What I wish snowbirds knew before they made an offer in Apollo Beach

Every October my phone starts doing the same thing.

It is a 416 or a 613 or a 905 area code, and the person on the other end has been scrolling waterfront listings from a kitchen in Ontario since roughly the first frost. They have questions. Good ones. But almost never the questions that end up costing them money.

So here is the version I give them on the phone.

First, some context. In the first quarter of 2026, Tampa ranked fifth in the country for international home-shopping activity. Only Miami, Orlando and two markets outside Florida drew more. Canadians made up 58.8% of Tampa’s international demand, up 4.6 points from the year before. You are not early, and you are not alone.

What you probably are is under-briefed. Nearly everything written for Canadian buyers is written about Miami, Naples or Fort Myers. Apollo Beach and the Southshore communities south of Tampa barely get a mention, which is a shame, because for a lot of Canadian buyers this is the better fit: deep-water canals, boat lifts, a real neighbourhood feel, and prices that have not gone the way Sarasota’s have.

How long can I actually stay?

Two separate rules govern how long you can be here, and they have nothing to do with each other. People conflate them constantly, and it causes real problems.

The immigration clock. As a Canadian visitor you are generally admitted for up to six months at a time. That is a border officer’s decision rather than an entitlement, and it says nothing at all about taxes.

The tax clock. This is the one that catches people. The IRS Substantial Presence Test counts all your U.S. days this year, plus one-third of last year’s days, plus one-sixth of the year before that. If that weighted total hits 183 and you were here at least 31 days this year, the IRS can treat you as a U.S. tax resident, and that means on your worldwide income.

Do the arithmetic. Four months a winter, every winter, gets you there: 120 + 40 + 20 = 180. One extra week and you are over.

So what stops that from happening?

Form 8840, the Closer Connection Exception. You can use it if you were physically here fewer than 183 actual days this year, kept your tax home in Canada, and have stronger ties there: home, family, bank, doctor, driver’s licence. It is due June 15 of the following year if you had no U.S. wages, April 15 if you did.

It is not automatic. You have to file it. Every year.

What is FIRPTA, and why does it bite on the way out?

Everyone researches the purchase. Almost nobody researches the sale.

When a foreign person sells U.S. real estate, the buyer is required to withhold a percentage of the gross sale price and send it to the IRS. Not your profit. The gross price.

Sale priceBuyer signs residence affidavitWithholdingUnder $300,000Yes0%$300,001 to $1,000,000Yes10%Over $1,000,000, or no affidavitEither way15%

The affidavit is the buyer confirming they will live in the property at least half the days over the next two years.

Sell an $800,000 canal home with no affidavit and $120,000 goes to the IRS at closing, regardless of whether you made a dollar. You get it back when you file. Eventually.

You can reduce it in advance by filing Form 8288-B for a withholding certificate. The IRS takes roughly 90 days, which means the time to start that paperwork is when you list, not when you are already under contract.

This is the single most expensive thing Canadian sellers learn too late.

What about the costs nobody quotes me?

No homestead exemption. Florida’s homestead exemption and its 3% Save Our Homes assessment cap both require Florida permanent residency. As a non-resident you get neither. Your assessed value can rise up to 10% a year instead of 3%, and that 10% cap does not cover school district taxes at all.

Worth watching: Amendment 3 goes to Florida voters on November 3, 2026. Should 60% approve it, the non-homestead cap drops from 10% to 5% starting January 1, 2027. The much larger homestead exemptions in that same amendment still would not apply to you, but the tighter cap would.

Insurance. Windstorm and flood are separate from your standard policy, and they are the line item that surprises people most, especially on the water. Get real quotes on a specific address before you fall in love with it. Never a regional average.

CDD fees. Many Southshore communities carry Community Development District assessments on top of HOA dues. They sit on the tax bill, they are not optional, and buyers miss them constantly when comparing two homes.

Currency. You are buying a USD asset with CAD. That is an exposure, and it cuts both ways.

Can I rent it out while I’m home?

Plenty of Canadians offset costs by renting in the off-season. Two things matter before you count on it.

Gross rental income paid to a foreign owner is subject to 30% withholding unless you elect to be taxed on a net basis, after expenses and depreciation. That election almost always produces a better result, but it requires filing.

Then there are your community’s rules. Southshore HOAs vary widely on minimum lease terms. Some allow monthly, many require three, six or twelve months, and short-term rental is off the table in a lot of neighbourhoods. Read the specific community’s documents before you buy on a rental assumption.

And the one almost nobody raises

U.S. estate tax exposure. A non-resident who is not a U.S. citizen has a dramatically smaller U.S. estate tax exemption than a citizen does. We are talking tens of thousands of dollars of U.S.-situs assets, not millions.

The Canada and U.S. tax treaty provides meaningful relief, and how you take title matters. Put this question to a cross-border accountant before you close, because it is far easier to structure at purchase than to fix later.

What about the house itself?

This is Apollo Beach, so the waterfront questions are the real questions.

Elevation and flood insurance come first. Before anything else, know the property’s elevation and get a real flood quote on that address. Two homes on the same canal can carry very different numbers.

Then the water. How deep is the canal at low tide, not at high tide, which is what listings tend to imply? What is the bridge clearance between the property and open water? And what is the lift capacity, meaning the weight the boat lift is actually rated for, which is a different question from whether it was ever permitted?

If your boat does not fit under the bridge, or the lift cannot carry it, the waterfront is decorative.

Where to start

Decide roughly how many days a year you will actually be here. That answers the tax-residency question before it becomes a problem.

Talk to a cross-border accountant early, before you make an offer rather than after. Title structure and estate planning are cheap to get right at the start.

Get insurance quotes on real addresses, not averages.

Then go look at houses.

This is general information, not tax or legal advice. Cross-border ownership touches U.S. and Canadian tax law, immigration rules and Florida property law at the same time, so work with a cross-border accountant and a Florida real estate attorney on your specific situation.

I wrote a longer version of this, with the full FAQ and the community-by-community detail, over on my site: Buying in Apollo Beach as a Canadian: What Actually Matters.

Shawna Calvert is a REALTOR® and Team Leader of The Calvert Home Team at 27North Realty in Apollo Beach. RateMyAgent ranked her #10 in its 2026 national Top 100 and named her Florida Agent of the Year, Hillsborough County Agent of the Year, and Apollo Beach Agent of the Year for the second year running. She has more than 285 verified five-star reviews there, and Stellar MLS ranks her the #1 agent in Apollo Beach by total sales volume for January 2025 through August 2026. She and her team work MiraBay, Bimini Bay, Andalucía, Waterset, Covington Park, Harbour Isles and Symphony Isles, and they answer the elevation and flood questions before you ask them.

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