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STR Explainers · Updated July 26, 2026

Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) Explained: What Short-Term Rental Hosts Actually Pay (2026)

Last verified: July 26, 2026. Tax rates, thresholds and platform-collection agreements change frequently and without notice. Confirm every rate and every filing duty with the tax authority that actually collects it before you file.

Short answer: what is a transient occupancy tax?

A transient occupancy tax (TOT) is a percentage tax on the rent a guest pays for a short stay in lodging. It is levied on the guest, not on you — but the law makes you, the host, the collection agent who must collect it, hold it, and hand it over on a return. It is charged on top of the nightly rate, it is unrelated to your income tax, and in most of the United States it is imposed by a city or county, not by the state.

California’s enabling statute states the model plainly. Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code § 7280(a): “The legislative body of any city, county, or city and county may levy a tax on the privilege of occupying a room or rooms, or other living space, in a hotel, inn, tourist home or house, motel, or other lodging unless the occupancy is for a period of more than 30 days.” Three things follow from that one sentence, and they are the three things hosts get wrong.

  1. It is a tax on occupancy — a privilege tax on the guest’s stay — so it is calculated on what the guest pays, not on what you keep.
  2. The city or county levies it, which is why there is no national rate and no single place to look it up.
  3. It only applies to short stays, and the definition of “short” is set locally and varies more than hosts expect.

Why you may not be able to find “your” transient occupancy tax: it has at least eight names

The single most common reason a host cannot find their lodging-tax rate is that their jurisdiction does not use the phrase “transient occupancy tax.” The concept is nearly universal; the label is regional. Searching for the wrong term returns nothing, and the host concludes — wrongly — that no such tax exists.

What it’s called Where you’ll see that name Real example from our database
Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) California, and much of the West San Diego — zoned TOT of 11.75% / 12.75% / 13.75%
Tourist Development Tax (TDT) Florida (county-levied “bed tax”) Osceola County — 6% TDT; Bay County — 5% TDT
Hotel Occupancy Tax (HOT) Texas, Pennsylvania, others Austin — 6% state HOT plus an 11% city layer
Lodger’s Tax Colorado, New Mexico Denver — 10.75% lodger’s tax
Accommodations Tax / Hospitality Fee South Carolina Myrtle Beach — state accommodations tax plus city and county hospitality layers
Occupancy Tax / Gross Rentals Tax Louisiana New Orleans — parish occupancy tax plus a gross-rentals tax and per-night fees
Transient lodging TPT Arizona (transaction privilege tax classification) Scottsdale — state, county and city transient-lodging TPT
Resort Tax A handful of self-taxing municipalities Miami Beach — its own 4% resort tax, which changes which county taxes apply

Practical rule: search your county’s tax collector, treasurer, comptroller or clerk of court website for “lodging,” “accommodations,” “transient” or “tourist” — one of those four words is in the name almost everywhere. If you only search “transient occupancy tax,” you will miss it in most of the country.

The money is not yours: you collect it in trust

This is the part hosts most often misunderstand, and the part that costs the most when it goes wrong. The tax is imposed on the guest; you are conscripted as the collector.

The City of San Diego states the duty explicitly: “The San Diego Municipal Code requires Operators to collect TOT from Transients, hold TOT in trust, and remit TOT to the City Treasurer monthly. The TOT must be collected from Transients at the same time as Rent (San Diego Municipal Code section 35.0112).” Texas puts the same duty on a homeowner in plain language — the Comptroller’s hotel-tax guidance says “Persons leasing their houses must collect hotel occupancy tax from their customers in the same way a hotel or motel collects the tax from its guests.”

Two consequences follow that no generic guide spells out:

  • If you did not collect it, you still owe it. The tax accrued on the stay. A host who advertised an “all-in” nightly rate and never separated the tax has not avoided the liability — they have funded it out of their own margin, usually with penalties on top.
  • Held-in-trust money is treated more seriously than an unpaid bill. Jurisdictions that use trust-fund language are describing money that was never yours, which is why lodging-tax penalties are often non-waivable. San Diego’s FAQ says so outright about voluntary disclosures: “No, we do not have the authority to waive penalties; penalties are governed by SDMC § 35.0116.”

The costliest myth: “Airbnb collects my taxes”

Airbnb does collect and remit lodging taxes — in some places, for some layers of the tax stack. Its own help centre is careful about the qualifier: Airbnb says it will “automatically collect and pay occupancy taxes on behalf of hosts whenever a guest pays for a booking in specific jurisdictions.” Hosts read that sentence as “everywhere.” It is not.

