7 Things Floridians Can’t Just Bring Back Across the State Line

Hunting out of state this fall?

You can’t haul a whole deer carcass back into Florida.

Floridians heading home with a full car can break rules like that without realizing it.

Here’s what Floridians can’t just bring back across the state line.

Note: This is general information, not legal advice. Import rules for plants, animals and wildlife are subject to change.

1. Citrus Trees and Cuttings

You can’t just bring a citrus tree or cutting across the state line.

Florida law requires a permit from the state’s agriculture department, unless the department’s rules exclude the plant.

That covers a whole tree and any piece of one that can grow a new tree.

All species of citrus count, lemons included.

Bringing in those plants or plant parts without a special permit from the Division of Plant Industry is a third-degree felony.

A citrus plant that arrives without a permit is contraband and must be confiscated and destroyed.

If you buy a tree at a plant sale up north, the permit has to come first.

2. Deer Carcasses

If you hunt outside Florida, you can’t legally carry a whole deer carcass back across the state line.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission banned importing or possessing whole carcasses and high-risk parts of any species in the deer family.

The rules took effect in July 2021 to keep chronic wasting disease out of Florida’s deer.

The exemptions cover de-boned meat, finished taxidermy mounts, clean hides and antlers, and skulls, skull caps and teeth once all the soft tissue is gone.

One more exception covers deer taken on a Georgia or Alabama property that the state line cuts through, if one owner has the whole property.

3. Tegus and Green Iguanas

State law bans bringing a tegu or a green iguana into Florida from another state.

Burmese pythons, reticulated pythons, green anacondas and Nile monitors are barred too.

Educational, research, and eradication or control purposes are exempt, along with licensed zoos and traveling wildlife exhibitors.

If you buy a tegu out of state, it can’t come home with you.

4. Prohibited Aquatic Plants

Under a state rule, you can’t import waterlettuce, hygro or ambulia into Florida.

Their scientific names are Pistia stratiotes, Hygrophila polysperma and Limnophila sessiliflora.

The ban covers any synonym for those names, so a different label on the same plant doesn’t change anything.

Nurseries regulated by the state’s agriculture department may grow the plants, but they have to contain them so they can’t spread from the nursery.

If you’re importing them, the rule says these species “shall not be imported or collected from the wild.”

5. Kudzu and Other Noxious Weeds

Kudzu is on Florida's noxious weed list, which makes it a plant you can't just bring back across the state line.

The rule makes it unlawful for you to introduce, multiply, possess, move or release a listed plant unless the agriculture department issues a permit or approves a federal one.

Cogongrass, Japanese honeysuckle and Brazilian pepper-tree are on the same list.

Florida's definition of a noxious weed covers any living stage of the plant, including seeds and productive parts.

6. Honeybees and Used Beekeeping Equipment

If you move honeybees or used beekeeping equipment into Florida, you need a certificate of inspection from the state they came from.

The certificate has to say the beekeeper's apiaries were inspected every year in that state, at a time when the bees were rearing brood, or young bees.

Bees shipped in combless packages need the same certificate, plus an affidavit that no honey is used in their feed.

Sheriffs and Florida Highway Patrol officers have the duty to enforce the rules on moving bees and used equipment into the state.

A first violation is a first-degree misdemeanor.

A second or later violation is a third-degree felony.

7. Horses Without Health Papers

A horse needs an official certificate of veterinary inspection (OCVI) to cross the state line into Florida.

Your horse needs proof of a negative equine infectious anemia (EIA) test completed within 12 months before it enters.

If you trailer a horse to an event, an Equine Event Extension document or an Equine Interstate Passport Card from its state of origin can stand in for the OCVI.

Those documents last up to six months and can't outlast the EIA test.

They can't be used to move a horse for breeding or a change of ownership.