Orlando, FL Short-Term Rentals: Host Presence Rule (2026)

Section 58.989 defines owner-occupied home sharing as permitted 'for hosted visits only, where the property owner or tenant lives on-site and is present on the property for the hosted visit, and provided there is a single booking at a time.' That sentence does three things at once: it requires the host to physically live on the property, it requires the host to be present during the specific guest stay being booked, and it caps the property to one booking running at a time, no double-booking separate rooms to separate parties simultaneously.

The ordinance then closes the obvious workaround directly: 'Leasing out an entire dwelling unit for short term, transient use is not allowed,' full stop, unless the property qualifies under the Code as a Commercial Dwelling Unit, operates within a hotel/motel use, or falls into the narrow two-family dwelling exception described elsewhere in the section. That means the whole-house, no-host-on-site rental model that many short-term rental platforms otherwise support is not a lawful accessory use in Orlando's residential zoning districts unless one of those three carve-outs applies. Registration under § 58.990 does not waive the host-presence requirement, a registered property that operates without the host present during a booking is operating outside the accessory use the registration approved.