Fort Lauderdale, FL Business Licensing & Operations: Towing Companies (2026)

Article IX of Chapter 26 covers every private parking lot and garage operating for a fee within city limits. Section 26-242 makes it unlawful to run one without both city authorization and a valid business tax receipt, and section 26-244 requires that receipt to be displayed or available on-site. 13, and proof of that license must be kept at the parking facility at all times, not merely on file at an office. Section 26-245(c) closes an obvious loophole: no employee, individual owner, operator, shareholder, or member of an ownership entity of a parking lot or garage may hold a controlling financial interest in an immobilization or tow company that services that same lot.

Section 26-246 backs this up with signage rules: every licensed lot must post the contact information for its immobilization or towing vendor at each entrance, alongside the posted rates, hours, and operator name. A lot's continuing duty to maintain safe, hazard-free conditions runs under section 26-248. Enforcement is unusually strict for the licensing piece: while most Article IX violations get a thirty-day warning to comply under section 26-249(a), that grace period is expressly withheld from violations of sections 26-242(b) and 26-247, meaning an unlicensed tow or immobilization operation can be cited immediately under Chapter 11 or the general penalty in section 1-6.