OK all: Here is what I’ve found out, and what you can do:
Airbnb’s Palm Beach County Page is wrong. You don’t need a Tourist Development Tax (TDT) and BTR (Your City’s Business Tax Receipt.) You need the TDT and the County’s LBTR.
The county, amazingly, does not require an LBTR to get your TDT filed. If you have your city’s BTR listed on your Airbnb account, CHANGE IT to the County LBTR. Don’t have one? You can go to the Tourist Development Tax Office in West Palm Beach, 3rd Floor, and file for one.
Licenses and Permits:
In addition, you had best make sure that ALL of your licensure, and inspections, are in order. You will need, if you have not got them:
1. A County LBTR (Business Tax Receipt Number) - You need one unique to your vacation rental. If you have a county LBTR for another business, or home-based business, that will NOT cut it.;
2. Your Palm Beach County Tourist Development Tax (TDT) number. You have to pay your tourist development taxes, 6%, yourself. Please see my other post about how to set up Airbnb to collect those through the Community Fees area, so they’re not coming out of your pocket. AIRBNB PAYS THE STATE TAX, BUT DOES NOT PAY the TDT in Palm Beach County. That is your responsibility to report, and pay, monthly. There are fines. You may owe quite a bit already in them.
3. You must have a Vacation Rental license from the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation;
4. After you get your DBPR, you can apply for your City Business Tax Receipt (BTR).
West Palm Beach rules:
• Pay the fee;
• Schedule an inspection of the property with the City Code Compliance inspectors. DO make sure that you have fire extinguishers, and that they are stored
securely visibly, or a marking of their location, in a cabinet, etc., in your rentals;
• If this is a new vacation rental, you will need to contact the Zoning Department for inspection/approval;
5. If you are in a community with covenants, you may need additional permissions, and/or verifications with your City to get your city’s BTR.
6. If there is something that you may sell, which includes things sold at “experiences,” then you also need to file for a sales tax number, and report your sales monthly, EVEN WHEN THEY ARE ZERO. Do NOT host experiences on your property. You can wander about, take people on tours, but your Vacation Rental cannot host them on-site.
Once you have all of that paperwork:
1. On your listing, insure that your Airbnb account has the correct tax numbers in the right sequence: TDT, LBTR (ex: 000195851,40020190009);
2. File for reinstatement here: If you've already confirmed with Palm Beach County that your TDT & BTR numbers are current, then please ensure you submit a request for Reactivation, for each listing separately. Get the link from them. They don’t like links in these things.
Then they go back, and review your files. They have up to 14 days to then reinstate you. I landmined because I had the BTR, not the LBTR in the form. They got back to me, on the last day, and told me to go to the County to find out why the records didn’t show my number active. That’s when the TDT gal let me know about the LBTR (County).
The Airbnb Tax Department has no phones. Will not talk to any of us, other than by email, which they do SLOWLY.
When I called support, today, I was told that the other problem is that the 180 “glitch” is a manual fix. They have to override for each person messed up with it. Uh-huh. That will take time.
Beyond that, I would call Airbnb Support, and ask where you can email a copy of ALL OF YOUR VALID LICENSES. Ask them to forward that to the Tax Department. That is legan proof that you are operating correctly.
DO NOT DUMP YOUR FILE AND START OVER. If you don’t fill it out correctly, as outlined, you will be right back in the same jackpot.
This is destroying all of our businesses. Please let us all know when you get restored, and if there is something else that needs to be done.
Brian Ross
