Richard Hicks stood up at a Manatee County work session on September 2 and told commissioners he hadn't slept in his own bedroom in a year. The noise came from a short-term rental near his home. Around him, other residents wore pins protesting vacation rentals in their neighborhoods. County staff had just finished a 33-slide presentation on what the county can and cannot regulate, and a resident group called Manatee Concerned Residents had filed a legal brief arguing that transient lodging may already be prohibited in the county's Residential Single-Family zones, tracing the argument back to a 1990 land development code definition of "dwelling."
Commissioners left that meeting having chosen not one path but two: tighten enforcement of existing noise and parking rules, and draft a full registration and inspection program for the roughly 3,000 short-term rentals sitting in unincorporated Manatee County. Staff estimated the inspection program alone could cost $1.5 million in its first year and require eleven new positions.
If you own a rental on Anna Maria Island, none of that vote touches your property.
Two different governments, two different clocks
The confusion is understandable. Headlines about "Manatee County vacation rental rules" read like they apply island-wide, and the debate has been loud enough to reach West Manatee Fire Rescue's own count of more than 4,500 short-term rentals inside its district boundaries. But the work session, the legal brief, the staffing estimate, all of it describes unincorporated Manatee County: places like Cortez, Palma Sola, and the neighborhoods around Bradenton where a house advertised for 32 guests in a subdivision called Plantation Oaks touched off the whole fight back in early 2025.
Anna Maria Island isn't unincorporated. It's three separate incorporated cities, and each one, the City of Anna Maria, Holmes Beach, and Bradenton Beach, has run its own vacation rental ordinance for years, completely independent of whatever the county commission decides. When a property sits inside a city, the city's rules apply regardless of what happens at the county level. That's not a workaround or a loophole. It's how Florida municipal government has always worked here.
What's already settled on the island
Each of the island's three cities answered the short-term rental question long before the county started asking it, and each answered it differently.
| City | Minimum stay | How it's regulated |
|---|---|---|
| City of Anna Maria | Nightly rentals allowed | Annual registration, proof of state lodging license and county tax accounts, and a city inspection before you can advertise |
| Holmes Beach | Depends on zoning district | R1 and R1AA zones (including Key Royale and Bay Palms) require 30-day minimums; R2 through R4 zones allow 7-night minimums; a vacation rental certificate is required and runs for two years |
| Bradenton Beach | Nightly rentals allowed | Requires a state Transient Public Lodging Establishment license plus city registration, an exterior and interior sketch of the unit, and a posted rental agreement |
A buyer comparing a canal-front cottage in Holmes Beach's Key Royale neighborhood to a nightly rental three streets over is comparing two different regulatory environments, not two versions of the same one. The zoning line, not the city limit, decides whether that Holmes Beach property can be booked for a weekend or only for a month at a time.
The island cities aren't waiting on the county
What makes the "it doesn't apply to you" point more than a technicality is that the island's cities are still actively legislating on their own timeline. On August 27, the City of Anna Maria's commission voted unanimously to adopt a new ordinance requiring beach equipment rental operators, the companies that set up rental cabanas on the shore, to secure franchise agreements before operating. The city had prohibited commercial beach activity in its code for years without enforcing it. Growing complaints about cabana density pushed commissioners to act, and the new rule sets application windows, violation penalties, and a process for revoking a franchise after repeat offenses.
That ordinance has nothing to do with Manatee County's registration debate. It's a separate city responding to a separate local pressure on its own schedule. If you're weighing a purchase on Anna Maria Island, the useful signal isn't "the county is fighting about rentals," it's "the city I'm buying into governs itself, and it's currently doing so."
What actually matters when you're comparing properties
None of this means short-term rental rules on the island are simple. They're just settled, in the sense that the framework already exists and isn't waiting on a county vote to take shape. What a buyer or current owner should verify hasn't changed:
- Which of the three cities the property sits in, since the rules genuinely differ street to street
- For Holmes Beach specifically, the zoning district, because R1/R1AA and R2-R4 produce very different rental calendars on the same island
- Whether the HOA or condo association restricts rentals more tightly than the city does, which is common and which the city ordinance won't override
- Whether the property carries an active state Transient Public Lodging Establishment license and a Manatee County tourist development tax account, both required regardless of which city applies
- Whether the address falls inside the West Manatee Fire Rescue district, which covers the barrier islands and requires its own annual life-safety inspection for transient lodging separate from city code
None of these checks are new because of the county fight. They were true in 2025 and they're true now. What's new is the noise around them, and noise is a bad substitute for verification.
Where the county debate might eventually matter to the island
There's one place the two stories could intersect down the road. If Manatee County adopts a countywide framework and later folds fire-inspection or tax-collection processes into a shared system with the cities, some paperwork on the island could eventually run through the same office as unincorporated properties. Nothing proposed so far in Manatee's work sessions suggests that's imminent, and the county's own staff have described drafting and passing a full ordinance as a process that will take months, with a transition plan due back within 30 to 45 days of the September 2 meeting. For now, the practical answer for anyone buying, selling, or already holding a rental on Anna Maria Island is the same one that would have applied a year ago: check the city, check the zoning district if it's Holmes Beach, check the association documents, and treat the county's ongoing debate as background noise rather than a pending change to your bottom line.
FAQ
Does the Manatee County ordinance affect my condo in Holmes Beach or Bradenton Beach? No. The county's process governs unincorporated Manatee County only. Properties inside any of Anna Maria Island's three incorporated cities continue to operate under that city's existing ordinance.
My HOA documents restrict rentals more than the city code does. Which one wins? The stricter rule applies. City ordinances set a floor, not a ceiling. An association can prohibit or limit short-term rentals even where the city allows them, and that restriction holds regardless of anything happening at the county level.
Do I still need a state license if my city already has its own registration? Yes. The Transient Public Lodging Establishment license from Florida's Department of Business and Professional Regulation and the county tourist development tax account are separate requirements that sit on top of, not instead of, whatever your city's own ordinance asks for.
Buying or holding a rental property on Anna Maria Island means working through three different sets of city rules layered under state licensing requirements, and getting that stack right before you close is the difference between a rental that performs the way you modeled and one that doesn't. If you want a straight read on how a specific address on the island is actually regulated before you write an offer, Luxury Coastal Living Group can walk the zoning and ordinance details with you property by property.