Here is the structure that actually determines the answer, and it is a two-part question, not a one-part question.

Layer 1 — the state layer: usually collected by the platform

Most states now have marketplace-facilitator laws that force booking platforms to collect and remit the state tax on stays they facilitate. Florida is typical: the Department of Revenue states that “effective July 1, 2021, marketplace providers are required to electronically register to collect and electronically remit sales and use tax on taxable sales they facilitate for marketplace sellers for delivery into Florida.” That is the layer that captures Florida’s 6% state transient-rentals tax under Fla. Stat. § 212.03.

Layer 2 — the local layer: frequently still yours

The local layer is the one that catches people out, because a self-administered city or county collects its own tax and has to sign its own agreement with each platform. Many have not. Texas’s Comptroller states the split cleanly: the state rate is 6%, and “Cities and certain counties and special purpose districts are authorized to impose an additional local hotel tax that the local taxing authority collects.” Different tax, different collector, potentially a different answer about who remits.

Two Florida counties in our own database say so in writing, on their own websites, today:

  • Osceola County (the Kissimmee vacation-home belt), Tax Collector: “ATTENTION CUSTOMERS OF AIRBNB, VRBO, EVOLVE AND OTHERS. Osceola County is NOT CONTRACTED with Airbnb, VRBO, Evolve, or any other third-party booking platforms. It is the responsibility of the property owners and agents to collect and remit the 6% tourist tax to the Osceola County Tax Collector for all short-term rentals.”
  • Bay County (Panama City Beach), Clerk of Court & Comptroller, answering the question directly: “No. There is no agreement between Bay County and any online platform (Airbnb, VRBO, Homeaway, etc) to receive payment of taxes on behalf of the property owner. It is the responsibility of the property owner to collect and remit the 5% Bay County Tourist Development Tax to the Bay County Clerk of Court and Comptroller.”

So a host renting a house near Kissimmee has the state 6% handled by the platform and the county 6% entirely on their own shoulders — a bill that, unfiled, compounds monthly. A host thirty minutes away in Orange County has a county agreement in place and a different answer. Same platform, same state, same booking flow, opposite obligations.

How to actually check, in three steps

  1. Open a real payout breakdown, not the summary. The platform itemises which taxes it collected for that booking. Any layer that is not itemised there was not collected.
  2. Ask the local collector by name. Not the city — the body that administers the lodging tax: the county tax collector, treasurer, comptroller, or clerk of court. Ask literally: “Do you have a collection agreement with Airbnb and Vrbo for this tax, or do I self-remit?”
  3. Assume you must register anyway. Many jurisdictions require a lodging-tax account and monthly returns — including zero returns — even in months the platform remitted for you. Platform collection removes the payment, not always the filing.

“Short stay” means something different in every state

Whether the tax applies at all depends on a threshold, and the thresholds are genuinely inconsistent — not just between states, but between the state layer and the local layer inside one state.

Jurisdiction Threshold that makes a stay taxable Authority
California (enabling statute) Taxable unless occupancy is for a period of more than 30 days Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code § 7280(a)
City of San Diego A “Transient” is a person who occupies for less than one (1) month City Treasurer, TOT/TMD program page
Arizona “Transient” = lodging on a daily or weekly basis, or on any other basis for less than thirty consecutive days A.R.S. § 42-5070(F)
Florida (state layer) Not a taxable privilege where the operator exclusively enters into a bona fide written agreement for continuous residence for longer than 6 months Fla. Stat. § 212.03(1)(a)

Read those two California rows again. The state statute authorises taxing stays that are not “more than 30 days”; San Diego’s own program page defines a transient as someone staying “less than one (1) month.” Those are near-identical in effect but not word-identical, and the operative test for your return is your jurisdiction’s definition, not the state’s enabling language. Florida’s threshold is not 30 days at all — it is a six-month written lease, which is why a Florida “monthly” rental is still fully taxable at the state layer.

Tennessee is the extreme case, and it is worth reading if you host anywhere in that state: our Tennessee state overview untangles three different day thresholds that apply simultaneously to the same rental — sales tax, local occupancy tax and business tax each use a different cutoff.

What the combined rate actually looks like

There is no such thing as “the” lodging-tax rate. What a guest pays is a stack of two to five separate taxes levied by different governments, each with its own collector. Below is the stack in the eleven markets we maintain primary-sourced pages for. Each row links to the page that sources it, and each of those pages carries its own “last verified” date — check the rate there before you file, because these move.

