Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) by City

Cities use different names for the tax charged on short-term stays. The notes of this dataset call it occupancy tax, hotel occupancy tax, transient occupancy tax, hotel room occupancy tax, accommodations tax, transient tax, lodger's tax, hotel tax, transient lodgings tax, room occupancy tax, room occupancy excise and tourist development tax. The table gives the local and state lodging tax of each of the 20 places, and whether the booking platform collects the tax, exactly as the dataset holds them.

Cells not found in the official sources checked: local lodging tax 4 of 20, state lodging tax 7 of 20. A cell that was not found does not mean that no such tax exists. Local and state figures are shown side by side and are not added together: the notes below say what each figure includes.

What is transient occupancy tax (TOT)?

Transient occupancy tax, often shortened to TOT, is a tax on short stays in hotels, rentals and similar lodging. Depending on the place it is called transient occupancy tax, hotel occupancy tax, lodging tax or occupancy tax. Names and rates differ by jurisdiction. The table below shows what the cited official pages said on the last-checked date.

Lodging tax by city

"varies" means the local rate depends on the location within the jurisdiction. Two rows cover the unincorporated part of a county only. Each city name opens its page with the full facts and sources.

Tax notes by city

Nashville, TN: Local occupancy tax is 7% (Metro Finance notice), plus a separate $2.50 nightly fee. The Tennessee Department of Revenue states that short-term rental unit marketplaces have remitted the occupancy tax to the Department since January 1, 2021. The Department's sales and use tax page gives 7% as the general state sales tax rate but does not mention lodging or short-term rentals, so no state rate is recorded.

Austin, TX: City hotel occupancy tax is 11% (9% occupancy tax + 2% venue project tax). The state hotel occupancy tax is 6% and is remitted to the State. The city page says platforms that take bookings and payments collect and remit the city hotel occupancy tax.

San Diego, CA: Transient occupancy tax depends on the city tax zone: 11.75% (Zone 1), 12.75% (Zone 2) or 13.75% (Zone 3) since May 1, 2025. Hosting platforms collect and remit the tax only when the platform collects the rent from guests. No state page on a state-level lodging tax was read.

New York City, NY: 5.875% is the NYC Hotel Room Occupancy Tax rate; 4% is the state sales tax rate. The New York State Tax Department says booking services that facilitate short-term rental occupancies register as sales tax vendors and collect sales tax; no page read says platforms collect the city hotel room occupancy tax.

New Orleans, LA: 6.75% is the Orleans Parish Occupancy Tax only; the city page lists further local charges separately, including per-night occupancy fees of $5 (Neighborhood STR) and $12 (Commercial STR). 5% is the State of Louisiana tax on room rentals with 9 or fewer rooms at a single location in Orleans and Jefferson Parishes. The city's STR Platform Permit page says permitted platforms collect and remit required fees and taxes on behalf of their users.

Honolulu (Oahu), HI: No tax rate is stated on the pages read. The Hawaii Department of Taxation page on renting residential property says rentals of less than 180 consecutive days are transient accommodations, that each county imposes its own county transient accommodations tax paid directly to the county, and that booking platforms report rental activity to the Department; it gives no rate. The state and city rate documents are published as PDF files that were not read.

Phoenix, AZ: 5.8% is the City of Phoenix rate for the Hotel/Motel classification given on the city's Finance FAQ, which says its rates do not include the state and county rates; that page does not name short-term rentals. 5.5% is the Arizona statutory rate for the transient lodging classification (A.R.S. 42-5010); county rates are not included.

Scottsdale, AZ: 5% is the city Transient Tax only; the city also imposes a separate 1.75% transaction privilege (sales) tax. 5.5% is the Arizona statutory rate for the transient lodging classification (A.R.S. 42-5010); county rates are not included.

Las Vegas area (unincorporated Clark County), NV: The county FAQ gives no percentage. It says the accommodations facilitator remits the tax when the unit is listed solely through it; a licensee who takes payment directly remits to the County. The Nevada Department of Taxation says lodging tax is imposed and collected by the boards of county commissioners at rates that vary by county, and that the Department records and transfers the revenue to state budget accounts; it gives no statewide rate and does not name Clark County, so both tax fields stay unknown.

Charleston, SC: 2% is the City of Charleston Accommodations Tax only; Charleston County adds its own tax and the city table totals 14% in Charleston County including state and local sales taxes. 7% state = 5% sales tax + 2% accommodations tax (SCDOR). The city page says not all online marketplaces collect and remit the local accommodations tax.

