Brightline told investors Miami-Dade’s transit tax collects $5 billion a year. County records show $408 million.
Brightline told investors in a 2025 bond offering that Miami-Dade County’s half-cent transportation sales tax collects “approximately $5 billion annually,” a figure more than 12 times higher than the amount shown in county records.
The claim appears twice in a 1,300-page offering document Brightline used in August 2025 to resell $985 million in commuter bonds. It is listed both in the summary and in the section describing a proposed Miami-Dade commuter train between downtown Miami and Aventura.
Miami-Dade collected about $408 million from the tax in fiscal 2024, according to county records. The county’s transit trust budgeted $396 million from the tax for fiscal 2025.
The same bond document said a preliminary agreement, still subject to county approval, would require Miami-Dade to pay Brightline $330 million through 2032 for the right to operate the commuter route. Brightline told investors the payments were expected to come “in whole or in part” from the half-cent tax. The company planned to borrow against those county payments to repay the commuter bonds.
Brightline did not respond to emailed questions about the $5 billion figure, and a review of its filings on EMMA, the public database for municipal bond disclosures, did not show a correction.
The tax has already helped pay for Brightline’s Aventura station, according to Miami-Dade’s transit trust. Since voters approved the half-cent surtax in 2002, the trust has reported $5.6 billion in spending and transfers.
Miami-Dade commissioners have not approved the commuter-rail deal. Brightline told investors in 2025 that it expected a vote by the end of that year. Its latest update to bondholders, posted September 21, said only that talks continue.
