Buying as a Canadian: what to have ready

Three quarters of Canadian buyers in Florida pay cash, so the thing that actually delays a Canadian closing is almost never the mortgage. It is a taxpayer number that takes seven weeks and longer from overseas, an association that screens you on its own schedule, and an ownership decision that is expensive to change after the deed is recorded. All three are startable before you have found the unit.

Published September 6, 2026

This page is the preparation, not the search. It assumes you have decided you want a Florida condominium and are working out what has to be true before you can close on one.

1. The ITIN, and why it is the first thing to start

An Individual Taxpayer Identification Number is what a Canadian without a US Social Security number uses to file a US return — and you will file one, whether because you let the unit out or because you eventually sell it and want the FIRPTA withholding back.

It is applied for on Form W-7, and the timing is the part people underestimate. The IRS asks you to allow seven weeks to be notified about your application, and says to expect nine to eleven weeks during filing season — January 15 to April 30 — or if you applied from overseas. A Canadian applying in February is in both categories at once.

The application normally goes in with a US federal tax return, with the SSN field left blank, plus documents proving foreign status and identity. There are three routes: by mail to the IRS service center, through an IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center where documents are authenticated free but an appointment can take weeks, or through an acceptance agent, which costs money and exists internationally.

2. The association is the second approval, and it is not yours to hurry

A Florida condominium purchase is approved twice — once by the seller when they accept your offer, and once by the association. The second one runs on the board's calendar. Expect an application, a fee, a background and credit check, and in many buildings an interview.

A foreign buyer without a US credit file gets asked for different things than a domestic buyer does, and what a given board accepts in place of a US credit report varies by building. That is a question worth asking of the specific association before you are under contract, not after.

• What the association asks — approval, screening, and what a board can refuse
• Every building covered here — 46 towers from the county record, and honest about which figures are contested
• Buying without a US Social Security number
• Buying as a foreign national — the full sequence

3. How you hold it, decided before the deed rather than after

Personally, jointly, through a trust, through a corporation — the choice affects your US tax position while you own it, your withholding when you sell it, and your estate exposure if you die owning it. It is genuinely a cross-border adviser's question, and this page will not answer it, because the right answer depends on facts about you that a website cannot know.

What this page will tell you is when to ask. Restructuring after the deed is recorded can trigger a transfer, a new set of costs, and sometimes a tax event. Asking before you write the offer costs one conversation.

Two things follow you from the moment you own it, and both are cheaper to plan for than to discover:

• The eventual sale is withheld on the price, not the gain. FIRPTA takes 15% of the amount realized, with reductions that depend on the buyer's use and the price. Sellers who plan for it recover the excess in weeks rather than a filing season.
• Letting the unit out has a default and an election. The default is 30% of gross rent with no deductions. The election onto net income is available, and it binds for later years.

• Selling as a Canadian — the withholding, the tiers, and the certificate that only works before closing
• Letting it out as a Canadian — the 30% default and the section 871(d) election
• Financer sans dossier de crédit américain

4. The costs that are not the price

A Canadian buyer without a Florida homestead exemption carries a different annual number than the resident owner down the hall, and the difference compounds. The association fee, the property tax without the exemption, insurance, and the months the unit sits empty are the real carrying cost, and they are all knowable before an offer.

• What a unit costs to hold — month by month, every input editable
• Rental yield — gross and net, with the fee and the vacancy in it
• Why the association fee moves, and how to read a budget
• Le vrai coût de possession, en français

5. Then the building, which is the part that is actually a decision

Everything above is preparation and it is the same for every Canadian buyer. What differs is the building, and the building is where the money and the plan meet: what the declaration permits, what the fee is and where it is heading, what the reserve and inspection position looks like, and whether you can ever let the unit out.

Those are recorded facts with checkable answers, and they are the whole reason this site exists.

What this page does not cover

It does not cover immigration. How long you may stay in the United States is a separate question from what you may own there, owning property confers no immigration status, and the day-count rules are covered elsewhere on this site.

It does not recommend a holding structure, a lender, or an accountant. And it does not cover title insurance, closing costs or the deposit customs of a Florida contract in the detail they deserve — those are a purchase-contract discussion rather than a cross-border one, and they belong on their own page.

• How long you can stay — the provincial rules and the separate US count
• Everything here for Canadian owners, in English and French