AHJ Radar · Mason Mathews Facility Assurance, LLC
Florida's most cited lodging violations, FY 2025-26
Florida's Division of Hotels and Restaurants publishes, every September, what its inspectors wrote up in the state's 75,494 licensed public lodging establishments. Four of the ten most cited items are sanitation. One is a dated safety filing a hotel either has on file or does not: the three-year balcony railing certificate, written 3,499 times last year.
The ten most cited, with counts
Figure 4, "Top 10 Violations Found in Public Lodging Establishments." The number is the DBPR violation code. Covers every licensed public lodging type (hotels, motels, apartments, vacation rentals, bed and breakfasts); the report does not split the top ten by type.
| # | Code | Violation as printed | Count | Who owns it in a hotel or condominium |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 26 | Sanitation: garbage and refuse disposal | 10,507 | Housekeeping and the dumpster enclosure |
| 2 | 25 | Sanitation: premises maintained | 7,539 | Grounds and engineering |
| 3 | 13 | Safety: building repair | 6,425 | Engineering |
| 4 | 38 | General: current license displayed, available upon request | 5,289 | Front office |
| 5 | 12 | Safety: balcony railing safety, certification | 3,499 | Engineering and the general manager (see below) |
| 6 | 19 | Sanitation: plumbing | 2,642 | Engineering |
| 7 | 24 | Sanitation: vermin control | 2,211 | Pest contractor and housekeeping |
| 8 | 17 | Sanitation: bedding, bed linens, towels | 1,771 | Housekeeping |
| 9 | 39 | General: housekeeping | 1,483 | Housekeeping |
| 10 | 22 | Sanitation: ice protection | 1,127 | Engineering (ice machines) and food and beverage |
The balcony certificate
Item 5 is the one with a statute behind it. Section 509.2112, Florida Statutes, requires every public lodging establishment "three stories or more in height" to file a certificate stating that "any and all balconies, platforms, stairways, and railways have been inspected by a person competent to conduct" such inspections and "are safe, secure, and free of defects." The certificate is filed "every 3 years" with the Division and with the local building authority, and an establishment that fails to file faces "administrative sanctions pursuant to s. 509.261." The statute does not name a profession for the inspector. 3,499 citations in one year means the filing lapses often; the fix is a dated entry in the property's calendar three years out from the last certificate.
Section 509.2112 (Florida Senate)Florida lodging record
The year in numbers
| Measure | FY 2025-26 |
|---|---|
| Licensed public lodging establishments | 75,494 (hotels 2,532; motels 2,216) |
| Initial lodging inspections | 29,829, plus 5,696 callback inspections |
| Lodging violations written | 49,755 (16,551 high priority; 807 intermediate; 30,879 basic; 2,497 fire-reporting; 1,518 human-trafficking) |
| Lodging administrative cases | 666 cases; $79,410 in fines assessed; average fine $252, median $200 |
| Elevators (Bureau of Elevator Safety) | 64,656 active accounts; 91.71% with a current certificate; 79,380 inspections |
| Reported elevator and escalator accidents | 1,346, up from 1,157 the year before and 939 in 2021-22 (escalators 786 of the 1,346) |
What this means for a hotel or a condominium
The fines are small; the average administrative fine was $252. The cost is elsewhere: a high-priority violation stays in the public inspection record, a lapsed balcony certificate is the first document a plaintiff's lawyer asks for after a railing failure, and an elevator without a current certificate is one of the 8.29% the Bureau is already looking for. A condominium that rents units as transient lodging holds the same license and meets the same inspector; one that does not is outside this Division's inspections but faces the same balcony question from its own engineer and insurer. The three items to check this week: the date on the last balcony certificate, the date on each elevator certificate of operation, and whether the license is posted where the inspector will look.
What is not on this page, and why
The report does not break violations down by lodging type or by county, so a hotel-only or Southwest Florida list cannot be built from it. Rows 11 and below of the violation table are in the report (pages 22 to 24). Restaurant and food-service figures are in the same report and are left off here. The Division's figures for elevator certificate compliance are reported as 91.71% in Table 13 and rounded to 92% in the narrative.
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