How to Get a Tree Removal Permit in Dunedin, Florida
Updated: 1 day ago
Published September 7, 2026. Reviewed and rewritten September 20, 2026 against the City of Dunedin Code of Ordinances as codified through Ordinance No. 26-01, Supplement 48.
In Dunedin you need a city tree permit before removing any tree measuring 4 inches or more in trunk diameter, unless the species is on the city's exempt list. The application goes through the Dunedin Citizen Self Service Portal, carries a $25 processing fee, and is reviewed by the City Arborist after a site inspection.
The part that surprises people is that the permit is a decision rather than a formality. Dunedin's ordinance opens from the position that every protected tree stays where it is, and then sets out the specific conditions under which one may come out. Knowing those conditions before you apply is the difference between an approval and a denial you did not see coming.
Everything below is sourced to the codified ordinance at Chapter 105, Division 3, Sections 105-35 through 105-35.24, and to the city's own published materials. Where those two disagree, and in one case they do, both are named.
What counts as a protected tree in Dunedin?
The code defines a protected tree as any tree species that is 4 inches or greater in trunk diameter measured at 4.5 feet above grade and of a species that is not exempted, and adds that the term also includes any tree designated as a Grand Tree.
Two definitions sit underneath that and both matter. A tree, in Dunedin's ordinance, is a woody plant with one or more well-defined perennial trunks and a formed crown that reaches a total height of at least 15 feet at maturity. A species that never gets that tall is not a tree for these purposes, whatever its trunk measures. And the definition of tree expressly names four mangroves wherever they occur inside the city limits: Red Mangrove, White Mangrove, Black Mangrove, and Buttonwood or Button Mangrove.
Four inches is a low threshold, and it cuts both ways. A tree most homeowners would call small very often needs a permit. A tree genuinely under 4 inches does not. Measuring first is worth the thirty seconds.
How to measure your own tree
Diameter is measured at 4.5 feet above the ground, which is why you will see it written as DBH, for diameter at breast height. You do not need a special tool. Put a tape measure around the trunk at that height to get the circumference, then divide by 3.14. That is your diameter.
A trunk measuring 13 inches around is roughly 4 inches in diameter, which is the threshold. A trunk measuring 63 inches around is roughly 20 inches.
One rule catches people out on older trees: if the trunk forks below 4.5 feet, the code requires the diameter to be a composite of each section of trunk, not a measurement of the largest stem. A multi-trunk tree can be protected when no single stem would have been.
Mangroves are a separate matter
Mangroves are inside the city's definition of a tree, and they also carry separate state regulation administered locally by Pinellas County under delegated authority from the Mangrove Trimming and Preservation Act. Mangrove work is never a same-day decision and never a do-it-yourself one. Start with the county, not the city.
Which trees can be removed without a permit?
Section 105-35.4 lists the species the tree provisions do not apply to. A tree on this list needs no permit at any size:
Australian pine (Casuarina spp.)
Brazilian pepper (Schinus terebinthifolius)
Carrotwood (Cupaniopsis anacardiopsis)
Chinaberry (Melia azedarach)
Cherry laurel (Prunus caroliniana)
Chinese tallow (Sapium sebiferum)
Citrus (Citrus spp.)
Ear tree (Enterolobium cyclocarpa)
Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus spp., except Eucalyptus cinerea)
Fig trees (Ficus spp.)
Indian rosewood (Dalbergia sissoo)
Norfolk Island pine (Araucaria heterophylla)
Orchid tree (Bauhinia variegata)
All palm species except cabbage palm with 6 feet of clear trunk or greater (Sabal palmetto)
Paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera)
Punk tree (Melaleuca quinquenervia)
Silk oak (Grevillea robusta)
Toog (Bischofia spp.)
Woman's tongue (Albizia lebbeck)
Note the Eucalyptus qualifier, which is easy to miss. Eucalyptus is exempt as a genus except Eucalyptus cinerea, the silver dollar gum. That one needs a permit.
One species where the city's own sources disagree
The ordinance and the city's published materials do not carry the same list, and the difference is one species.
Section 105-35.4 of the codified ordinance includes Chinaberry (Melia azedarach) among the exempt species, nineteen entries in total. The city's Tree Removal and Grand Tree Pruning Permits page and its 2025 Tree Protection and Preservation brochure both publish the same list with Chinaberry absent, eighteen entries.
