Pinellas County consolidated its tree rules into a new ordinance effective January 23, 2026, and the county's own pages have not all caught up. What is protected at four inches, why every palm over six feet now needs a permit regardless of species, the 24-inch homestead exception and exactly who qualifies for it, the state law route that can replace the permit entirely, the rating system that decides whether a healthy tree can come out at all, and the eight steps to apply.

Most properties carry more trees than anyone on site can name, and no record of what they are or what condition they are in. Here is what changes the first time a property's trees become individual records: which trees belong in one and which do not, what you can finally ask, where the multi-year plan and the annual budget come from, what happens to everything observed from that day forward, and what a tree record honestly does not do.