Canadians in Florida

Everything on this site written for Canadian owners, in both languages. The tax rules are US federal and read the same in Miami as in Naples, so this material is not scoped to one market. What is scoped is the last step — the building, the declaration and the person who can actually do the transaction.

Published September 6, 2026

There is a lot of Canadian cross-border content on the web and most of it is written by people who cannot complete the transaction it describes — currency firms, referral brokers, membership publishers, and accounting practices. That material is often good. It stops one step short.

This is written by a licensed Florida real estate agent who represents Canadian buyers, sellers and tenants, and it goes all the way to the deed. Where a question is properly an accountant's or a lawyer's, the page says so and stops there rather than guessing.

If you are selling

Canadians are the largest single group of international sellers in Florida, and the sale is where the cross-border rules cost the most money. The withholding is computed on the sale price rather than on your gain, and the mechanism for fixing an over-withholding only works before the closing.

• Selling a Florida condo as a Canadian — the 15%, 10% and 0% tiers, the buyer's-use condition behind the reductions, and the certificate that has to come first
• What actually decides a Miami condo sale — the association documents, pricing from closed sales, and what leaves the closing table
• Vendre votre propriété en Floride — le guide complet, en français
• Seller net proceeds calculator

If you are letting the unit out

The default is thirty percent of gross rent with no deductions at all. There is an election that moves the tax onto the net, and it binds for later years unless it is formally revoked — which makes it a decision to take before the first lease.

• Renting out your Florida condo as a Canadian — the 30% default and the section 871(d) election
• The association is the other landlord — approval, screening, and what a board can refuse
• The rules before the listings — minimum terms and what it costs to start
• Louer votre condo — la même question en français

If you are working out how long you can stay

Two separate countdowns run on a Canadian winter here, and the number 183 appears on both sides meaning different things. The provincial rule differs by province — materially, not marginally.

• How long you can stay, by province — Ontario, Québec, Alberta and BC side by side
• Les deux règles de 183 jours
• Le formulaire 8840 — le déposer, et le déposer à temps

If you are buying

The tax questions matter, and they are not the ones that decide the purchase. What decides it is the declaration: what the building permits, what it charges, what it will ask of you, and what it will ask of a tenant if you ever want one.

• What a Canadian buyer needs before closing — the ITIN and its seven-to-eleven weeks, the association’s separate approval, and the ownership question
• Every building covered here — 46 towers from the county record. The lease and approval rules live in the declaration, and she will pull it for any building you name
• Acheter à Miami — le guide en français
• Hypothèque sans dossier de crédit américain
• What a unit costs to hold, month by month

The French cluster

Stefania works in English and French, and the cross-border material was written in French first — thirteen guides covering the withholding, the forms, the thresholds and the reporting, each one citing the authority it came from with the date it was read.

• Le guide complet, en français
• La retenue FIRPTA · Le certificat 8288-B · Le T1135
• La succession américaine · Le gain en capital
• Snowbird : compter vos jours · Le vrai coût de possession

• Who may manage and let the property while you are home — the two Florida licenses, the exemption that means the on-site manager may hold neither, and the eight questions to ask before signing

What is not here yet

Two things a Canadian owner will eventually need are not written up. The Canadian side of the same transactions — how CRA treats the gain and the rental income, and how the foreign tax credit interacts — exists in French on the selling side and not in English. The Québec side of the reporting question is now covered — Revenu Québec has introduced its own foreign property declaration, separate from the federal T1135, and that page is written in French with the authority cited.

The English CRA material is still being written. Until it is, treat this cluster as covering the US side thoroughly and the Canadian side only where the French pages already do.