The codified ordinance is the enacted law, and it exempts Chinaberry. The practical advice is still to confirm with the City Arborist before removing one, because the person reviewing your application may be working from the published list rather than from the code. Chinaberry also appears on the city's own invasive species list at Section 105-35.19, where planting it is prohibited outright, so there is no reading of the rules under which the city wants a Chinaberry kept.
Are palm trees exempt in Dunedin?
Most are. The ordinance exempts all palm species except cabbage palm with 6 feet of clear trunk or greater (Sabal palmetto). That single line turns on two things, and most summaries get one of them wrong.
Every palm species other than the cabbage palm is exempt, at any size. Queen palm, washingtonia, pygmy date, foxtail: no permit.
The cabbage palm, also called the sabal palm, is protected once it has six feet or more of clear trunk. Clear trunk means the bare trunk below the lowest fronds, not the overall height of the palm.
A cabbage palm with less than six feet of clear trunk is exempt.
Cabbage palm and sabal palm are two names for one species, Sabal palmetto, not two species. The code names both because both are in common use.
The clear trunk test matters because it is not the same as height. A sabal palm with six feet of clear trunk is commonly fifteen to twenty feet tall overall, so a palm can look large and still sit under the threshold. Measure the bare trunk.
Dunedin and unincorporated Pinellas County have just diverged on this
This is new enough that plenty of people in the trade have not caught up. Unincorporated Pinellas County rewrote its tree regulations effective January 23, 2026 and now protects every palm six feet or taller in overall height, regardless of species. Dunedin did not make that change and still exempts everything but the cabbage palm.
So the same queen palm is exempt in Dunedin and protected a few miles up the road in Palm Harbor. If you have been told palms never need a permit in Florida, that is the Dunedin version of the rule and it does not travel across the city line. We have written up what unincorporated Pinellas County requires separately.
Dunedin is expressly outside the county's tree ordinance, and says so: Section 105-35.3 exempts the territory within the city limits from Pinellas County Ordinance No. 76-16. The city's rules are the city's own.
There is also a rule about palm fronds
Section 105-35.8 restricts frond removal on any palm with six feet of clear trunk or greater. No frond may be removed that emanates from the trunk at or above a 90 degree angle perpendicular to the trunk unless the frond is dead or severely chlorotic. In plain terms, the fronds growing horizontally or upward stay unless they are dead or badly yellowed, and stripping a palm back to a narrow plume is not permitted. The Parks Division waives the rule where a frond is touching an energized wire, blocking a sign, or otherwise creating a safety hazard.
What is a Grand Tree, and what size qualifies?
A Grand Tree carries the strongest protection in the ordinance, and it is the one designation that also makes pruning a permitted activity rather than routine maintenance.
Section 105.35.5 sets two qualifications, and a tree must meet both. First, it must be one of thirteen named species at or above a minimum trunk diameter:
Bald cypress, pond cypress, longleaf pine, slash pine including the Densa variety, pignut hickory, southern magnolia, southern red cedar, sweetbay: 28 inches DBH
American elm, sand live oak: 30 inches DBH
Laurel oak, swamp laurel oak, live oak: 36 inches DBH
Second, it must have an overall condition rating of at least 4.0 under the City of Dunedin Tree Condition Rating Guidelines and the Tree Evaluation Form for Overall Condition, which the Parks Division provides.
Both halves matter. A 40 inch live oak in poor condition is not a Grand Tree, and no species outside those thirteen qualifies however large it is. That is a more workable rule than a single diameter threshold, and it is why a straight answer to how big a Grand Tree is depends on what the tree is.
Do you need a permit just to trim a tree?
Only if the tree is a Grand Tree. Canopy pruning and root pruning on a Grand Tree must be performed by or under the direct supervision of an Approved Arborist, and the Parks Division decides whether the tree can tolerate the proposed pruning. The code defines an Approved Arborist as someone currently recognised by the International Society of Arboriculture as a Certified Arborist, or by the American Society of Consulting Arborists as a Registered Consulting Arborist.
For any other tree, normal maintenance pruning needs no permit, provided it is done to ANSI A300 standards. There are hard limits on what counts as maintenance.
The 25 percent rule, and it is cumulative
It is unlawful to remove more than 25 percent of a protected tree's live foliage cumulatively during any twelve month period. Cumulatively is the word that catches people. Two separate visits inside a year are added together, so a crew that takes 20 percent in spring and another 15 percent in autumn has put the property in violation even though neither visit crossed the line on its own.
The code also states how the city decides: it looks at the quantity and diameter of vertical stems pruned, and at aerial or other recent photographs showing the tree before the work. There is no permit that authorises going beyond 25 percent. It is simply prohibited.
