What Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks earn in Miami-Dade County, FL
If you are weighing a move or a job offer, start with $35,500: the median annual pay for Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks in Miami-Dade County, FL. Spread over a standard 2,080-hour work year, that is $17.07 an hour. Because the wage survey covers the whole Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL metropolitan area, the number reflects employers across the region rather than a single town or a single company.
The mean wage is $36,470, which is 2.7% above the median, so pay is spread fairly evenly. The survey counts about 6,860 people working in this occupation across the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL metropolitan area, so the estimate rests on a substantial pool of workers. Miami-Dade County, FL has roughly 2,738,356 residents, according to the population figures used by the rent data.
The salary range, from entry level to top earners
Pay for Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL metropolitan area is not one number. The lowest-paid tenth of workers earn up to $30,910 a year ($14.86 an hour), while the highest-paid tenth earn $44,610 or more ($21.45 an hour). That is a gap of $13,700 between the bottom and the top of the scale. The middle half of workers falls between $33,900 at the 25th percentile and $37,900 at the 75th percentile. A top-tier earner makes 1.4 times what someone at the bottom makes, so experience, certification and employer all matter.
What the hourly rate looks like
Employers quote this occupation by the hour or by the year, so here are both: $17.07 an hour or $35,500 a year at the median for Miami-Dade County, FL. Before any deductions, that is $2,958 a month, $1,365 every two weeks and $683 each week. After taxes the same job pays $14.74 per hour of take-home income, which is the number that actually has to cover rent and groceries.
About this occupation: Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks
The U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET database describes the work of Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks this way: "Accommodate hotel, motel, and resort patrons by registering and assigning rooms to guests, issuing room keys or cards, transmitting and receiving messages, keeping records of occupied rooms and guests' accounts, making and confirming reservations, and presenting statements to and collecting payments from departing guests."
Core tasks recorded by O*NET include: "Greet, register, and assign rooms to guests of hotels or motels"; "Verify customers' credit, and establish how the customer will pay for the accommodation"; "Keep records of room availability and guests' accounts, manually or using computers"; "Compute bills, collect payments, and make change for guests".
Job outlook for Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects national employment in this occupation to grow from 264,600 jobs in 2025 to 269,500 in 2035, a change of +1.8%, slower than the 3.5% projected for all occupations. The projection counts 35,500 openings a year on average, including positions created by growth and positions left by workers who retire or move to another occupation; that equals 13.4% of current employment each year.
Typical entry-level education: high school diploma or equivalent. Typical on-the-job training to reach competency: short-term on-the-job training. BLS lists a national median annual wage of $35,070 for this occupation; the Miami-Dade County, FL median of $35,500 is 1.2% above it.
How pay in Miami-Dade County, FL compares
Compared with the Florida average
Pay for Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks in Miami-Dade County, FL is in line with the statewide figure: $35,500 locally against an employment-weighted Florida average of $35,177, a difference of only $323 (0.9%). Within Florida, Miami-Dade County, FL already has the highest median we track for this job.
Compared with the national average
The national employment-weighted average for Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks is $34,340 across the contiguous United States. At $35,500, Miami-Dade County, FL pays $1,160 more, which is 3.4% above that benchmark. Keep in mind that a higher salary only helps if living costs do not rise faster, which is why the cost sections below matter as much as the headline number.
Where this job ranks in Miami-Dade County, FL
Among the 572 occupations with published wages in Miami-Dade County, FL, Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks ranks number 523 by median pay, ahead of about 9% of them. The best-paying occupation we track here is Computer and Information Systems Managers at $169,600 a year, which is $134,100 more than the median for Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks.
From gross pay to take-home pay
Three separate tax bills sit between the gross salary and the bank account: federal income tax, FICA, and state income tax. For Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks earning the Miami-Dade County, FL median of $35,500, they add up to $4,847. The result is $30,653 of take-home pay a year ($2,554 a month), based on a single filer using the standard deduction.
Put another way, of every $100 earned, about $14 goes to taxes and $86 reaches the paycheck. The overall effective tax rate is 13.7%.
