Florida Lets Vacation Rentals Reopen One County at a Time (May 2020)

From the record. This is a look back at May 2020. The desk wrote it on 11 October 2026 from sources published at the time; Stay Gazette opened in July 2026 and did not report this as it happened.

On 15 May 2020, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced that vacation rentals, which he had banned statewide on 27 March, could take guests again in any county whose reopening plan the state approved. The rule sat in Executive Order 20-123, which took effect at 12:01 a.m. on Monday 18 May 2020.

By itself the order reopened no vacation rental. It said a county could seek approval to operate vacation rentals with a written request from its county administrator and a county safety plan, both sent to the secretary of the Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR). Owners in a county without that approval stayed closed.

At least seven Panhandle counties were cleared on 19 May, and by 28 May the DBPR had approved 50 county plans, which a Florida Realtors update put at approximately 75% of the state's counties.

What the order changed

The ban dated from Executive Order 20-87 of 27 March 2020. JURIST reported that it suspended all vacation rentals and exempted hotels, motels, inns, resorts and time-share projects, among others. The News Service of Florida reported that it also prohibited advertising rentals, with an exception for stays by military, emergency and health workers.

The ban had been set to expire on 1 May. It was extended to 4 May and then, JURIST reported, indefinitely.

Executive Order 20-123 put a county-by-county approval process in place of the flat ban, with the decision left to the DBPR secretary, Halsey Beshears. The order made a violation a second-degree misdemeanor, punishable by imprisonment of up to 60 days, a fine of up to $500, or both.

“If you tell me you're going to rent them out to people from New York City, I'm probably not going to approve that, OK?” DeSantis said at a news conference in Jacksonville on 15 May, in remarks reported by the News Service of Florida and WJXT.

Why the governor moved

DeSantis had said in March that the ban was meant to discourage visitors from Covid-19 hot spots such as New York and Louisiana from bringing the virus into Florida. On 15 May he said hotels had stayed open because he needed them to house National Guard troops he had activated to help with testing.

Owners and managers saw unequal treatment. The News Service of Florida, citing a report by the University of Central Florida's Rosen College of Hospitality Management, put the industry at an estimated $27 billion a year in the state and counted about 275,000 listings. The governor's office had received more than 20,000 emails and dozens of videos demanding an end to the ban. One owner of three rental properties paid for television ads in Citrus and Leon counties.

The pressure was strongest in the Panhandle, where the ban had landed during spring break. The chairman of the Walton County Commission told DeSantis earlier that week that more than 40 percent of the area's vacation-rental businesses could close for good if the ban stayed, and that rentals made up 87 percent of South Walton's lodging inventory.

On Thursday 7 May 2020, property owners and a vacation-rental management company sued DeSantis in federal court in Tampa and asked for a temporary restraining order or an injunction against the ban. They alleged violations of their due-process and equal-protection rights and of the contracts clause, and they brought a free-speech claim over the advertising ban. One plaintiff, Florida Beach Rentals, LLC, a Clearwater Beach company that managed more than 200 rental properties, alleged that it had lost more than $1.5 million in business since the ban began.

On 8 May, U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday denied the temporary restraining order, saying the plaintiffs had not complied with the required procedures, and allowed the lawsuit to proceed. The governor's office said in a statement that rentals would reopen as soon as the safety and well-being of Florida residents could best be assured.

How the approvals ran

On Tuesday 19 May, the day after the order took effect, the DBPR secretary confirmed to WCTV that Panhandle counties could reopen their rentals. State Representative Jason Shoaf named Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton, Gulf, Franklin and Bay.

WCTV gave the department's conditions for those counties. Rentals had to follow CDC guidelines, leave time between stays to disinfect all surfaces and housewares, and keep contact with renters to a minimum. Guests from outside Florida were allowed if their home state had an infection rate of less than 500 cases per 100,000 people, and a guest coming from a hot spot had to reserve at least 14 days in advance. The order itself set no such terms and left each county to submit its own safety plan.

The decision split at least one local board. On 21 May the Taylor County Commission voted 3-2 to submit a plan to the state, Perry Newspapers reported.

Volusia County sent its request on 19 May. Beshears approved it in a letter dated 22 May 2020, and the county's plan took effect that day at 6:17 p.m.