Boston, MA: 5.7% is the state excise as reported on a City of Boston budget page, which also reports a 2.75% convention center fee and a total tax from all sources of 14.95%. The 6.5% local figure is computed as 14.95% less those two; the page does not print the local rate on its own. The page says the local room occupancy excise is levied on hotel rooms, motel rooms and short-term rental units. No state revenue page could be read.

San Francisco, CA: 14% tax on rent received for stays of fewer than 30 days, per the city guide. No state page on a state-level lodging tax was read.

Seattle, WA: 6.5% is the Washington state retail sales tax rate, from the Department of Revenue's retail sales tax page; the Department's lodging guide says businesses providing transient lodging collect sales tax on lodging sales. The guide adds that most locations impose additional lodging taxes, with rates by location in its lookup tool and rate files that were not read, so the local figure stays unknown. The Department says some marketplaces collect and pay these taxes by agreement and names Airbnb; hosts on other channels handle the taxes themselves.

Portland, OR: 6% is the City of Portland transient lodgings tax only. Multnomah County adds 5.5%, a 3% Tourism Improvement District charge applies as a separate fee, and short-term rentals pay $4 per night. The state lodging tax is 1.5% for stays ending on or before December 31, 2026 and 2.75% from January 1, 2027. Booking agents and online travel companies collect and remit the city-administered taxes for hosts, and Oregon requires transient lodging intermediaries to collect the state tax.

San Antonio, TX: 9% city hotel occupancy tax (7% general + 2% Convention Center expansion). The City also collects 1.75% for Bexar County, and the State of Texas imposes 6%, for 16.75% in total. Delinquent city tax accrues a 5% penalty, and a further 5% a month later.

Miami-Dade County (unincorporated area), FL: Local 6% is the sum of three county taxes on rentals of six months or less outside Surfside, Bal Harbour and Miami Beach: 3% Convention Development Tax, 2% Tourist Development Tax and 1% Professional Sports Facilities Franchise Tax. The county has agreements with Airbnb, HomeAway/Vrbo/Expedia and misterb&b to collect and remit these taxes for hosts. State 6% is Florida's general state sales tax rate as given on the Florida Department of Revenue sales and use tax page, which lists three exceptions (none for accommodations), names renting short-term living accommodations as a taxable activity and says sales tax and discretionary sales surtax on transient rentals are always reported and remitted to the Department; its local option taxes page says the local transient rental taxes come in addition to state sales and use tax. The county discretionary sales surtax is in neither figure.

Denver, CO: Licensees pay Denver lodger's tax of 10.75%. The city's Business Tax FAQ says the State of Colorado also imposes a 4% sales tax on lodging in Denver; the rate table on the same page lists the State's general sales tax rate as 2.90% and the page does not break the 4% down. The same FAQ says hosts may use lodging platforms and that, when a platform is licensed to remit taxes with the City, the host deducts those platform sales when reporting, so collection depends on the platform; hosts still need a Lodger's Tax license. No Colorado Department of Revenue page could be read.

Philadelphia, PA: City Hotel Tax is 8.5% of the amount paid by the guest and covers rooms in private homes; the city page gives Pennsylvania's hotel tax as 7%, for 15.5% combined. The city says some booking agents, including websites, agree to collect the Hotel Tax on behalf of operators, so it depends on the platform.

Minneapolis, MN: No tax rate is stated on the pages read. The Minnesota Department of Revenue site refused the fetcher, so no state page was read.

Raleigh, NC: 6% is the Wake County Room Occupancy Tax on gross receipts from lodging within the county, which the county page says also applies to rooms or houses rented through websites such as Airbnb and VRBO; the county page does not name Raleigh, and no separate Raleigh city lodging tax was found on the pages read. The North Carolina Department of Revenue page says rentals of accommodations are subject to the general State and applicable local and transit rates of sales and use tax plus any local occupancy tax, but gives no percentage, so the state figure stays unknown. The city page says operators pay taxes to the appropriate governmental entities, including occupancy taxes.

See also the comparison table of permits, fees and taxes, and the coverage by place and by field.

Full dataset

The full dataset is one CSV file with all 20 places (20 rows, 23 columns, including the notes and the address of every source) and a PDF buyer guide that describes the CSV and reports which cells are unknown. Price: $9. Coverage: 44 of 160 core cells are unknown (20 places x 8 fields). See the coverage by place and by field.