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If your Miami business sells taxable goods, or one of the handful of services Florida taxes, you have to register as a sales and use tax dealer before your first taxable sale, not after. Florida treats the tax you collect as money you are holding for the state, which is why the Department of Revenue takes registration and filing far more seriously than most new owners expect.
The confusing part is not the 6 percent. It is everything around it: whether your particular service is taxable at all, how the Miami-Dade surtax stacks on top, which local registration you also need, and a filing deadline that is earlier than the date printed on the return. Here is how it actually works for a business operating in Miami.
Florida requires you to register as a sales and use tax dealer before you begin conducting business activities that are subject to the tax. In plain terms, you register if you do any of the following in Florida:
Registration is done through the Florida Business Tax Application, online or on paper as Form DR-1. If you open a second location, that is a separate application. If you change your legal entity or ownership, you start a new registration rather than editing the old one, which is a detail worth raising with whoever handles your business entity structuring.
Florida taxes goods broadly and services narrowly. That single sentence resolves most of the confusion we hear from new Miami owners.
Most professional services are not subject to Florida sales tax. A consultant, a designer, a marketing agency, a law firm, and an accounting firm generally do not charge sales tax on their fees. But the moment a service business also sells a physical product, or bundles goods into the price, the goods side can become taxable.
Two categories cause the most trouble in Miami. The first is restaurants and food service, where prepared food is taxable even though groceries generally are not. The second is contractors, where the answer depends on the type of contract and whether the work is on residential or nonresidential property. If either describes you, get the classification right at the start rather than after an assessment. Our tax compliance team works through this with owners regularly.
Florida's state sales tax rate is 6 percent. Counties may add a discretionary sales surtax on top. Miami-Dade County's surtax is currently 1 percent, which puts the combined rate on most Miami sales at 7 percent. County surtax rates are set annually and neighboring counties differ, so confirm the current rate for the county where your customer takes delivery before you configure it in your point of sale system.
The rule almost nobody explains is the surtax cap. The surtax applies only to the first $5,000 of the sales amount on any single item of tangible personal property. Sell a $12,000 piece of equipment as one item and the surtax stops at the first $5,000. But the cap does not apply to transient rentals or to services, which matters a great deal for Miami's hospitality and short-term rental operators.
Short-term rentals in Miami-Dade also carry county-level tourist and convention development taxes that are administered separately from state sales tax. They are a different filing, not a different line on the same one.
Yes, above a threshold. A remote seller with more than $100,000 in taxable Florida sales in the previous calendar year has economic nexus and must register and collect, even with no office or warehouse in the state. Marketplace facilitators such as the major online platforms generally collect and remit on behalf of their sellers, but you are still responsible for knowing which of your channels are covered and which are not.
Miami businesses selling in the other direction have the mirror-image problem. Once you ship into other states at volume, you inherit their thresholds too. That multi-state exposure is worth mapping early, and it is the core of what our e-commerce and multi-state tax services address.
Levine CPA and Advisors helps Miami owners get registered correctly, set the right rate at the register, and file on time. Call (305) 912-0085 or book a sales tax review.
Florida used to be the only state that charged sales tax on commercial rent. That ended. For rental or occupancy periods beginning on or after October 1, 2025, no Florida sales tax or discretionary surtax applies to commercial rent or license fees. If you lease office, retail, warehouse, or industrial space in Miami, that line should no longer be on your rent invoice.
The mechanics matter for older balances. The tax follows the occupancy period, not the payment date. Rent covering a period through September 2025 remains taxable even if the tenant paid it later. Two practical checks are worth doing now: confirm your landlord actually stopped billing it, and confirm your bookkeeping stopped accruing it. We still find both errors on Miami books, and our bookkeeping team catches them in cleanup work.
This trips up nearly every new Miami business. Registering with the Florida Department of Revenue for sales tax is a state registration. It does not give you permission to operate locally. Depending on where you are, you may also need:
They are separate filings with separate renewal dates. Missing the local one does not create a sales tax problem, but it can stop you from renewing or from passing an inspection, which is a slower and more annoying way to lose a month.
Your filing frequency is assigned based on how much tax you collect, from monthly for larger dealers down to annually for very small ones. Whatever the frequency, the timing rule is the same: returns and payments are due on the first day of the month following the reporting period and are late after the 20th. If the 20th falls on a weekend or a state or federal holiday, you get the next business day.
Now the trap. If you pay electronically, you must initiate the payment and receive a confirmation number no later than 5 p.m. Eastern on the business day before the 20th. Filing at 9 p.m. on the 20th feels on time and is not. This single rule is behind a large share of the avoidable penalty notices we see.
If you should have collected sales tax and did not, the liability does not disappear because you never charged the customer. The Department of Revenue assesses the tax against the business, plus penalty and interest, and you are generally not going back to two years of customers to ask for 7 percent. That is why unregistered periods get expensive quietly.
Florida audits sales tax actively, and Miami's retail, restaurant, construction, and rental sectors see more than their share of it. If a notice has already arrived, do not answer it on your own. Our Florida Department of Revenue audit representation exists for exactly this moment, and the earlier you bring someone in, the more options you have.
Florida sales tax is not complicated in principle. It becomes complicated because the taxability question depends on your specific offering, the rate depends on your county, and the deadline is a day earlier than it looks. Get those three right and the rest is routine bookkeeping.
If you are setting up a new Miami business, this is one of several registrations to sequence correctly from day one. Our year-end tax planning checklist covers the fourth-quarter side, and our business accounting services cover the ongoing filings.
Florida's state rate is 6 percent and Miami-Dade County currently adds a 1 percent discretionary surtax, for a combined 7 percent on most sales. County surtax rates are set annually, so confirm the current rate for the county where the customer takes delivery.
Usually no. Florida taxes goods broadly but only a short list of services, including commercial cleaning, nonresidential pest control, detective and security services, and repairs to nonresidential real property. Most professional services are not taxable, but a service business that also sells goods may still need to register.
Returns and payments are due on the first day of the month after the reporting period and are late after the 20th. If you pay electronically, you must initiate the payment and get a confirmation number by 5 p.m. Eastern on the business day before the 20th.
No. For rental or occupancy periods beginning on or after October 1, 2025, Florida sales tax and discretionary surtax no longer apply to commercial rent. Rent covering periods through September 2025 remains taxable even if it was paid later.
No. Sales tax registration is with the Florida Department of Revenue. A Local Business Tax Receipt is issued by Miami-Dade County and often by your city as well. Most Miami businesses need both, and they renew on different schedules.
The state can assess the uncollected tax against your business along with penalty and interest, even though you never charged customers. Voluntary disclosure options exist and are generally better than waiting for the assessment, so speak with a CPA before contacting the Department.
This article is general information, not tax advice. Rates, thresholds, and rules change and depend on your situation. Verify current figures with the Florida Department of Revenue and consult a qualified CPA before acting.
Levine CPA and Advisors serves businesses across Miami and South Florida. Call (305) 912-0085 or contact us to review your registration, rates, and filings.
