Pinellas County

Operating rules

Primary residence

No

Min stay (nights)

—

Max nights / year

—

Max occupancy

Maximum occupancy is no more than two persons per bedroom plus two persons in one common area, not to exceed more than ten persons total per unit, whichever is less (unincorporated Pinellas County, Ordinance 25-15).

Zoning-restricted

—

Cap on licenses

—

Grandfathering: Fla. Stat. 509.032(7)(b) preempts local governments from prohibiting vacation rentals or regulating rental duration/frequency; ordinances adopted on or before June 1, 2011 are grandfathered. Pinellas County Ordinance 25-15 was adopted August 5, 2025 (post-2011) and became effective upon filing with the Florida Department of State (filed August 2025), so it operates within the preemption: it may require a Certificate of Use, inspections, occupancy/parking/noise standards, and taxes, but does not (and legally may not) cap the number of rentals or restrict rental duration/frequency.

Zoning: Short-term rentals must comply with the Florida Building Code and Pinellas County regulations; STRs are permitted in unincorporated areas subject to the Certificate of Use and safety/parking/noise standards. Specific allowed zoning districts were not confirmed verbatim from the official source.

• STR Certificate of Use ordinance (25-15) applies only to unincorporated Pinellas County; the county's incorporated municipalities each administer their own STR rules.
• No maximum-nights or minimum-stay cap is imposed by the county; state preemption (509.032(7)(b)) bars regulating rental duration/frequency.
• Zoning: STRs must comply with the Florida Building Code and Pinellas County regulations; a location-specific zoning permit/verification may apply, but the official STR page does not itemize allowed zoning districts. Not confirmed verbatim.
• Certificate of Use requires passing a life-safety inspection ($150 initial; $100 re-inspection). Inspections recur every two years.
• Quiet hours are to be observed between 10:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m. daily; parking standard is one off-street parking space for every three occupants, rounded up (per pinellas.gov/str/ and Ordinance 25-15).

Enforcement

Active enforcement

yes

Fines

Code Enforcement (with Building division support) enforces Ordinance 25-15 in unincorporated Pinellas County. Under the ordinance itself (Section (j)), 'Violations of this article are punishable as provided in Pinellas County Code of Ordinances Chapter 1, Section 1-8' (the county's general penalty for ordinance violations); the ordinance text does not itself state a specific daily-fine dollar amount. Operating without a valid short-term rental Certificate of Use, or violating the STR standards, is a violation subject to that general penalty. A 24/7 Short-Term Rental Hotline at (727) 353-2436 handles complaints.

Notes

CORRECTION on re-verification (2026-07-02): The commonly cited '$500/day fine and revocation of the Certificate of Use' figure does NOT appear on the official Pinellas County STR program page (pinellas.gov/str/), the official adoption news page, or in the verbatim text of state-filed Ordinance 25-15. That dollar figure appears only in third-party/commentary sources (e.g., real-estate blogs, Avalara), which the pipeline may not rely on as fact. The ordinance's own penalty clause (Section (j)) simply cross-references Pinellas County Code Chapter 1, Section 1-8 (general penalty for ordinance violations). Under Fla. Stat. 125.69 the county general penalty for an ordinance violation is a second-degree misdemeanor (up to $500 and/or up to 60 days), which is consistent with the third-party '$500/day' claim, but no permitted official source was read that states the per-day amount verbatim, so the specific daily-fine dollar figure is set to unknown/null here. Enforcement applies only to the unincorporated county; incorporated cities have their own programs.