Practices the city treats as illegal pruning
Topping is unlawful outright, and the ordinance defines it precisely: pruning that reduces the height of a tree by making heading cuts through stems more than two years old, or removing leaders back to lateral branches less than one third the size of the cut stem. Crown reduction, done to ANSI A300, is the recognised alternative.
The code also prohibits flush cuts, which remove the branch collar, and stub cuts, which leave a limb stub. A tree that has been improperly pruned will not be recognised as left in a healthy growing condition, which means it stops counting toward the property's required tree numbers. The city's brochure adds lion-tailing and excessive thinning to the same list of practices it treats as illegal pruning.
Root pruning has its own rules
Root pruning is prohibited adjacent to or around any tree 10 inches DBH and larger unless it is approved and supervised by the Parks Division. Where construction will disturb the critical root zone, roots must be cut cleanly at a root prune line the Parks Division establishes in the field, to a depth of 12 inches, and the work must be performed by or under the direct supervision of an Approved Arborist. The critical root zone is defined as one foot of radius for every inch of trunk diameter, with a minimum of 8 feet.
Trenching for a driveway, a pool, an irrigation line or a utility run is the common way this gets crossed without anyone intending to. Directional boring instead of open trenching can get the root pruning requirement waived.
Can you prune a neighbour's tree that hangs over your property?
Yes, and Dunedin's ordinance is unusually explicit about it. Section 105-35.11 lists an adjacent property owner exercising their common law self-help remedy as an eligible applicant for a permit to structurally prune branches overhanging their property. The city recognises the right and puts a process around it.
Two things follow. Routine ANSI A300 pruning of a tree that is not a Grand Tree stays exempt, so trimming an overhang back properly is not a permit matter. Structural pruning is different, and the code gives the neighbour standing to apply for it.
The technique is specified either way. The city's brochure states that a reduction cut is normally what is required, cutting back to the next live lateral branch at least one third the diameter of the stem removed, rather than cutting the limb off vertically along the property line. And the 25 percent cumulative limit applies to the whole tree, not to your side of it. A cut that satisfies the property line and mutilates the tree is still illegal pruning, and the tree belongs to your neighbour.
The permit is a decision, not a formality
Section 105-35.13 opens with the sentence that sets the whole tone: every protected tree under this division shall be retained on site. A removal permit is granted only under specific conditions:
At the time of inspection the tree is dead, declining, diseased, damaged, has defective structure, is in danger of falling, is endangering existing structures or utility services, or creates an unsafe sight clearance that cannot be mitigated.
It is found to be in the interest of the general public's health, safety and welfare that the tree be removed.
The tree stands where a structure or improvement may be placed under the city's development rules, no reasonable economic use can be made of the property without removing it, it cannot reasonably be relocated because of its age, type or size, and no site plan or architectural change could preserve it.
City staff field check every application, inspect the site, and weigh the effect of the proposed work on the local environment, other natural features, and economic values both on the property and around it.
The exception most homeowners actually need
There is a fourth pathway, and it exists only for existing single-family residential lots. Under Section 105-35.14, a removal permit may be considered for a healthy tree, other than a Grand Tree, if two conditions are met: the property still meets or exceeds the minimum number of trees for its lot size after the removal, and good reason is found. The code gives examples of good reason: improved aesthetics, function, or removal of a nuisance tree.
That is discretionary. It sits with the Parks Division, and it is not available for a Grand Tree. But it means the honest answer to whether you can remove a healthy tree in your own yard is that you can ask, on a single-family lot, and the answer depends on how many trees are left behind.
Will you have to plant a replacement tree?
It depends on what is left standing afterward, which is why the minimum tree count is the number to know before you apply. Section 105-35.17 publishes it by lot size:
Up to 6,000 square feet: 2 trees
6,001 to 10,000 square feet: 4 trees
10,001 to 15,000 square feet: 6 trees
Over 15,000 square feet: 8 trees, plus one more for each 2,000 square feet or part thereof above 15,000
Any tree the city determines was left in a healthy growing condition counts toward that minimum. A lot with an approved retention or detention pond has the requirement reduced by the pond's area.
On an existing single-family lot
If the property still meets the minimum after the removal, no replacement is required.
If the removal drops it below the minimum: one replacement tree for a removal under 19 inches DBH, two for 19 inches or greater.