Market Approximate combined rate What’s in the stack
Austin, TX ~17% 6% state HOT + 11% city (9% occupancy + 2% venue project)
Denver, CO ~14.75% 10.75% Denver lodger’s tax + 4% Colorado state sales tax
Scottsdale, AZ ~14.27% State transient-lodging TPT + Maricopa County + city bed tax
Miami Beach, FL ~14% 6% state + 1% county surtax + 3% Convention Development Tax + 4% city resort tax
Osceola County (Kissimmee), FL 13.5% 6% state + 1.5% county surtax + 6% TDT
Gatlinburg, TN ~12.75% 7% state sales + 2.75% county sales + 3% county lodging (plus a separate 1.25% city gross-receipts tax)
Orange County (Orlando), FL 12.5% 6% state + 0.5% county surtax + 6% TDT
Panama City Beach, FL 12% or 7% 6% state + surtax, and 5% TDT only inside the special taxing district
San Diego, CA 11.75%–13.75% TOT alone, at a rate set by which of three tax zones the property sits in
New Orleans, LA Percentage stack + per-night fees Gross-rentals tax and parish occupancy tax, plus flat per-night charges
Myrtle Beach, SC ~10% 7% state accommodations + 1.5% city + 1.5% county hospitality

Two patterns are worth extracting from that table.

First, the spread is nearly 2x. Myrtle Beach’s roughly 10% and Austin’s 17% are the same product taxed seven points apart. On a property grossing $60,000 a year in bookings, that is roughly a $4,200 difference in what your guests are quoted over the year — which is a real competitive variable against nearby hotels, and one investors almost never model.

Second, the same stated rate can hide a different workload. Orange County and Osceola County are one point apart on paper. In practice one has a platform agreement covering the tourist tax and the other, as quoted above, does not — so the “cheaper” county can be the one that generates twelve tax returns a year.

What is included in the taxable amount?

The tax is charged on the rent, and jurisdictions define rent broadly. The recurring question is cleaning fees, and San Diego’s answer is the clearest statement of the general principle we have found in a primary source:

“Are cleaning fees taxable? It depends on the nature of the charge. If the fee is non-refundable, it is part of what the guest pays for occupancy (i.e., rent) and is, therefore, subject to the TOT… Conversely, if the cleaning fee is fully refundable with funds withheld only for specific damages, it is not subject to the TOT.”

The test is refundability, not the label. A mandatory non-refundable cleaning fee is part of the price of occupying the property and is taxed as rent; a genuine refundable damage deposit is not, because the guest gets it back. This is San Diego’s rule and the reasoning is widely mirrored, but the taxable base is defined jurisdiction by jurisdiction — confirm yours before you exclude a fee from a return.

Exemptions exist but are narrower than hosts hope. San Diego’s, for example, is essentially limited to government business travel, requires “official government business travel orders and a qualifying picture ID” plus a signed exemption form retained for audit, and expressly does not extend to nonprofits or to out-of-state officials. Do not treat a guest as exempt on their say-so; the documentation requirement exists because the auditor will ask you, not them, for it.

Filing: the mechanics that generate the penalties

Lodging tax is usually a monthly filing, and the 20th of the following month is a very common deadline — Texas, Bay County (FL) and Sevier County (TN) all use it. Verify your own due date; some jurisdictions allow quarterly filing below a revenue threshold.

The mechanics that most often cost money:

  • Zero returns are still returns. A month with no bookings usually still requires a filed return. Skipping it is a late filing, not a non-event.
  • Filing on time can pay you. Several jurisdictions grant a collection allowance for timely filing — Bay County’s is 2.5% of the tax, capped at $30.00 per return; Texas offers a 1% discount when a return is filed and paid by the due date. Late filing forfeits it.
  • Penalties are formulaic and stack. Texas assesses a flat $50 penalty on each report filed late, then 5% if the tax is paid 1–30 days late and 10% if paid more than 30 days late, with interest starting 61 days after the due date. Bay County applies a minimum $50 penalty. These are not discretionary.
  • Registration is separate from your rental permit. A short-term rental licence and a lodging-tax account are two different registrations with two different agencies in most cities. Holding one does not create the other.

