Airbnb Will Start Collecting a Hotel Tax in Montgomery County

• May 23, 2016
• 2 Comments

by Nena Perry-Brown

An Airbnb listing in Montgomery County.

Three months after the Montgomery County Council considered legalizing Airbnb, the company has entered into an agreement to collect hotel taxes in the county on behalf of its renters. The tax will be effective as of June 1st.

Over 160 jurisdictions worldwide have made similar arrangements with the short-term rental broker. This is the first such agreement in Maryland, although Airbnb began collecting hotel taxes in the District last February.

Rentals of less than 30 days are illegal in Montgomery County without a hotel or bed and breakfast license. Despite this, lax enforcement meant that there were over 14,000 Airbnb listings in that jurisdiction during the past year.

Collecting hotel taxes on Airbnb units was part of the passage of a bill which mandated taxing all rentals of less than 30 days, but this recent agreement means that Airbnb will capture and remit those taxes rather than the responsibility falling to the Airbnb host.

Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that a regulatory framework for Airbnb use in Montgomery County had been enacted in February. That bill has not yet been voted on, while a separate bill taxing those rentals did pass.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/airbnb_makes_hotel_tax_arrangement_with_montgomery_county/11261

2 Comments

1. ghielder@gmail.com said at 3:57 pm on Monday May 23, 2016:
   "Three months after Airbnb was formally legalized in Montgomery County" This is not correct. Airbnb has not been legalized in Montgomery County. The bill to legalize Airbnb, 2-16, did not pass. What passed was Bill 6-16, which taxed short-term rentals whether or not they were legal.

1. Nena Perry-Brown said at 4:29 pm on Monday May 23, 2016:
   @ghielder@gmail.com Thank you for pointing this out to us! You are correct that Bill 6-16 passed, while it appears that 2-16 has not been voted on. We have corrected the article to reflect this.