Federal income tax
After the $15,750 standard deduction, taxable income is $19,750. Federal brackets are marginal, so only the slice of income above each threshold is taxed at the higher rate; the last dollars of this salary fall in the 12% bracket. The resulting federal income tax is $2,132, an effective 6.0% of gross pay, well below the 12% marginal rate because the lower brackets are cheaper.
Social Security and Medicare (FICA)
Payroll taxes are a flat percentage of wages. Social Security takes 6.2% up to a wage base of $176,100, which costs $2,201 on this salary. Medicare takes 1.45%, or $515. FICA totals $2,716, which is 7.6% of gross pay.
State income tax in Florida
Florida does not tax wage income, so the state income tax line for Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks in Miami-Dade County, FL is $0. That alone leaves more in the paycheck than the same salary would in a state with an income tax. For scale, a hypothetical flat 5% state tax on this salary would cost about $1,775 a year, so the absence of a state tax is worth roughly $148 a month.
A cross-check with IRS data for Miami-Dade County, FL
IRS Statistics of Income data for Miami-Dade County, FL show an average adjusted gross income of $93,606 per return and an average effective federal income tax rate of 18.1% across all filers. Filers in the $25,000 to under $50,000 bracket, where this salary falls, paid an average of 5.1%, compared with the 6.0% estimated here for a single filer taking the standard deduction. Gaps between the two reflect filing status, dependents, credits and other income, none of which a single-person wage estimate includes.
Cost of living in Miami-Dade County, FL
Take-home pay only means something next to what life costs. We price four basics for one adult in Miami-Dade County, FL: a one-bedroom apartment, food, home energy and gasoline. All of them are converted to annual figures first, then compared with the $30,653 of take-home pay.
Rent
Housing is the largest line in most budgets. For Miami-Dade County, FL, HUD sets the Fair Market Rent for a one-bedroom unit at $2,121 a month ($25,452 a year), and at $2,564 for two bedrooms. For Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks, a one-bedroom absorbs 83.0% of take-home pay and 71.7% of gross pay.
Food
The USDA Thrifty Food Plan (August 2026) puts the cost of a nutritious home-cooked diet for an adult at about $3,436 a year, which is $286 a month or $66.07 a week. That equals 9.7% of gross pay for Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks in Miami-Dade County, FL. It is a thrifty budget with no restaurant meals, so treat it as a floor.
Energy and gasoline
Using Florida residential prices from the Energy Information Administration and national household averages for consumption, electricity costs about $1,494 a year and other home energy such as natural gas about $1,005, for $2,498 in total. Gasoline in Florida averages $3.08 per gallon; at about 463 gallons a year (11,106 miles at 24 miles per gallon) fuel adds $1,427.
What is left over
The basics cost $32,814 a year in Miami-Dade County, FL, but take-home pay for Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks is $30,653. That is a shortfall of $2,161 a year, or $180 a month, before health care, transportation beyond fuel, debt or savings. Closing the gap would take roughly 147 extra paid hours a year at the take-home hourly rate of $14.74, or a second earner, a cheaper home or a roommate.
Local housing and commute data for Miami-Dade County, FL
The budget above covers rent, food, energy and gasoline. Three more local facts shape what a paycheck buys in Miami-Dade County, FL: property taxes, housing prices and the daily commute. The figures below are exact U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 2020-2024 5-year estimates for Miami-Dade County, FL, set beside the Florida and national medians.
Property taxes in Miami-Dade County, FL
Homeowners in Miami-Dade County, FL pay a median of $3,744 a year in real estate taxes, 37% above the Florida median of $2,730 and 20% above the U.S. median of $3,119. Against a median home value of $463,000, the median tax bill is 0.81% of that value (the ratio of the two county medians). For a worker paid the local Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks median of $35,500, a tax bill of that size would equal 10.5% of gross pay, which matters for anyone planning to buy rather than rent.
