Florida Commercial Rent Sales Tax Repealed: What Changed in October 2025 and What Still Applies

Florida's business rent tax was a line on every commercial tenant's rent invoice for as long as most business owners can remember — the state sales tax and the county discretionary surtax on the total rent for office, retail, warehouse, and industrial space, collected by the landlord and remitted to the Department of Revenue; the state rate had been cut in steps — 6 percent to 5.8 percent (January 1, 2018), 5.7 percent (January 1, 2019), 5.5 percent (January 1, 2020), 4.5 percent (December 1, 2023), and 2 percent (June 1, 2024) — and the tax was repealed entirely effective October 1, 2025 (HB 7031, chapter 2025-208, Laws of Florida). What the repeal covers: rent (and license fees) for the use of commercial real property — office space, retail space, warehouses, industrial buildings, and land leased for commercial use — for periods of occupancy beginning on or after October 1, 2025; the county surtax on the same rent is repealed with it; landlords no longer collect it, register for it, or file returns for it (a landlord whose account was used only for commercial rent files its returns through the September 2025 reporting period, even with no tax due, and the Department then updates the account automatically — no closure request is needed); and the pass-through items that were taxed as part of "total rent" (the common area maintenance charges, the property taxes and insurance billed to the tenant, the landlord's required services) are no longer taxed when they're part of commercial rent. What the repeal doesn't cover: transient rentals — hotel rooms, vacation rentals, and other stays of six months or less — remain taxable under Florida's sales tax and the counties' tourist development taxes (the hotel and short-term rental guides); parking — the rental of parking spaces, docking and storage spaces for boats, and tie-down and storage spaces for aircraft — remains taxable at the full 6 percent state rate plus any county surtax, because it is taxed under a separate provision (s. 212.03(6)) that the repeal didn't touch; and the sales tax on the landlord's own taxable purchases. Self-storage units and licenses to use real property — booth and floor space, vending-machine locations, a salon's stylist chairs — were taxed as commercial rent and are covered by the repeal. Rent for periods before the repeal: rent for occupancy before October 1, 2025 remains subject to the tax at the rate in effect for that period (2 percent plus surtax from June 2024 through September 2025), even if paid after the repeal — a tenant who paid September 2025's rent late in October still owed the tax on it (while October 2025 rent prepaid before the repeal was not taxable), and a landlord's audit for the years before the repeal can still assess the tax it should have collected; the Department generally has three years from the later of the tax's due date, the return's due date, or the filing date to assess (s. 95.091(3)) — with no time limit where a required return wasn't filed or the tax wasn't paid — so the pre-repeal periods stay open into 2028. Cleaning up the books — tenants: a business tenant stopped paying the tax on October 2025's rent; the rent expense on the income tax return is the rent without the tax going forward (the tax paid before was deductible as part of the occupancy cost); a tenant whose landlord kept billing the tax after the repeal is owed a refund from the landlord, not the state — the landlord must refund the tenant before it can claim its own refund from the Department on Form DR-26S (Rule 12A-1.014, F.A.C.). Landlords: stop collecting, file the final returns (through the September 2025 reporting period — the Department then updates rent-only accounts itself), and — for a landlord that also has taxable transient rentals, parking, or storage — keep the account open for those; the leases' rent clauses that referred to "sales tax on rent" (many made the tenant responsible for it) are obsolete for new periods but should be read for any obligation on pre-repeal amounts. The income tax side: for a Florida landlord, the sales tax collected was never income (a liability remitted — the rule for every collected sales tax), and its disappearance changes nothing about the landlord's rental income; for a tenant, the occupancy cost falls by the tax. What it means for a business choosing Florida: the repeal removed one of Florida's few taxes that fell on every business with a lease — combined with the absence of a personal income tax, the ordinary Florida small business's state tax burden is now largely the corporate tax (for C corporations — the Florida corporate income tax guide), the tangible personal property tax (the Florida tangible personal property tax guide), the reemployment tax on payroll (the Florida reemployment tax guide), local business tax receipts, and the documentary stamp tax on notes and deeds (the Florida documentary stamp tax guide) — plus sales tax on its own taxable sales and purchases. The bookkeeping: the rent expense account without the tax from October 2025; the final rent tax returns filed; any post-repeal tax billed and refunded; the landlord's remaining taxable lines (transient, parking, storage) separated. The errors: a landlord still billing the tax in late 2025 and 2026; a tenant paying it without noticing; a landlord closing its whole sales tax account when it still has taxable parking or dock rentals; and a pre-repeal audit exposure assumed to have disappeared with the tax.

