Tampa Hotel Tax Is 13.5%, St. Pete and Clearwater 13%. The Resort Fee Is Taxed Too.
By Matt Spaulding · November 9, 2026
Photo: Alvesgaspar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Book a room in downtown Tampa or Westshore and the state takes 6% of it in tax. Hillsborough County adds a 1.5% surtax and a 6% tourist tax. With the state's 6%, that adds up to 13.5%. That figure is our sum. No government page we read prints it as one number. Across the bay in Pinellas County, in Clearwater Beach, St. Pete Beach, Treasure Island and downtown St. Pete, the Pinellas County Tax Collector gives 13%. Hilton's rate details for one hotel on each side matched exactly: 13.50% at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Tampa Airport Westshore and 13.00% at the Hilton St. Petersburg Bayfront. Florida taxes a mandatory resort fee at the room's rate, so a fee quoted "plus tax" costs 13% or 13.5% more than its number. Read the tax lines on the hotel's own screen before you book.
Hillsborough's 1.5% is three half-cents
Florida's 6% is charged on the total rental (Florida Statute 212.03). Hillsborough's 1.5% surtax, made of three half-cents, applies to rooms too: the Department of Revenue lists the rental of sleeping accommodations among the sales a county surtax covers. With the state's 6% that makes 7.5%, the combined rate the Department's Tax Information Publication 25A01-02 tells dealers to collect. The tourist development tax, the bed tax, is a separate 6% on rentals of six months or less. The hotel collects it from you and sends it to the Hillsborough County Tax Collector.
Those half-cents don't end together. The infrastructure half-cent, the Community Investment Tax, began on 1 December 1996. The current tax expires on 30 November 2026. Voters renewed it on 5 November 2024 for 1 December 2026 through 31 December 2041, leaving no gap, and the county says the renewed tax continues "as part of the current 7.5% sales tax". The indigent care half-cent began on 1 October 2001 and has no end date on the state's form. The school half-cent began on 1 January 2019 and ends on 31 December 2028. Unless that one is renewed, the full 1.5% is set only through 2028.
Pinellas adds a penny and a 6% bed tax
The Pinellas County Tax Collector's FAQ puts a 6% tourist development tax together with a 7% sales and use tax collected by the Department of Revenue, "totaling 13% tax". The 7% is the state's 6% plus a 1% county surtax, the Penny for Pinellas, in force since 1 February 1990 and ending 31 December 2029 on the state's 2026 form. Pinellas County's own page calls the bed tax "a six percent tax on accommodations". On Hilton's rate details for the Bayfront in downtown St. Pete, the one tax line reads "13.00 % per room, per night", followed by "Total taxes and government charges".
Sand Pebble Resort on Treasure Island charges no resort fee. Its booking engine adds Florida state sales tax and two Pinellas lines, Pinellas County sales tax and Pinellas County tourism tax, and nothing else. The state line is the 6%, and the two county lines are the 1% surtax and the 6% tourist tax. Together they make the 13%. We found no flat per-night assessment on top of the 13% in St. Pete or Clearwater, though no county page we read rules one out.
A mandatory resort fee is taxed like the room
Florida's rule on hotel taxes, 12A-1.061 in the version effective 29 December 2025, counts any charge a guest is required to pay as a condition of using the room as part of the rent. Its own example is a resort fee charged by a resort hotel to its guests, which it says is "included in the room rates subject to tax." Listing the fee on a separate line doesn't take it out of the rent. A fee charged to every guest is still taxed when the hotel waives it for the guest who asks, because the rule treats the waiver as a cut in the room rate. We didn't establish when Florida began treating resort fees this way.
The rule covers the county surtax and the tourist tax as well as the state's 6%. By our reading, that puts a mandatory fee in Tampa at 13.5%, the same as the room, and one in Pinellas at 13%. A charge on its own line stays out of the rent only if the hotel also withholds the service from a guest who won't pay it. In the rule's words: "The items or services are withheld when a guest or tenant refuses to pay the charge or surcharge." What each fee buys around the state is in our Florida resort fees guide.
