Florida's Radon Disclosure: What Every Lease Must Say

If you are renting out a place in Florida, there is a short paragraph your lease is supposed to contain that has nothing to do with rent, pets, or parking. Florida requires a specific radon disclosure in most rental agreements, and the wording is set by statute rather than left to you. It is easy to overlook because it is brief and it concerns a gas most people never think about. But it is a real legal requirement, and a lease that omits it is missing a disclosure the state expects to be there.

This guide covers what the notice has to say, who has to include it, the one common exception, and why it sits next to the federal lead-paint disclosure on so many Florida leases.

What the law requires

The requirement comes from Florida Statutes section 404.056, in the subsection dealing with notification. It directs that a specific radon disclosure be provided at or before the time a rental agreement for a building is entered into. The notice must appear on at least one document, form, or application connected to the transaction. In plain terms, the radon language has to be put in front of the tenant as part of the leasing paperwork, and the lease itself is the natural place for it.

Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that can accumulate indoors, and Florida has documented buildings where levels run high. The disclosure is an informational notice. It does not require testing or any work on the property. It requires telling the tenant the facts the statute lays out.

It helps to understand why the rule exists at all. Radon is colorless and odorless, so a tenant has no way to know it is present without being told it is a possibility. The statute does not assume any given building has a problem. It simply makes sure the renter is informed that radon exists, that some Florida buildings have shown concerning levels, and that the county health department is the place to learn more. The burden on the landlord is light. You are not certifying anything about the unit. You are passing along a standard notice.

The exact notice your lease should contain

The statute provides the language. Based on the text of Florida Statutes 404.056, the required radon notice reads as follows:

"RADON GAS: Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that, when it has accumulated in a building in sufficient quantities, may present health risks to persons who are exposed to it over time. Levels of radon that exceed federal and state guidelines have been found in buildings in Florida. Additional information regarding radon and radon testing may be obtained from your county health department."

That paragraph is the heart of the requirement. Because the wording is statutory, the safe practice is to reproduce it as written rather than paraphrase it. If you want to confirm the current text yourself, the official Florida statute is linked in the sources at the end, and it is worth a quick read since legislatures do revise statutes over time.

Who it applies to, and the 45-day exception

The disclosure requirement applies broadly to rental agreements for buildings, which means a standard residential lease in Florida falls within it. If you are leasing a home or apartment to a tenant, the radon notice belongs in your paperwork.

There is one notable carve-out. The statute exempts transient occupancies, meaning short stays. Specifically, occupancies of 45 days or less are not subject to the disclosure requirement. So a short-term or vacation-style rental at the very short end of the spectrum sits outside the rule, while an ordinary residential lease for months or a year does not. If your arrangement is genuinely brief, check the exact length against that 45-day line, and when in doubt, including the notice anyway does no harm.

How it fits with the federal lead-paint disclosure

Florida landlords often see the radon notice sitting right beside another required disclosure, and it helps to understand they come from different places. The radon disclosure is Florida state law. The lead-based paint disclosure is federal law, and it applies nationwide to most housing built before 1978, requiring landlords to disclose known lead hazards and provide an information pamphlet.

They are separate obligations that happen to live in the same stack of move-in paperwork. One is a Florida rule about radon gas. The other is a federal rule about lead paint in older buildings. A Florida lease for a pre-1978 home would generally need both. Treat them as two boxes to check, not one, because satisfying one does nothing for the other.

This pairing is a useful reminder that disclosures stack rather than substitute. A complete Florida lease may carry several required notices at once depending on the property and its age, and missing any one of them is its own problem. The radon notice does not cover you on lead paint, and the lead-paint pamphlet does not cover you on radon. The cleanest habit is to keep a short list of the disclosures your particular rental triggers and confirm each one is present before the lease is signed, rather than assuming a general template handled all of them for you.

Putting it in your lease the right way

The cleanest approach is to build the radon notice directly into the lease so it is signed as part of the agreement, alongside the federal lead-paint disclosure where that applies. That way the required language is documented, dated, and acknowledged, and you are not relying on a separate slip of paper that can go missing.

If you are drafting a Florida agreement, our Florida residential lease is built with the state's requirements in mind, so the radon language and other state-specific terms are accounted for rather than left to memory. For agreements in other states, our general lease agreement builder covers the disclosures that apply where you rent. The radon notice is a small paragraph, but it is a required one in Florida, and the easiest way to comply is to make sure it is there from the start rather than discovering it was missing later.

Sources

• Florida Statutes 404.056 (Florida Senate)