Rents, home prices and household income in Miami-Dade County, FL
Renters in Miami-Dade County, FL pay a median gross rent of $1,829 a month in the Census survey, 10% above the Florida median of $1,669. HUD's Fair Market Rent for a one-bedroom apartment, which this site uses in the budget, is $2,121 a month; the two measures differ because the Census figure covers units of every size that renters already occupy, while the HUD figure is a one-bedroom benchmark. The median value of an owner-occupied home is $463,000, 29% above the Florida median of $359,000. Median household income is $71,753, 4% below the Florida median of $74,568, so a year of one-bedroom Fair Market Rent equals 35.5% of that income.
Commuting in Miami-Dade County, FL
Workers in Miami-Dade County, FL who travel to a workplace spend an average of 30.9 minutes each way, 10% above the Florida average of 28.0. For someone who commutes five days a week, that is 5.2 hours of round-trip travel every week, a cost the budget does not price. 14.0% of workers in Miami-Dade County, FL work from home, compared with 15.1% nationally, which removes the commute for them.
Can Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks afford to live in Miami-Dade County, FL?
The 30% rent guideline
A common rule of thumb says rent should stay under 30% of gross income. For a gross salary of $35,500 that ceiling is $888 a month. The one-bedroom Fair Market Rent of $2,121 is $1,234 over it, so rent breaks the guideline. Put as a wage, covering a one-bedroom at the 30% guideline takes $40.79 an hour; the median for Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks is $17.07, which is 58% below that mark. Another way to see it: at $14.74 of take-home pay an hour, a one-bedroom takes about 33.2 working hours every week.
Splitting a two-bedroom
Sharing a two-bedroom at $2,564 a month means $1,282 each. Compared with renting a one-bedroom alone, that saves $10,068 a year. With a roommate, the yearly margin after the basics becomes $7,907, which turns the shortfall into a surplus.
How fast you can save
With no monthly margin after the four basics, saving requires a change on one side of the ledger: higher pay than the $35,500 median, lower housing costs than the $2,121 one-bedroom rent, or a second income.
Frequently asked questions about Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks pay in Miami-Dade County, FL
How much do Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks make per hour in Miami-Dade County, FL?
The median is $17.07 per hour, based on $35,500 a year over 2,080 hours. Hourly pay runs from about $14.86 at the 10th percentile to $21.45 at the 90th percentile.
How much do Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks take home after taxes in Miami-Dade County, FL?
After federal income tax, FICA, the median salary of $35,500 becomes $30,653 a year. That is $2,554 a month, $1,179 every two weeks or $589 a week.
How much tax do Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks pay in Miami-Dade County, FL?
Total taxes are $4,847 a year, an effective rate of 13.7%: $2,132 federal income tax, $2,716 FICA and no Florida income tax.
Do Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks earn more in Miami-Dade County, FL than elsewhere in Florida?
It is about the same. The local median of $35,500 is within 0.9% of the Florida average of $35,177.
Can Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks afford a one-bedroom apartment in Miami-Dade County, FL?
A one-bedroom costs $2,121 a month against take-home pay of $2,554, which is 83.0% of take-home pay. That does not meet the 30%-of-gross guideline, which allows up to $888 a month.
What is the monthly budget margin for Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks in Miami-Dade County, FL?
Nothing remains: the basics cost $32,814 a year, which is $2,161 more than take-home pay, a monthly shortfall of $180.
What hourly wage covers a one-bedroom in Miami-Dade County, FL at the 30% guideline?
$40.79 an hour for a full-time schedule, calculated as the $25,452 annual rent divided by 0.30 and by 2,080 hours. The median for Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks is $17.07.
How we calculated these numbers
Wages are May 2025 medians from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey for the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL metropolitan area; hourly-only values are annualized at 2,080 hours. Rents are HUD Fair Market Rents, food costs come from the USDA Thrifty Food Plan, and energy prices come from the Energy Information Administration. County-level tax statistics come from the IRS Statistics of Income.
Taxes use tax-year 2025 federal brackets, FICA rates and the Florida rules for a single filer with wage income only. Figures are estimates for planning and comparison, not tax or financial advice, and they exclude local income taxes, benefits, retirement contributions and individual circumstances.