Where the permit is granted for a healthy tree under the discretionary pathway, replacement is one caliper inch planted for each DBH inch removed, or a fee of $60 per DBH inch to the city's tree bank, or any combination of the two.
A Grand Tree approved for removal requires one caliper inch planted for each DBH inch removed, or $60 per DBH inch to the tree bank if there is not space.
A cabbage or sabal palm is replaced with one DBH inch of Sabal palmetto per DBH inch removed, or one caliper inch of shade tree for every three DBH inches removed, or $20 per DBH inch to the tree bank.
On every other property type
One caliper inch planted back on site for every DBH inch removed, and the site must still meet the minimum tree count.
Where there is insufficient space, $120 per DBH inch may be paid to the tree bank instead, or any combination.
Replacement is waived for a tree under 19 inches DBH located within the primary building pad, roof line or foundation line where the structure cannot be relocated even with reduced land coverage.
A Grand Tree approved for removal must be replaced with species from the Grand Tree list.
Replacement trees have minimum standards of their own: at least 8 feet tall, 2 inches in trunk caliper, Florida Grade Number 1 quality or better, and of a species commensurate with what was removed, drawn from the city's approved tree list. You guarantee them for one year, the Parks Division inspects, and anything that dies inside that year is yours to replace.
How do you apply?
Measure the trunk diameter at 4.5 feet and identify the species. Both decide whether you need a permit at all.
Check the minimum tree count for your lot size, because it decides whether replacement will be required.
Register or log in to the Dunedin Citizen Self Service Portal and open the Tree Permit Application.
Pay the $25 processing fee with the online application.
If you are asking to remove more than five trees, include a sketch of the property, minimum 8.5 by 11 inches, showing where each one is.
City staff field check the application and inspect the site. Approval or denial comes back through the portal.
The code is specific about who may apply. The legal property owner where the trunk sits wholly on their land; a tenant in common owner where the trunk straddles a mutual property line, with the neighbour's written permission; an adjacent owner structurally pruning an overhang; a tree service hired by the owner and currently licensed with the city; or a representative holding a signed and notarised affidavit from the owner.
Whoever applies, the property owner remains liable for any replacement requirement or tree bank mitigation assessed as a condition of approval. Permit fees are due on approval. Questions go to the City Arborist at 727-298-3279 or [email protected].
Removing a tree for construction, a pool or an addition
One detail here contradicts what a lot of contractors assume. For any site proposed for development, expansion or demolition, Section 105-35.12 requires the tree permit application to be filed with the building permit application and reviewed alongside it. It is not a separate errand to run afterward.
The site plan has to show the location, species and size of every tree on site 4 inches DBH and greater, including exempt species, with Grand Trees specifically noted and accurately located, and each tree marked for removal, replanting or retention. Depending on the project, the city can also require an inventory of trees on adjacent properties within 25 feet of the property line, a condition rating for each tree, and the whole thing completed and signed by an Approved Arborist. A grading plan showing existing and proposed grades within 50 feet of any protected tree is required, as is the location and type of all tree barricades.
Any site retaining protected trees must also submit a Tree Preservation Plan at the construction permit phase, prepared and signed by an Approved Arborist, as its own page of the construction plans. If there are no trees on the site at all, a No Trees Exist Verification Statement goes in with the building permit application.
What happens if a tree is removed without a permit?
The ordinance and the brochure state this differently, and it is worth having both.
Section 105-35.22 sets the civil penalty for illegal removal or effective removal at two times the rate of the permit for such tree removal, and fines illegal pruning or other prohibited acts at $100 per violation. The city's 2025 brochure publishes the resulting figures as $120 per trunk inch at an existing single-family home and $240 per trunk inch on all other properties, due within 30 days, with the money going to the city's tree bank. Those figures are twice the code's in-lieu mitigation rates of $60 and $120 per DBH inch.
On a 20 inch tree at a single-family home, that is $2,400. It routinely costs more than the removal would have.
The collection mechanism is the part worth reading twice. The city clerk files a lien in the county public records against the violator's property, and the code states that lien is superior to all other encumbrances of record including those recorded prior in time, except tax liens. The city may foreclose on it, with costs and attorney's fees. The same penalty reaches pruning severe enough to amount to effective removal.
Enforcement sits with the Parks Division, coordinating with the Dunedin Code Enforcement Board. One procedural note if you are on the receiving end of a complaint: the city does not accept anonymous code violation reports, per Senate Bill CS/SB 60, and the person filing has to give their name, phone number and address before an enforcement proceeding can occur.
