Join Thousands of Hotels Thriving with roommaster
See how roommaster handles rates, taxes, and reporting for your property. Book a walkthrough with our team.
Table of Contents
Hotel And Lodging Tax In Orlando 2026: TOT Rate And Rules
Orlando has no hotel tax of its own: the entire local charge is Orange County's 6% Tourist Development Tax, split into six earmarked pennies and run by the County Comptroller rather than a Tax Collector.
August 28, 2026
7
min. read
Summarize with AI
TL;DR
- Orlando hotel stays carry a combined 12.5% tax: 6.5% Florida and Orange County sales tax plus Orange County's 6% Tourist Development Tax (TDT).
- Hotel tax, lodging tax, occupancy tax, and bed tax all describe the same TDT charge that shows up on an Orlando hotel folio.
- The City of Orlando does not levy its own hotel tax. Every cent of the local rate is set and collected at the Orange County level.
- Orange County's TDT is administered by the County Comptroller's Office, not the Tax Collector, which handles this tax in most other Florida counties.
- Stays of six months or longer are exempt from the TDT under Florida law, matching the statewide threshold.
- One of the tax's six pennies, called the Sixth Cent, is earmarked specifically for Visit Orlando and City of Orlando tourism marketing.
- Orlando's home-sharing ordinance, in effect since July 2021, only permits owner-occupied rentals of part of a home, not whole-unit short-term rentals.
- Airbnb has a direct agreement with Orange County to collect and remit the TDT automatically, but this arrangement does not extend to every booking platform.
How Orlando's Hotel and Lodging Tax Works
Orlando has no hotel tax of its own. Every dollar of local lodging tax charged on an Orlando hotel folio is Orange County's Tourist Development Tax (TDT), a 6% charge the Board of County Commissioners built up to over time and the County Comptroller, not the Tax Collector, administers on stays of six months or less.
The TDT is authorized under Florida's Local Option Tourist Development Act, Section 125.0104 of the Florida Statutes, the same statute that requires a county referendum before a county can adopt or renew the tax. Orange County's rate reached its current 6% in stages, with the final increment taking effect September 1, 2006, and each cent above the base carrying its own statutory restriction on how the money can be spent.
The tax applies to hotels, motels, condominiums, vacation homes, timeshares, and other short-term sleeping accommodations rented for six months or less, which covers both the resort corridor along International Drive and the vacation-home subdivisions that ring the theme parks in unincorporated parts of the county.
Tax Rates and Extra Fees
An Orlando hotel bill stacks two separate government charges: the state and county sales tax, and the county's Tourist Development Tax. Neither the City of Orlando nor any neighborhood inside it adds a third layer.
| Tax component | Rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Florida state sales tax | 6% | Applies statewide to the room rate |
| Orange County discretionary sales surtax | 0.5% | Local add-on to the state rate, combining to a 6.5% sales tax on the room |
| Orange County Tourist Development Tax (TDT) | 6% | Six separately earmarked pennies: cents 1-4 fund Convention Center debt, operations, tourism promotion and the arts; cent 5 is restricted to sports-facility or convention-center bonds; cent 6 splits between Visit Orlando and the City of Orlando for marketing |
| Combined guest-facing tax | 12.5% | 6.5% sales tax plus 6% TDT, stacked on the room rate |
| International Drive Improvement District assessment | n/a | An ad valorem property assessment on I-Drive corridor businesses, not a charge on the guest folio |
The TDT's six-penny structure is not just an accounting label. Roughly $100 million a year of TDT revenue flows to Visit Orlando, the region's destination marketing organization, and the Orange County Convention Center draws both debt-service support and a direct operating subsidy from the same fund, on top of the sixth cent that City of Orlando and Visit Orlando split under a Tourism Promotion Agreement and Community Venues Interlocal Agreement.
The International Drive Improvement District, created through a 1992 Orange County ordinance passed jointly with the City of Orlando, funds tourism-corridor infrastructure like the I-Ride Trolley through property assessments on I-Drive businesses. It never appears as a line item on a guest's bill, so it should not be confused with the TDT when reconciling a folio.
Collection and Remittance
The guest pays the TDT at checkout, and whoever collects the rental charge, whether that is a hotel, a property manager, or an individual host, is legally responsible for remitting it to the Orange County Comptroller. Returns are due monthly, must be postmarked by the first of the month following collection, and become delinquent after the 20th.
A return has to be filed every month even when no tax was collected. Late filings carry a penalty of 10% of the tax due or $50, whichever is greater, plus variable interest that the Comptroller's Office resets each January and July.