The booking screen for The Don CeSar puts its $40 resort fee inside the rate and shows it with tax included. The fee carries tax there. Hilton's booking screen for Hotel Flor Tampa Downtown, read on 20 October 2026, says the price includes a $30 "mandatory charge per night, but excludes taxes and government charges". The Embassy Suites by Hilton Tampa Downtown Convention Center carries the same Hilton wording for a $35 a night mandatory destination charge. On both, the tax comes on top of that price, and under the rule it lands on the charge as well as the room. Marriott's screen for The Tampa EDITION says "Includes 40 USD Destination Fee", which means the rate you compare already has the fee in it. We didn't read a Marriott tax line and don't know what that screen adds.
A garage charge on your bill is taxed as parking
Florida Statute 212.03 taxes renting parking or storage spaces for motor vehicles in lots or garages, and it doesn't mention hotels. The hotel-tax rule lists "garage space" among charges that are not room rent and points to the parking rule. Florida's rule treats a garage charge on your hotel bill as parking, not part of the room, and parking is taxed at 6%. The county pages we read don't say whether the tourist tax applies to parking, and we didn't establish whether the county surtax is added to it. When a hotel writes "plus tax" after a valet rate, as Sandpearl Resort does at $40 and The Tampa EDITION does at $58, it doesn't say which rate it means. Valet at the Hilton St. Petersburg Bayfront is $48 a night. Hilton lists it under "Optional services for an additional charge", outside the tax line, and shows no tax rate for it. The hotel has no self-parking, and a driver who parks on site pays it.
Hotel Alba Tampa in Westshore says in its own FAQ, which we read on 19 September 2026: "Self-parking is available and the fees are subject to 7.5% tax". That's the state's 6% plus Hillsborough's 1.5% surtax, without the 6% tourist tax a room carries. It is the hotel's word, and the parking rule we read doesn't mention the surtax either way. We print no parking price for the Alba because its own site and Hilton list different ones. Garage prices for cruise nights and game nights are in Tampa parking before a cruise or a game.
One night in each of four areas
At Sandpearl in Clearwater Beach, the room and the $35 nightly resort fee are both taxed at 13%. Valet is the only parking, and valet and the resort fee come to $75 a night plus tax before you count the room.
The Don CeSar on St. Pete Beach has no free parking: $28 a day to self-park or $38 for valet, plus tax. The room is taxed at 13%.
In downtown Tampa, Hilton's info page for Hotel Flor leaves its $30 charge off, and only the booking screen shows it. Valet is the only way to park, at $52 a night, which puts a driver at $82 a night plus tax on top of the room. At the Embassy Suites downtown, valet is $55, and the hotel leaves open whether that's nightly or before tax.
The Embassy Suites near the airport in Westshore adds the least beyond the room: Hilton's screen showed no fee line, and self-parking is $22 a day. There's no valet.
Stays longer than six months
A written lease for longer than six months, for continuous residence, makes you exempt from the first day (Statute 212.03 and Rule 12A-1.061). Without one, you pay the full tax for the first six months. Stay on continuously past that, with the tax paid, and you're exempt from then on, no lease needed. The Pinellas Tax Collector says renters with a bona fide written lease for over six months are exempt, and Hillsborough's tourist tax covers rentals of six months or less. The rule doesn't count days. A lease that starts on the first of a month has to run through the first of the seventh month; the rule's own example is 1 July 1997 to 1 January 1998.
What we read, and when
We read the rates on the state's Discretionary Sales Surtax Information for Calendar Year 2026 (DR-15DSS, R. 11/25), and the Hillsborough and Pinellas county pages, on 9 November 2026. The Department of Revenue says it updates that form every November, and the 2027 form was not posted when we looked. We don't know what it will say. We read the two Hilton rate-detail screens on 19 September 2026, for nights in October, and the Hilton and Marriott fee lines on 20 October 2026. The Don CeSar and Sand Pebble lines come from our own pages for those hotels. We never went past the rate dialog, and we publish no room rates or tax dollar amounts.
