Two houses three blocks apart on Amelia Island can have completely different answers to this question. Here is why.
Inside Fernandina Beach city limits
The city regulates short-term rentals, which it calls resort rentals, meaning any rental of less than 30 days. To operate one you need a Resort Rental Dwelling Permit, and the city only issues them for properties in R-3 High Density Residential zoning, which is largely the strip near the beach.
There is one significant exception. Properties outside R-3 that obtained a permit before the restriction and have kept it active without a lapse of more than 180 days keep their grandfathered status. Let it lapse and the protection is gone permanently, which is a detail worth knowing before you buy a house on the strength of its rental history.
What the permit involves
- A Florida public lodging license from the state and a sales tax ID first.
- A local business tax receipt.
- The permit application, currently $300 new and $200 to renew.
- A life safety inspection, initially and then every year.
- Your permit number displayed in every advertisement for the property.
- A local contact reachable 24 hours a day.
Why the city can do this at all
Florida law generally preempts local governments from prohibiting vacation rentals or regulating how often and how long you may rent. But that preemption does not apply to ordinances adopted on or before June 1, 2011. Fernandina Beach's rules predate that line, so they survive. This is also why you should be careful with generic Florida advice online, which often assumes the preemption applies everywhere.
Outside city limits
Parts of Amelia Island, including the south end, sit in unincorporated Nassau County rather than inside the city. The city's R-3 restriction does not reach them. Confirm the current county position with Nassau County Planning before relying on it, because this is the question we see answered wrongly most often.
Then there is your association
Zoning is not the last word. Inside Amelia Island Plantation, the Class A covenants that govern single-family homes and villas prohibit leases of less than 30 days outright. The Class B covenants that govern condominiums carry no such restriction at the master association level, although individual sub-associations set their own rules and there are dozens of them. Read your own covenants, not a summary of somebody else's.
And the state license
Separately from anything local, Florida requires a vacation rental license from the Department of Business and Professional Regulation for a whole unit rented for less than 30 days, more than three times a year, or advertised as regularly available. Owner-operators hold a single license. A management company acting as your agent holds its own.
None of this is legal advice. It is the map we walk owners through before anyone signs anything, and the fastest way to a real answer is usually a phone call to the city and the county.
Sources: City of Fernandina Beach, Resort Rentals, Fla. Stat. 509.032, the DBPR vacation rental licensing guide and the Amelia Island Plantation Community Association.