Orange County is one of the relatively small number of Florida counties where Airbnb has a direct agreement to collect and remit the TDT on the county's behalf. That arrangement does not automatically extend to Vrbo or other platforms, so a property listed across multiple channels still needs to verify, channel by channel, whether the tax is being collected for it or whether the host has to file directly.
Exemptions From Orlando's Hotel Tax
A stay of six months or longer is exempt from the TDT, matching the threshold set statewide under Florida law. The exemption depends on the terms of the rental agreement itself, not just how long a guest happens to stay, so a property claiming it should keep a written lease or reservation record on file that documents the qualifying term.
Full-time employees of the United States government or the State of Florida traveling on official business can be exempt from the TDT when the room is billed directly to the government agency, provided the property keeps the exemption documentation the Comptroller's Office requires for audit. General discretion to waive the tax for other groups does not exist at the county level.
Common Mistakes Hotels Make With TOT Compliance
- Assuming Orlando has its own tax rate. Some booking software and even some staff quote a separate 'Orlando tax,' when the entire local charge is the Orange County TDT; there is no additional city rate to add on top.
- Skipping the zero-dollar return. Properties that had no taxable rentals in a given month still have to file a return with the Comptroller's Office, not just skip filing until revenue resumes.
- Treating every platform like Airbnb. Because Orange County collects the TDT directly through Airbnb, some operators wrongly assume Vrbo or a direct-booking engine handles it the same way, and under-remit as a result.
- Calling the six-month exemption automatic. Without a written lease or reservation record showing the qualifying term, a long stay can still get taxed, or get challenged later in an audit.
- Mixing up the home-sharing permit with tax registration. Registering under the city's home-sharing ordinance at orlando.gov/homeshare satisfies Orlando's zoning rules, but it does not replace the separate TDT registration and monthly filing obligation with Orange County.
- Missing the 20th-of-the-month delinquency date. Some operators assume the return is due whenever it is convenient within the month; the Comptroller's Office marks anything not postmarked by the 20th as late, triggering the 10%-or-$50 penalty.
Where A PMS Fits Into TOT Compliance
None of this is about software fixing a legal obligation. But a property management system that lets a hotel configure the Orange County TDT and the 6.5% sales tax as separate, clearly labeled tax codes, rather than one blended percentage, makes it much easier to answer a guest's question about their folio and to reconcile what was actually collected against what is owed each month. A booking engine that shows the full 12.5% tax add-on before checkout, and revenue reports that break totals down by date range, also make the monthly filing to the Comptroller's Office a matter of pulling a report rather than reconstructing it by hand.
See how roommaster simplifies multi-property tax reporting.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Does Orlando have its own hotel tax rate?
No. The City of Orlando does not levy a separate hotel tax. The entire local lodging charge on an Orlando hotel stay is Orange County's 6% Tourist Development Tax, on top of the 6.5% state and county sales tax.
2. What is Orlando's hotel tax?
It is Orange County's Tourist Development Tax (TDT), a 6% charge on stays of six months or less, administered by the Orange County Comptroller's Office and split into six earmarked pennies that fund the Convention Center, tourism marketing, and the arts.
3. What is Orlando's lodging tax?
Lodging tax is another name for the same charge as the hotel tax and the occupancy tax: Orange County's 6% Tourist Development Tax, layered on top of the 6.5% combined sales tax rate for a total of 12.5% on the room.
4. How long does a guest have to stay in Orlando to be exempt from the hotel tax?
A stay of six months (183 days) or longer is exempt from the TDT under Florida law, provided the rental agreement or reservation record documents that qualifying term.
5. Does Orlando require hotels to disclose all fees upfront?
Neither Orange County nor the City of Orlando has a dedicated hotel fee-transparency ordinance the way some other markets do. Mandatory resort fees and surcharges still fall under Florida's general deceptive and unfair trade practices protections, which require that advertised prices not be misleading.
6. Who is responsible for filing and remitting Orlando's hotel tax?
Whoever collects the rental payment from the guest, whether a hotel, a property manager, or an individual host, is responsible for remitting the TDT to the Orange County Comptroller's Office on a monthly return, even in months with no taxable rentals.
7. What is the Sixth Cent of Orange County's Tourist Development Tax used for?
The Sixth Cent is a dedicated slice of the 6% TDT split between Visit Orlando and the City of Orlando under a Tourism Promotion Agreement and Community Venues Interlocal Agreement, and it is spent specifically on additional tourism advertising and marketing rather than Convention Center debt or operations.
