Boat salesman operational licenses in florida

Alternatively, a temporary boat safety certificate may be issued to eligible applicants visiting the state and wishing to operate a vessel on Florida waterways. The temporary certificate is only valid for one year.

To apply for a permanent card, you must first complete an approved education course. Once you have received your certificate, follow the below steps to apply for an ID card:. Residents have the option to take approved online boating courses, a classroom course or an outdoor course. See below for a breakdown of each method. Do Florida boating licenses expire?

Once issued, a safety education card is valid for life. The course certificate and ID card may be used while you wait for your permanent card to be issued. Boat titles and registration certificates are not required for all vessels. The following boats are exempt. A DMV boat registration must be applied for within 30 days of purchasing a vessel. Once obtained, the registration certificate must be kept on board the vessel at all times during operation.

Registrations must be renewed annually. To become a boat dealer and achieve success, you need the ability to pay close attention to details coupled with strong skills in cost estimation.

For example, when a boat owner wants to sell you his vessel -- which you will resell -- you must inspect it, taking note of structural modifications and other features that can affect its cost, and determine its present market value. Strong customer-service and negotiation skills are also useful, as you should attend to clients with tact, and negotiate fair commissions and best boat prices.

You also need basic market research skills to, for instance, study the changing vessel preferences of boat owners and determine the kind of boats that are in demand. Early in your career you will start out as boat salesperson, working for an established boat dealership, boat retailer or manufacturer.

In states such as Florida and , you will need to obtain a salesperson license to sell yachts and other large boats. You can also secure membership in the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas and attend boating conferences and expos, where you can interact with boat owners and grow your client base.

After gaining vast work experience, raising sufficient capital and nurturing your business skills, you can establish your own dealership business.

To get started, obtain a state-specific boat dealer license and meet other local requirements for establishing a business. Customs Service are exempt, as are boats imported for sale and boats temporarily docked in Florida "temporarily," by law, means no more than 20 calendar days out of the year.

Though the point-of-sale process is a little more streamlined on the buyer's end when boat transactions happen at a Florida dealership, plenty of laws still apply to the process behind the scenes and, of course, boats purchased from a pro dealer will still need to be taxed, titled and registered. According to the Florida Department of Revenue, a boat dealer is "a person or business that sells boats, offers or imports boats for retail sale in Florida. Just as is the case in individual sales, boat sales at the dealership are taxed according to Florida's sales and use tax policy.

But, unlike personal boating transactions, dealers must collect sales tax on the entire purchase price of all tangible property being sold. Basically, this means that they have to tax the vessel itself, the motor if it's an outboard , the boat trailer and all included accessories, such as life jackets or paddles. This taxation must occur at the time of sale.

When an individual sells a boat, those additional items do not have to be taxed or itemized — just the boat itself. This ends up potentially saving the buyer a little bit of money at the time of purchase. When you buy a boat from a licensed dealership in Florida, the dealer is required to collect the state sales tax on the transaction, then pay that tax to the Florida Department of Revenue and submit the registration to the Department of Motor Vehicles. Sales tax must be collected at the time of sale.

For individuals, the buyer has to register the vehicle with the DMV, and it falls to the DMV to collect the use tax on the purchase of the vessel. Unlike pro dealers, state law doesn't require sellers to collect sales tax or register the boat on behalf of the buyer.

Things get a little more sticky if you buy a boat from an online dealership and said online dealership does not collect taxes on the purchase. If you're in the state of Florida, and you purchase a boat that is to be used in the state — that's where the "use" in use tax comes in to play — it's your legal responsibility to pay taxes on the purchase to the Department of Revenue. In this situation, you'll need to get it taken care of by good old-fashioned snail mail with Form DRMO.

Boat dealers don't miss out on that sweet tax exemption train entirely, though. If a Floridian boat dealer or yacht seller purchases a boat exclusively for the purpose of resale, that vehicle is tax exempt. To qualify for this exemption, the buyer of the used boat must present a signed copy of Form DR, Annual Resale Certificate for Sales Tax, to the seller. Boats imported for the purpose of sale are covered by this use-tax exemption, too, but only for brokers and dealers — not individual buyers or sellers.