What owners, managers and Airbnb said

Denis Hanks, executive director of the Florida Vacation Rental Management Association, said on 15 May that sign-off by county and state officials could take weeks.

“The relief for places like the Panhandle and others that are contingent upon the Memorial Day weekend and being open, it could really take them out of the whole picture,” Hanks said in a telephone interview reported by the News Service of Florida and WJXT.

“I think he passed the buck, but the bomb is still in his lap,” the owner who had paid for the television ads told the news service.

Airbnb's Florida policy director, Tom Martinelli, welcomed the announcement as a first step and said thousands of hosts, small businesses and local governments across the state counted on vacation rentals for income. A St. Augustine owner quoted in the same report said rentals were half his income and that he still thought it was too soon to reopen.

The Gazette Verdict, looking back

The county route was the right repair, and it showed what the seven weeks before it had lacked: written conditions an owner could meet. Set the health question aside. From 27 March to 15 May, hotels, motels and time-share projects could sell rooms while rentals that made up 87 percent of South Walton's lodging were closed to vacationers through spring break, with no plan a county could file and, once the ban was extended, no end date. Owners paid for that, one management company by more than $1.5 million on its own claim. Once Florida wrote a process, 50 counties cleared it between 15 May and 28 May. The lesson for a host is that a rental business can be switched off by order, with a misdemeanor charge behind it. Keep a cash reserve, keep a cleaning and guest-screening protocol on paper, and know the county officials who will write the next plan.

The other side

The state had reasons, and it gave them. DeSantis said the ban was aimed at visitors from hot spots such as New York and Louisiana, and that hotels stayed open to house National Guard troops working on testing. Letting counties write the plans let officials who knew their own beaches set the conditions, and 50 approvals in under two weeks points to a process that worked. A federal judge refused an emergency order against the ban, though on procedural grounds. And one St. Augustine owner who relied on rentals for half his income said it was still too soon to reopen.

What it meant for hosts

For a Florida host in the second half of May 2020, the governor's announcement did not mean a booking could be taken. An owner had steps to work through first.

Find out whether the county had an approved plan. Florida Realtors told members in counties without one to ask the county administrator whether a plan had been submitted, and to check the DBPR's website daily.
Read the county's own plan, because the conditions were local. WCTV's account of the Panhandle approvals had limits tied to a guest's home state and a 14-day advance booking rule for guests from hot spots.
Treat the state's safety guidance as binding where the county said so. Volusia County's plan adopted the DBPR's recommended safety measures and best practices as minimum standards, and required enough time between stays to comply with them.
Screen bookings against quarantine orders. In Volusia, a reservation from an area that a governor's executive order had marked for isolation or quarantine had to run longer than the quarantine period.
Send the plan to the guest. Volusia required the owner or manager to email a copy to the person making the reservation before the stay.
Expect that approval could be withdrawn. Volusia's plan said complaints would be reported to the DBPR and that the county manager could rescind the plan.

Volusia's plan also stated that it did not allow vacation rentals in areas where they were already prohibited.

Sources

State of Florida, Office of the Governor (copy hosted by Lee County), Executive Order Number 20-123 (Full Phase 1: Safe. Smart. Step-by-Step. Plan for Florida's Recovery) (14 May 2020).
Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation and Volusia County, DBPR Approval of County Plan for Vacation Rental Operations, with the Volusia County Emergency Plan for the Reopening of Short Term Vacation Rentals (22 May 2020).
News Service of Florida and WJXT News4Jax, Gov. DeSantis opens door to return of vacation rentals in Florida (15 May 2020).
WCTV, All Panhandle counties can reopen vacation rentals (19 May 2020).
News Service of Florida, published by FOX 35 Orlando, DeSantis vacation-rental ban challenged (8 May 2020).
JURIST, Florida governor sued in federal court over vacation rental ban (9 May 2020).
Florida Realtors update, posted by the Space Coast Association of Realtors, Good News Florida Realtors Coronavirus Update - 5/28/20 (28 May 2020).
Perry Newspapers, 3-2 vote to allow vacation rentals to re-open (22 May 2020).

Florida Lets Vacation Rentals Reopen One County at a Time