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Tree Removal Permits by City

Tree rules do not carry across a city line in South Florida, and the differences are large enough to change what a job costs and how long it takes. A tree that can come down freely in one municipality is permitted work two towns away. Thresholds across the region run from no threshold at all, through one and a half inches in Sea Ranch Lakes and two inches in Parkland, up to eighteen inches on a single-family lot in Plantation. Some cities regulate pruning as tightly as removal, some regulate the swale but not the yard, and some will not look at your application until the county has already issued its own. These guides set out what each city requires, with the section number the rule comes from and the date we read it in the published code.

Three Counties, Three Different Structures

Broward County's ordinance prohibits the removal of any tree without first obtaining a tree removal license from its Public Works and Environmental Services Department, and Section 27-402 applies it across the whole county unless the article says otherwise. The initial license is $100 for a developed single-family or duplex property, $150 for other developed residential and $250 for everything else, plus $25 a tree under eighteen inches and $50 at eighteen and over. Twenty-three Broward municipalities hold a certified tree ordinance and enforce their own rules in place of county enforcement, so in those cities the city is the counterparty. Miami-Dade works differently: the county permit reaches everyone, and its code provides that a municipal permit issued contrary to the county standard is void, which means cities there may be stricter but never looser. Palm Beach County is the one that catches people. It runs a countywide invasive vegetation ordinance that does bind inside cities, and a fertilizer ordinance for unincorporated areas, but neither creates a general permit to remove an ordinary tree. So on an ordinary removal in Palm Beach the municipal rule is the one that governs, and it deserves closer reading than the equivalent rule would need in the other two counties.

Broward has one further wrinkle worth reading before relying on a city being the authority. Certification there is revocable, and the county ordinance expired every previously issued municipal certification in 2026. Our Broward County guide sets out what that means, which four categories stay with the county regardless of certification, and what the county license costs.

Miami-Dade has a different thing worth reading, because the money there is not in the permit fee. Replacement is calculated by canopy area in square feet rather than by counting trees or measuring trunk inches, which produces a very different number on a site with mature shade trees, and the permit fee itself is not in the code at all. Our Miami-Dade County guide sets out the canopy table, the exemptions and their conditions, and two defined routes that reduce a replacement obligation.

Palm Beach County has a county obligation of a different kind, and it catches people because it is not a permit. The countywide invasive non-native vegetation ordinance binds inside incorporated areas except where a municipal ordinance conflicts, it runs to a deadline, and complete removal has to be finished before a certificate of occupancy issues. Our Palm Beach County guide sets out what it requires, who is exempt, and what the county layer does and does not settle on an ordinary removal.

The Single-Family Exemption and Its Conditions

Broward and Miami-Dade both offer a single-family exemption, and each carries traps worth understanding before relying on one. Broward County exempts removal of any tree on owner-occupied residential property of one acre or less developed for detached single-family or duplex use. All three conditions are required, so a rented house does not qualify and neither does a larger lot, and the exemption falls away entirely for a specimen or historic tree or for any tree planted or preserved under an earlier permit. Miami-Dade exempts trees within the yard area of an existing single-family residence, provided the tree is not a specimen and not within a natural forest community, and that exemption expressly does not reach trees growing in the county right of way. Two things then complicate both. A city may be stricter, and Miami-Dade's own code both preserves each municipality's right to require its own permit and voids one issued contrary to the county standard. Bay Harbor Islands does exactly that, running its own permit for single-family and two-family property that the county exemption would otherwise release. And in a planned subdivision the exemption can reach very little of the property. Coconut Creek's version does not apply to trees in required landscape buffers, trees in landscape easements, or trees planted as part of a consistent street tree theme, which on a modern lot can account for most of the trees on the lot.

Where the Code Requires a Certified Arborist

In some jurisdictions the credential is a condition of the permit rather than a preference. Miami Beach will not issue a tree work permit for the removal, relocation or pruning of a heritage tree without a written evaluation from an ISA Certified Arborist or an ASCA Registered Consulting Arborist. Bay Harbor Islands issues no single-family or two-family tree permit at all without a detailed written statement from a licensed arborist or landscape architect justifying the removal. Plantation requires a certified arborist to sign the tree trimming application and to be on site while the pruning is done.

The state hazardous-tree route runs through the same credential. Davie, North Palm Beach and North Bay Village all provide that the residential exemption under Florida Statutes section 163.045 operates only on documentation from an ISA Certified Arborist or a Florida licensed landscape architect. North Palm Beach and North Bay Village both name the test that documentation has to meet: removal must be the only means of practically mitigating the risk below moderate, applying Best Management Practices, Tree Risk Assessment, Second Edition (2017). North Palm Beach may also engage its own certified arborist to decide an application, so a submission has to survive professional review.

Broward County draws the same line in licensing. West Park requires a county Class A trimmer license for ISA certified firms and Class B for everyone else, and Miami Lakes defines the term certified arborist by ISA certification in the code itself. Our ISA Certified Arborist (NY-6948A) holds the TRAQ qualification and produces these reports. One thing worth saying plainly: a properly conducted risk assessment sometimes concludes that a tree does not qualify for removal. That is the assessment working, and we would rather tell you before the application than have the city tell you after it.

Questions Worth Asking Before Work Starts

Start with the tree itself. Is it a specimen or historic tree by size, by species table, or by council designation? Several jurisdictions designate by ordinance rather than by measurement, so measuring the trunk will not tell you. Is it in a required landscape buffer, a landscape easement or a street tree scheme, and is it in the right of way, and if so whose? Then ask which permit, from which department, because in Miami-Dade several cities require the county permit first and their own second, and Biscayne Park will not issue the village permit until the county has granted one for that specific tree. Ask about timing, since Jupiter will not issue a removal permit unless development is expected within ninety days, Wellington prohibits speculative clearing outright, and North Palm Beach requires a preliminary approval certificate before a building permit application can even be filed. Finally ask what happens afterwards: whether replacement is required and at what ratio, whether there is a guarantee period, and whether a bond is required and at what multiple.

Guides Published So Far

Each of these was read from the city's own published code, with the section number and the date recorded on the page. We are adding jurisdictions as each one is verified rather than publishing all of them at once, because a permit page that is confidently wrong is worse than no page at all.

If Your City Is Not Listed Yet

We work across Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, and we hold researched rules for far more jurisdictions than appear above. A handful of cities in this region publish their codes on platforms we have not been able to read directly, and for those we confirm the rule with the city rather than repeating a figure we cannot source. Call us on (954) 583-4752 and we will tell you what applies to your property, or tell you plainly that we need to check with the city first. Our ISA Certified Arborist (NY-6948A) prepares the supporting reports, and we prepare and file the applications.

How These Guides Are Written

Every statement in them comes from a municipal or county code read directly and recorded with its section number and the date it was read. Where a figure is published in the code or in an official fee schedule, we give it. Where the ordinance sets the amount by resolution or administrative order, which is common in this region, we say so and name the department to call rather than guessing at a number. What these pages never do is assert the absence of a permit requirement, because the absence of a rule cannot be cited and every error we have found while compiling this material has been a wrongly stated absence. Where we have not found something, the page says what was searched, on what date, and who holds the answer. Codes are amended continuously and an amendment can be adopted before it is codified, so treat all of this as a working guide and not as legal advice.

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