Florida Restaurant Violations Explained
Every Florida DBPR food service inspection records specific violation codes when an establishment fails to meet state food safety standards. Florida Food Scores publishes those records so you can see exactly what inspectors found — from handwashing failures to temperature violations and pest activity — before you choose where to eat.
How Florida restaurant violations work
The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) uses a standardized set of 58 violation codes (V01 through V58) on every food service inspection. Each code maps to a specific food safety requirement — for example, V05 covers inadequate handwashing, and V20 covers cold-holding temperature failures.
Inspectors record how many times each violation occurred during a visit. Those counts appear on every restaurant profile on Florida Food Scores, grouped by severity: high priority, intermediate, and basic. A restaurant can pass an inspection while still receiving violations; repeated or severe findings may trigger follow-up visits, warnings, or emergency closure orders.
Most common Florida restaurant violations
These codes appear frequently across Florida inspections and are the ones most likely to affect food safety:
Handwashing procedures
Inadequate handwashing by food employees
Proper cooking temps
Food not cooked to required minimum temperature
Proper hot holding
Food not held at required hot holding temperature
Proper cold holding
Food not held at required cold holding temperature
No insects/rodents/animals
Evidence of insects, rodents, or other pests
Food contact surfaces
Food contact surfaces not properly cleaned/sanitized
Ill employee working
Employee working while ill with transmissible disease
How to look up restaurant violations in Florida
Search any licensed restaurant on Florida Food Scores to see its full inspection history. Open the Inspections tab on a restaurant profile and expand any visit to view the specific violation codes recorded that day.
- Search all Florida restaurants statewide
- Miami area violations — Miami-Dade & Monroe counties
- Tampa Bay violations — Hillsborough, Pinellas & Polk
- Fort Lauderdale area violations — Broward, Palm Beach & Martin
For recent high-violation inspections and emergency closures, see the recent activity feed.
Violation severity tiers
DBPR classifies each code into one of three priority levels based on the direct risk to public health:
High Priority (V01–V28)
Most likely to directly cause foodborne illness if not corrected.
Intermediate (V29–V44)
Can contribute to illness or indicate systemic problems if left uncorrected.
Basic (V45–V58)
General sanitation, maintenance, and administrative requirements.
Violations vs. inspection scores
Florida DBPR does not publish a single composite health grade. Florida Food Scores calculates an independent Food Safety Score from violation counts, inspection dispositions, and recency — so you can compare establishments at a glance. Violation codes are the underlying data; the score is a weighted summary of recent inspection cycles.
Related: How food safety scores work · Inspection risk levels · Violation data is sourced from Florida DBPR public records and updated weekly on FloridaFoodScores.com.