Dunedin makes it unlawful to have a hazard tree
This one is genuinely unusual and most homeowners have no idea it exists. Section 105-35.7 makes it unlawful to have a hazard tree on any property within the city. Not to ignore one after notice. To have one.
The code defines a hazard tree as one that, in the department's opinion, has significant potential to cause injury to persons or damage to property because it is in imminent danger of falling or is otherwise causing a hazard that threatens public safety, and states it includes but is not limited to dead, severely declining, diseased, broken, split, cracked, leaning or uprooted trees.
The process once a tree is designated: written notice and 15 calendar days to remove it. If it is still standing, a notice of violation with a date before the Code Enforcement Board. If the board agrees a violation exists, another 15 days. After that the city removes the tree itself, charges the cost to the property owner, and may place a lien on the property to recover it.
Practical consequence: a dead tree is not a problem you can leave alone indefinitely, and it still needs a permit to remove. Section 105-35.9 requires a permit to remove any protected tree, and states in parentheses including dead trees.
What the city requires of whoever does the work
Section 105-35.7 sets requirements on the tree service, not the homeowner, and they are worth knowing because they give you a concrete way to check a bid that looks too cheap.
A current occupational license issued by the City of Dunedin that permits tree maintenance in the city.
Workers compensation insurance as required by law.
A minimum of $500,000 general liability insurance of the classification that describes the insurer as a tree service company, covering tree removal and working at height from a bucket truck or by climbing. The code states plainly that general liability insurance for landscape or lawn maintenance does not meet this requirement.
Compliance with ANSI Z133.1 safety standards and applicable OSHA standards. A company found non-compliant may be ordered to stop work and reported to OSHA.
FDOT maintenance of traffic and MUTCD work zone requirements for any equipment in the city right-of-way.
Debris hauled off site. It is unlawful for a paid tree crew to leave branches or trunk sections at the curb for city solid waste pickup.
The insurance classification point is the useful one. Plenty of companies carry a landscaping policy and describe themselves as insured. Ask for the certificate and look at what class of work it names.
What if the tree is genuinely a hazard to your house?
Florida Statutes 163.045 is the statewide path, and it sits above the city ordinance. A local government may not require notice, application, approval, permit, fee or mitigation to prune, trim or remove a tree on residential property when the owner holds documentation from an ISA Certified Arborist or a Florida licensed landscape architect that the tree poses an unacceptable risk to persons or property, and may not require replanting afterward.
The standard is narrow. Removal must be the only means of practically reducing the risk below moderate, determined under the tree risk assessment procedures in Best Management Practices, Tree Risk Assessment, Second Edition, 2017, and the assessment has to be made onsite.
The scope limits matter as much as the exemption. The statute reaches a detached single-family building on a lot actively used for single-family residential purposes, as a conforming or legally nonconforming use. It does not reach commercial property, HOA common areas, multifamily or institutional sites, and it does not reach mangroves.
Said plainly, because this is where homeowners get talked into trouble: this path is not available for a structurally sound tree. Branches touching a roof or a service drop are a pruning problem, not automatically an unacceptable risk, and an honest assessment will usually say so. Reaching for the statute on a healthy tree is how a straightforward removal turns into a code violation.
Where a tree genuinely does meet that standard, the signed report is something we arrange as part of the job. You are not sent off to find an arborist on your own.
Why a permit gets denied, and what you can do about it
Section 105-35.21 states the city's intent directly: to save and protect existing healthy trees to the greatest degree possible, and to place the obligation on the owner to modify or reduce development impacts to achieve it. A denial has to be given in writing with the criteria it rests on. The named grounds:
The tree has sufficient health and structure at the time of inspection to warrant preservation.
A building can be modified or lot coverage reduced to protect the tree. The code caps that: no such reduction shall be required in excess of 30 percent.
The tree provides verifiable habitat to a legislatively designated endangered or protected bird species during nesting season, between January 1 and June 30, even where the tree has died. This ground does not apply to hazard trees.
The tree is a Grand Tree, which a developer must preserve unless it qualifies for removal under Section 105-35.13.
Two routes exist after a denial. An interpretation dispute goes to the Board of Adjustment and Appeal. And where strict adherence is impossible or impractical and the owner can show hardship emanating from the property, a variance may be requested from the same board. There is a specific variance aimed at saving a tree: an owner may apply to vary lot development standards such as building height, setbacks, lot coverage or parking in order to preserve a tree with a minimum 18 inch DBH and a rating of 3.5 or greater.