What transient occupancy tax is not

  • It is not income tax. TOT is a pass-through collected from the guest. Your rental income is separately taxable, and the TOT you collected is not your income.
  • It is not your permit fee. Registration, licence and inspection fees are unrelated charges you pay from your own pocket.
  • It is not automatically countywide. Where a county levies the tax, the geography can be narrow. California is explicit — under § 7280(a), a county’s tax “applies only to the unincorporated areas of the county.” Florida’s Bay County goes further: its 5% tourist development tax applies only inside a defined special taxing district, so two houses with the same mailing address can face 12% and 7%.
  • It is not proof your rental is legal. Tax registration and land-use legality are decided by different departments. Several cities will happily take your lodging tax on a rental that their zoning code prohibits. Check the rules for your city on our short-term rental laws by city database before you assume a tax account means you are compliant.

Frequently asked questions

Who pays the transient occupancy tax, the host or the guest?

The guest pays it; the host collects it. It is added to the nightly rate. Legally, however, the host is the party responsible for collecting, holding and remitting it — and remains liable for the tax even if they failed to charge the guest.

Does Airbnb pay my occupancy taxes for me?

Sometimes, and usually only part of them. Airbnb collects occupancy taxes “in specific jurisdictions.” In practice platforms commonly handle the state layer under marketplace-facilitator laws while a self-administered city or county layer remains the host’s job. Osceola County, Florida and Bay County, Florida both state on their own websites that they have no agreement with any booking platform and the owner must self-remit.

How much is transient occupancy tax?

There is no national rate — it is set locally. Across the markets we track, combined lodging-tax stacks run from roughly 10% (Myrtle Beach) to about 17% (Austin), typically assembled from two to five separate taxes.

Do I have to charge TOT on a 30-day rental?

It depends entirely on the local threshold. Under California’s enabling statute the tax applies unless occupancy is for more than 30 days; Arizona’s definition of “transient” is less than thirty consecutive days; Florida’s state transient tax is avoided only by a bona fide written agreement for continuous residence longer than six months. Check your own jurisdiction’s definition — do not assume 30 days is the line.

Are cleaning fees subject to occupancy tax?

Generally yes, where the fee is mandatory and non-refundable, because it forms part of what the guest pays to occupy the property. A genuinely refundable damage deposit generally is not. The taxable base is defined locally — confirm with your collector.

What happens if I never collected occupancy tax?

The liability does not disappear. The tax accrued on each stay and the host is the responsible party, so unremitted tax is typically assessed against the host along with penalties and interest. Voluntary disclosure programs exist in some jurisdictions, but penalty waivers are often outside the collector’s authority.

Sources & verification

Every quotation above was retrieved and checked against the source text on July 26, 2026. All URLs returned HTTP 200 on that date.

  • Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code § 7280 (TOT enabling statute; 30-day rule; unincorporated-areas limit) — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov
  • City of San Diego, Office of the City Treasurer — Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT)/TMD (collect in trust, SDMC § 35.0112; transient = less than one month; zone rates effective May 1, 2025; cleaning fees; exemptions; SDMC § 35.0116 penalties) — sandiego.gov
  • Texas Comptroller — Hotel Occupancy Tax (6% state rate; homeowners must collect; local tax collected by the local taxing authority; 20th-of-month due date; $50 late penalty, 5%/10% penalties, 1% timely discount) — comptroller.texas.gov
  • Fla. Stat. § 212.03 (6% state transient-rentals tax; six-month bona fide written agreement exclusion) — flsenate.gov
  • Florida Department of Revenue — Florida Sales and Use Tax (marketplace providers must register, collect and remit effective July 1, 2021) — floridarevenue.com
  • Osceola County Tax Collector — Tourist Development Tax (“NOT CONTRACTED with Airbnb, VRBO, Evolve”; owner remits the 6% tourist tax) — osceolataxcollector.org
  • Bay County Clerk of Court & Comptroller — Tourist Development Tax (“There is no agreement between Bay County and any online platform”; owner remits the 5% TDT; 2.5% allowance capped at $30.00; minimum $50.00 penalty) — baycoclerk.com
  • A.R.S. § 42-5070 (transient lodging classification; “transient” = less than thirty consecutive days) — azleg.gov
  • Airbnb Help Center — “In what areas is occupancy tax collection and remittance by Airbnb available?” (platform’s own statement that collection applies “in specific jurisdictions”) — airbnb.com. This is the platform’s own description of its own agreements, not a government source, and it changes without notice.

Combined-rate figures in the comparison table are drawn from our own primary-sourced city pages; follow each link for the ordinance, statute and tax-authority citations behind that market’s numbers, and for the date that page was last verified.

Where to go next

Last verified: July 26, 2026. This page explains how lodging taxes work in general and cites specific jurisdictions as examples. It is not tax advice, and no single rate here applies to your property until you have confirmed it with the authority that collects it. Found an error? Tell us and we will correct it.