Airbnb rentals generate $372 million in tourist taxes for Florida in 2022, company says

Despite the urging of nurses, Spring Breakers are filling up Florida beaches.

Airbnb rentals generated nearly $372 million in tourist taxes in the state of Florida for 2022, the company disclosed in a press release.

“We are proud to play a pivotal role in keeping Florida’s economy strong by welcoming millions of guests each year,” said Airbnb spokesman Haven Thorn in a statement.

“Airbnb collects and remits tourism taxes on behalf of our hosts who are invested in their local communities, and every dollar spent in Florida by guests on Airbnb helps bolster small businesses, restaurants and keeps Floridians employed, while also benefiting Hosts who on average earned over $14,700 in supplemental income last year to help cover the rising cost of living,” Thorn added.

Airbnb was unable to immediately provide a breakdown by country for how much in tourist taxes was generated. However, the company has previously disclosed Florida’s top five counties where rental hosts earned the most money in 2022 were: Miami-Dade at $76 million followed by Osceola at $64 million; Broward at $59 million; Pinellas at $51 million and Hillsborough at $35 million.

The San Francisco based tech-company allows people to rent out their homes or rooms to travelers.

Airbnb had become increasingly popular. Several years ago, before Airbnb was collecting the tourist taxes, Florida officials complained unlicensed vacation rentals weren’t contributing their fair share and collecting the bed tax that hotels and motels did.

“It’s turned into a free-for-all for the state of Florida,” Madeira Beach City Commissioner Elaine Poe told Florida Politics in 2015, several months before Airbnb made an agreement with county and state officials to start collecting tourist and sales taxes by the end of that year.

Across the country, Airbnb said it has collected and remitted over $1.9 billion in tourism taxes for 2022. 

“Since 2014, Airbnb has worked with tens of thousands of local governments around the world to streamline the collection process for tourism taxes,” the company said in the press release. “To date, we have remitted more than $7 billion in tourism taxes globally, making us, to our knowledge, the largest collector and remitter of tourism taxes by short-term rental platforms in the world.

In Florida, tourism has been rebounding since the pandemic.

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the state broke previous tourism records in 2022 as nearly 138 million visitors came to the Sunshine State.

“We could not be more excited with the incredibly impressive record-breaking visitation seen in 2022. Quarter after quarter, Florida continues to dominate the travel market and our competition, which could not be achieved without the hard work of our local tourism partners,” said VISIT FLORIDA president and CEO Dana Young in February when the record was announced.