One thing that is never a variance argument: the code states that tree replacement costs or fees are not grounds for a variance.
Trees in the right-of-way
All trees and shrubs planted in publicly owned right-of-way are the property of the city, and the city has the right to prune or remove them for public safety and utility work. Planting one there requires written permission from the Public Works Department in advance. Removing one requires written permission from the Parks Division. Injuring or destroying one carries a criminal or civil penalty, or both.
The tree in front of your house may not be on your property in the way you assume, and the strip between the sidewalk and the street usually is not. The city's main line is 727-298-3000.
Invasive species: exempt to remove, illegal to plant
The two rules run in opposite directions and both are live. Most of the species on the exempt list above may be removed freely. Planting a Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council Class I invasive anywhere in the city is illegal outright. Section 105-35.19 names the common ones: Australian pine, air potato, Brazilian pepper, carrotwood, castor bean, chinaberry, Chinese tallow, ear tree, laurel fig, punk tree, silk oak, toog and weeping fig.
For new construction, every Class I invasive has to be removed before the certificate of occupancy is issued, verified by site inspection, and the owner is then responsible for controlling regrowth in perpetuity. Enforcement follows the same ladder as a hazard tree: written notice, 15 days, Code Enforcement Board, another 15 days, then city removal charged to the owner with a possible lien.
What Dunedin does not settle
This section exists because knowing where the published answers stop is more useful than a confident guess, and because anyone stating these without calling the city is guessing.
The permit fee schedule. The code says a fee schedule is established by resolution of the City Commission, and the city publishes a $25 processing fee on its application page, but the resolution itself is not published alongside the ordinance. That matters because Section 105-35.22 sets the penalty at twice the rate of the permit, and the code does not define that rate.
The Grand Tree condition rating. Section 105.35.5 requires a 4.0 overall rating under the City of Dunedin Tree Condition Rating Guidelines and the Tree Evaluation Form for Overall Condition, both provided by the Parks Division and neither published online. Where a large tree of a listed species is in play, ask for the form before assuming the rating.
The review timeline for a standalone tree permit. Nothing published says whether a decision takes three days or three weeks.
The definition of effective removal. Section 105-35.7 prohibits effectively removing a tree as defined herein, and the term is not in the code's definitions appendix. Its practical meaning comes from context: pruning severe enough to amount to taking the tree out.
A few internal citation inconsistencies, worth knowing if you go reading the code yourself. The Grand Tree species table is labelled Table 105-35.1 while the section referring to it calls it Table 105-35.5. The minimum tree requirement is published as Table 105-35.2 at Section 105-35.17, but Section 105-35.14 cites both Table 105-32.2 and Table 105-35.2 for it. And Section 105-35.7 cross-references Chapter 105, Division 4, while the tree provisions sit in Division 3.
For all of these, the City Arborist at 727-298-3279 is the answer.
Where this leaves your tree
Species, trunk diameter, property type, how many other trees are on the lot, and what the tree stands over are what decide whether a Dunedin tree is a candidate for removal, a candidate for pruning, or something better monitored. Those are measurements and observations rather than guesses from a photograph, and they are also exactly what the application has to be built on. What a proper assessment looks at is not the same as what the application asks for, and the gap between the two is where most of the avoidable cost sits.
If your address turns out to be in unincorporated Pinellas County rather than inside the city, which happens more often than people expect at the edges of Dunedin, the county's rules are different and stricter on palms.
Ask our agent about your specific property. It will ask you the questions that change the answer, which are your jurisdiction and the species and size of the tree, and it will tell you plainly when something is not published rather than guessing at it. It can also take your address and callback number if you would rather someone came and measured the tree properly.
Ken's Tree Service works within about 20 miles of Tarpon Springs, covering Dunedin, the rest of north Pinellas County, west Pasco and the northwest corner of Hillsborough.
Sources
City of Dunedin Code of Ordinances, Chapter 105 Division 3, Sections 105-35 through 105-35.24 (codified through Ordinance No. 26-01, Supplement 48) | Appendix A, Definitions | City of Dunedin, Tree Removal and Grand Tree Pruning Permits | Tree Protection and Preservation brochure, 2025 revision | Approved tree list | Florida Statutes 163.045 | Pinellas County, new tree regulations effective January 23, 2026
This article explains the City of Dunedin's published rules. It is not a determination about any specific tree. Ordinances and fees change, and only the city can tell you whether your tree requires a permit. The City Arborist is reachable at 727-298-3279 or [email protected].