Renting a Miami condo

Renting a condominium in Miami is not renting an apartment. There is a second landlord — the association — and it sets the minimum term, caps how many times a year the unit can turn over, screens you separately from the owner, and can hold a deposit of its own. None of that appears in a listing. All of it is in the declaration, all of it is knowable before you apply, and the sequence below is the order it will actually happen to you.

Published September 5, 2026

Most rental advice written for Miami is written for apartment buildings with a leasing office. A condominium works differently, and the difference costs applicants time and application fees before anyone explains it. The owner can agree to everything and the board can still say no.

1. The minimum term rules out most of the market before price does

Every condominium sets its own minimum lease term in its recorded declaration, and across the buildings covered on this site the range runs from one month to twelve. If you need six months, a twelve-month building is not a negotiation — it is a different building.

City rules sit on top of that, and the stricter of the two governs. Miami Beach, for one, treats anything under six months and one day as a short-term rental, prohibits it outright in several zoning districts, and requires the specific building to appear on the City's authorized list. Being in a permitted district is necessary and not sufficient.

• The association is the other landlord — approval, screening and what a board can refuse
• Which Miami buildings allow short stays, and how the question gets answered
• Edgewater approval and lease rules, building by building
• Every building covered here — 46 towers from the county record. Ask her for the minimum term on any of them and she will read it out of the declaration

2. What the board will ask you for

Association approval is a separate process from the owner's decision, it runs on the association's calendar rather than yours, and it is where a move-in date slips. Expect an application, a fee, a background and credit check, and in many buildings an interview. Some declarations cap the number of leases permitted per unit per year, which means a building can be legally unavailable to you even with an empty unit in it and a willing owner.

Build the approval window into your dates. A lease signed for the first of the month with an approval process that takes three weeks is a lease you cannot start on time, and the association is under no obligation to hurry for you.

3. What it costs to start, beyond the rent

The first month is rarely one month's money. Plan for first, last and a security deposit, an association application fee, and in many buildings a separate move-in fee or an elevator reservation deposit. Some associations may hold a security deposit of their own in addition to the owner's, on the terms their declaration and Florida law allow.

Ask for the total figure in writing before you apply, itemized. A building that cannot produce it quickly is telling you something about how the rest of the tenancy will run.

• Rent versus buy — with every rate visible and editable
• What a unit here costs to hold, if you are weighing buying instead

4. If you are renting your unit out rather than renting one

The same declaration that governs a tenant governs you as a landlord, and it is the first thing to check before you count on the income. Whether you can rent it out, on what minimum term, how many times a year, and whether the board screens your tenant are all answered in the same document — before the unit is bought, ideally.

• What the return on a Miami condo depends on — the investor route through the same material
• Rental yield calculator — gross and net, with the fee and the vacancy in it
• Why the association fee moves, and how to read a budget
• If you are a Canadian owner renting it out — the 30% default and the election that changes the basis

Your rights under Florida law, which are separate from all of this

Everything above is the association's process. What happens between you and the owner once you are in is Chapter 83, and it runs on specific day counts that both sides get wrong.

• Deposits and notice periods, with the statute beside each deadline. Fifteen days to return a deposit, thirty for a landlord to claim against it — and a landlord who misses that thirty forfeits the claim entirely. Three days to pay rent, excluding weekends and legal holidays, which is the most miscounted number in the chapter.

What this page does not yet cover

One thing a Miami tenant should know is still not written up on this site.

Renters insurance. Where the line falls between the association's policy and the owner's is now written up — the statute draws it item by item — and it establishes the useful half of the answer for a tenant: neither of those two policies covers your belongings. What a renter's own policy should carry, and how liability works when you are living inside somebody else's insured structure, is the half still missing — and the gap is usually larger than people assume.

It is being researched. Until it is published, treat this page and the statutory one above as covering the association's process and the owner relationship, and not what insures your own belongings.