Tree Removal Permits in Fort Lauderdale

Fort Lauderdale sets no diameter threshold for a tree removal permit. The rule runs the other way around: a permit is required before any tree comes down unless that species appears on the invasive plant list the city's regulations adopt by name. A young ornamental in a parking island is covered on the same terms as a mature live oak. TWQ Landscaping prepares and files these applications, and our ISA Certified Arborist (NY-6948A) produces the supporting report when the city asks for one.

Does This Apply to Your Property?

Fort Lauderdale holds a certified tree ordinance and enforces it in place of Broward County enforcement, so the city is the counterparty on an ordinary private removal rather than the county. That certification is not permanent, which is worth confirming before treating the city as the only authority on a large job.

The requirement is written by species rather than by property type, so a commercial site, an association common area, a condominium parcel, a hotel and an institutional campus all sit inside it on the same terms. Fort Lauderdale charges single-family developed sites a separate, lower permit fee rather than exempting them, which tells you the permit reaches houses too.

What Needs a Permit

Section 47-21.8(I) of the city's Unified Land Development Regulations states the rule directly. The section deals with invasive species first, requiring that anything on the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council list be cleared from construction sites and never used as landscaping, and then it states the general position in a single sentence: any tree not listed as an invasive tree requires a tree removal permit before removal. The question is not whether your tree is large enough to be caught, but whether it is invasive enough to be released, and that turns on a species list rather than on anything you can judge by looking at it.

Permits reach past removal. Section 25-147 of the Code of Ordinances requires a written permit from the city manager or the director of parks and recreation before anyone may cut, prune, break, incline, injure, remove, plant or in any other way deface a living tree, shrub or vine in a public highway or park, and the same section covers cutting or disturbing its roots. Pruning a street tree is permitted work in its own right, and so is trenching through its root zone for an irrigation line.

Section 25-148 adds a duty during construction, requiring an owner who is building or repairing a structure to place guards around nearby public trees so they are not injured. What makes these easy to miss is that the work does not feel like tree work while it is happening. Trenching a line or lifting a limb for clearance is routine maintenance everywhere else on the property, and in the right of way it is permitted work.

What It Costs

Fort Lauderdale is one of the few cities in the region that publishes an actual tree fee schedule rather than setting the amount by resolution, so the numbers here are real rather than routed to a department. Section 9-49 puts a commercial, association, institutional or industrial site at $265 flat plus $53 per tree, with a landscaping permit including review and inspection at $371 and a reinspection at $265. A single-family developed site pays $159 flat covering the first two trees and $53 for each one after.

The number that should shape the schedule of work is the after the fact rate. Removing a tree first and permitting it afterwards costs four times the per-tree fee, which is $212 a tree on top of the flat rate.

One caution applies to all of these figures. The schedule is indexed to the Consumer Price Index and adjusts every October, and the code states expressly that no ordinance, resolution, publication or public hearing is required to do it, so the amounts move without anything visible happening. We confirm the current schedule with the City Clerk before quoting.

What Happens If It Is Done Without a Permit

Section 47-21.15 names property owners, tenants, contractors and their agents in the same breath, and requires all of them to take every reasonable measure to prevent the destruction or damage of trees for which no permit has issued. Hiring a crew does not move the obligation off the property, and being hired does not leave it there.

Where a tree is destroyed or irreparably damaged, the same section requires replacement with trees of equivalent value before a certificate of occupancy or certificate of use will issue. Where a removal is permitted rather than unlawful, the money runs through a different route: a tree rated at sixty percent or better under the CTLA Guide for Plant Appraisal, tenth edition, is replaced by depositing its equivalent value into the city's Tree Canopy Trust Fund, and that payment is due when the permit issues rather than when the work finishes.

A separate obligation runs the other way. Under Section 47-21.16 a tree, dead tree or stump that threatens public health or safety, or that could foreseeably cause the spread of disease or infestation to surrounding plant life, is declared a public nuisance, and notice from the city commands its removal within thirty days. Miss that and the city removes it and charges the cost as a lien against the property, with each day the violation continues counted as a separate offense.

What to Check With Your Contractor

Fort Lauderdale specifies tree protection barricades tightly enough that orange plastic mesh does not satisfy them. Barricades must be continuous chain link on two inch metal posts, standing four feet above grade and set eighteen inches below it, and they must enclose the critical root zone out to the drip line or to a radius of one foot for every inch of trunk diameter, whichever is greater. On a twenty inch tree that is a twenty foot radius. They go up before any removal, demolition or land clearing begins, and come down only after the department inspects and authorizes it.

Root work is governed just as closely. Cutting a root two inches or larger is prohibited unless the department finds no feasible alternative, any root cut inside the critical root zone must be made at least five times the trunk diameter away from the trunk, and where roots cannot be tunneled around, the trench is excavated carefully and a two inch root is finished with a clean saw cut rather than torn by a bucket.

What to Do Next

Three things are worth settling before tree work is scheduled in Fort Lauderdale. Whether any tree in scope is on the invasive species list, since that is what decides whether a permit is needed at all. Whether anything in the scope touches a tree in the right of way or its roots, which is a separate permit under Section 25-147. And what the current fee schedule says, since it moves each October without a hearing.

We settle those before quoting. We inspect the trees, document species, size and condition, prepare the arborist report where the application calls for one, file the permit, install the barricades to the standard above, and handle replacement planting or the trust fund contribution where mitigation applies. TWQ Landscaping handles tree permitting for the properties we maintain across Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade: community associations and condominiums, commercial and industrial sites, medical and senior living campuses, schools, religious campuses, hotels, multifamily rental, self-storage, dealerships, retail outparcels, marinas, mobile home communities, municipal grounds and mixed-use. Call (954) 583-4752 or request a proposal.

TWQ Landscaping maintains commercial and community association property in Fort Lauderdale. See landscaping services in Fort Lauderdale.

The information presented on this page was accurate as of 29 August 2026.

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