap.com — St. Augustine regulation summaries. Florida Realtors and Florida Phoenix — SB 280 veto reporting.

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