Key takeaways

• Florida's sales tax and county surtax on commercial rent were repealed for occupancy on or after October 1, 2025 — office, retail, warehouse, industrial, and commercial land.
• Still taxable: transient rentals (six months or less), motor vehicle parking and storage, boat docking and storage, and aircraft tie-down and storage (at 6 percent plus surtax); self-storage units and licenses to use property are covered by the repeal.
• Rent for periods before the repeal remains taxable at the old rate even if paid later, and pre-repeal years stay open to audit for the limitations period.
• Tenants billed the tax after the repeal are owed refunds from the landlord.
• Landlords file returns through the September 2025 period, and the Department updates rent-only accounts automatically — an account with remaining taxable lines stays open.
• For a Florida small business, the repeal leaves corporate income tax (for C corporations), tangible personal property tax, reemployment tax, local business taxes, and documentary stamp tax as the main state and local levies.

The Florida rent tax cleanup file

Tenant: rent expense without tax from October 2025; any post-repeal tax billed and refunded; lease clauses reviewed. Landlord: final rent tax returns; account closed or kept for remaining taxable lines (transient, parking, docking, storage); pre-repeal audit exposure noted; tenants refunded any post-repeal tax. The remaining-taxable-lines check is the item most landlords skip.

Worked example

A Doral warehouse landlord with six industrial tenants stopped billing the business rent tax with the October 2025 rent, filed its final return for the September 2025 period, and let the Department close out its rent-only account — a clean exit, because it has no other taxable activity. A Fort Lauderdale mixed-use landlord with offices, a parking garage, and twelve boat slips behind the building stopped billing the tax on the offices, kept billing it on the monthly parking and the slip rentals (still taxable, at 6 percent plus Broward's surtax), and kept the account open. A Miami Beach medical practice noticed in March 2026 that its landlord's property manager had kept adding the tax to the rent for five months after the repeal — US$4,800 billed; the practice requested and received a refund from the landlord, who then corrected its own filings. And a retail landlord audited in 2026 for its 2023 through 2025 rent tax collections learned that the repeal ended the tax going forward, not the audit going back.

Official sources

The Florida Department of Revenue states: “Effective October 1, 2025, the state sales tax imposed on rent or license fees for the use of real property (commercial rentals) under section 212.031, Florida Statutes (F.S.), is repealed. This means no state sales tax or discretionary sales surtax applies to rent or license fees for rental or occupancy periods beginning on or after October 1, 2025.” — Florida Department of Revenue, Sales Tax on Commercial Rentals Repealed Effective October 1, 2025, https://floridarevenue.com/taxes/tips/Documents/TIP_25A01-04.pdf

The Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board explains: “The Taxability Matrix identifies each of the definitions and tax administration practices adopted by the Governing Board and which each state must follow. The state indicates the tax treatment of each of the items identified in the matrix along with a reference to its applicable law, rule, regulation or written policy.” — Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board, Taxability Matrix, https://www.streamlinedsalestax.org/Shared-Pages/State-taxability-matrix

Practitioner note

Florida's repeal of the sales tax on commercial rent removed a line from every business tenant's invoice as of October 1, 2025 — but not the tax on transient rentals, parking, boat docking, or storage, and not the landlord's exposure for the years before the repeal. Our Florida files separate each landlord's remaining taxable lines before closing any account, check tenants' rent bills for tax still being charged after the repeal, and treat the pre-repeal years as open to audit until the limitations period runs — because a repealed tax still has a back catalogue.

See also: For related guidance, see Florida local business tax receipts for every location; and browse every small business tax guide, by situation.

Next step

Fairlight Accounting is a cross-border accounting and tax practice with a U.S. Tax Desk and a Canadian Tax Desk. Our U.S. Tax Desk handles Florida sales tax compliance for landlords and tenants — the October 2025 commercial rent repeal, remaining taxable rentals including parking, docking, and transient stays, final returns and account closure, post-repeal refunds, and pre-repeal audit exposure. See pricing or book a call.