Airbnb collected $522k in Miami-Dade bed taxes in May

Airbnb collected and remitted $522,000 in tax revenues in Miami-Dade County in May, which marks the first month that the short-term rental platform collects and submits taxes on behalf of its 6,800 hosts in the county.

In the first-of-its-kind agreement reached in April, Miami-Dade commissioners approved tacking on three bed taxes totaling 6 percent to all short-term rentals, excluding Miami Beach. Mayor Carlos Gimenez said at the time that he expected the tourism taxes to generate about $6 million a year, which comes out to about $500,000 a month. At the current pace, Gimenez’s annual estimate would be met and then some.

The May figures represent the largest tax remittance Airbnb has collected in the state, which makes sense given that Miami is Airbnb’s biggest market in Florida. During the year-long period that ended Nov. 1, Miami homeowners who rented their residences on Airbnb collected $37 million of rental revenue.

In addition to collecting and remitting the Florida state sales tax on all Airbnb bookings since 2015, Airbnb also has deals with 39 of Florida’s 63 counties that assess a local tourist development tax. The company also reached a similar tax agreement in Broward in April. A spokesperson for Airbnb said the May figures for Broward are not yet available.

But Airbnb still faces hurdles in Miami and Miami Beach, where mayors for both cities are waging public battles to implement heavy restrictions against short-term rentals. In Miami Beach, the city collected nearly $1.6 million in fines from March to mid-August of last year.

Shifting state law in Florida has contributed to the local patchwork of rules and regulations that Airbnb and other short-term rental platforms face.