The 3 licenses every Hollywood STR needs before your first guest checks in

Hollywood treats vacation rentals differently than most of Broward, and if you skip the paperwork the city will find you. An STR here is any unit you rent more than three times a year for stays under 30 days. Cross that line and Chapter 119 kicks in. That means three separate licenses, a notarized form, an inspection, and two local rules that trip up almost every out-of-town owner. Here's the actual order of operations.

The trifecta: three licenses, three agencies

People call it the "vacation rental trifecta" because one license won't do it. You need all three, and they answer to different governments.

• City of Hollywood Vacation Rental License. This is the local one, run under the Chapter 119 Vacation Rental License Program. Applications are online only now, no paper. Part of it is a notarized owner-certification form, so plan a trip to a notary before you submit.
• Broward County Local Business Tax Receipt. The county's version of a business license. Your rental is a business as far as Broward is concerned, and this is how they say so.
• Florida DBPR transient lodging license. The state license, through the Department of Business and Professional Regulation. This is the one people forget because it's not local and nobody at the beach reminds you.

Before any of that clears, you also need an active Florida Department of Revenue certificate of registration on file. That ties back to the tax piece below, so don't leave it for last.

The safety inspection

Hollywood wants eyes on the unit before it approves you. The inspection covers working smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, building and fire code, and general property maintenance. None of this is exotic, but the older housing stock is where it bites. A lot of Hollywood Beach is 1950s single-story homes and mid-century condos, and a smoke detector that's been painted over or an extinguisher that expired in 2019 will stall you. Walk the unit yourself first. Test the alarms. Check the extinguisher gauge. It's a cheap fix now and an expensive re-inspection later.

The two rules that are pure Hollywood

This is where owners who've run rentals elsewhere get surprised. Two operating rules here don't exist in a lot of other cities.

The noise-detection device

Hollywood requires a noise-level detection device on licensed vacation rentals. It's tied to the citywide noise ordinance, with quiet hours running roughly 11 PM to 7 AM. These are decibel monitors, not microphones that record conversation, and they flag you when a party gets loud so you can act before a neighbor calls code enforcement. On the beach side, where units sit wall to wall near the Broadwalk, this matters more than owners expect. One bad Saturday night near Johnson Street and you're on the city's radar.

The 60-minute responsible-party rule

This is the big one. A responsible party has to be able to physically reach the property within one hour of a problem. Not call. Not text. Show up. If your management company runs everything from a call center in another state, you don't meet the rule, full stop.

Distance is deceptive down here. FLL is only about 15 minutes north, but the Intracoastal drawbridges on A1A and the crawl on Sheridan Street or Hallandale Beach Blvd can eat that hour fast in high season. If your responsible party is coming up from Aventura or over the county line, I-95 and US-1 in March will make a mockery of any 60-minute promise. Snowbird traffic, spring break, and the festival crowd all land at once.

Why your cleaner is part of the answer

Here's the practical read. A local turnover crew is already the closest set of hands to your unit on most days. When we're doing a same-day turn between Hallandale Beach and Dania Beach, we're minutes from a lot of Hollywood addresses, not an hour. That proximity is exactly what the 60-minute rule is asking for. A guest locks themselves out, the A/C quits, a toilet floods at 9 PM in a beach unit that's been soaking up salt air all season, and someone real needs to be there fast. A remote host can't do that. A local partner can.

That's not a replacement for naming a proper responsible party on your application. It's the thing that makes the responsible-party plan actually hold up when the city or a guest tests it. We already carry supplies in on foot for the Broadwalk units where cars can't go, so we know these blocks and these buildings.

Get the three licenses, notarize the form, pass the inspection, mount the noise monitor. Then line up someone local who can be at the door inside the hour, because that's the rule that gets checked when something goes wrong. If you want to talk through how turnover coverage fits your setup, reach out or start on the homepage.