Airbnb Occupancy Tax: What the Platform Pays and What You Still Owe

Platform tax pages and local rates checked October 23, 2026. This guide covers taxes your guests pay on a stay, not income tax on your profit, and it is not tax advice.

What Airbnb and Vrbo collect for you

Occupancy tax goes by many names, including lodging tax, hotel occupancy tax, transient occupancy tax, tourist development tax, and bed tax. It is a tax on the guest's stay. The guest pays it and you or the platform pass it to the government.

Airbnb says it collects these taxes from guests at booking in places where it has an agreement with the government or the law requires it, then sends the money to the tax authority on the host's behalf. In the United States, its list covers most states plus Washington, DC, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. Each state page names the specific state, county, and city taxes it collects there.

Vrbo works the same way. It collects lodging tax at booking where it is liable and pays it monthly, quarterly, or annually. You can't opt out where the law requires Vrbo to collect or Vrbo has an agreement with the tax authority.

A state on either list does not mean every tax in that state is covered. Vrbo says local authorities may impose taxes it doesn't collect, and Airbnb says hosts in its listed areas are "responsible for assessing all other tax obligations."

What you still owe

• Taxes the platform doesn't list. The Manatee County, Florida, tax collector says it has no agreements with any platform for its tourist tax, so owners must collect the 6% county tax and pay it to the county. Airbnb's Florida page doesn't list Manatee, so Airbnb hosts there collect and pay it themselves. For Vrbo the answer is unclear. Vrbo's Florida tax list has a County Tourist Development Tax row, dated December 1, 2018, that says it applies to all Florida counties, but the counties named in that same row do not include Manatee. Vrbo hosts in Manatee should check the Taxes section of the Owner Dashboard and confirm with the county before relying on either.
• Registration. Denver tells hosts to open a lodger's tax account. By accepting bookings, Vrbo says you agree that you are registered as a taxpayer, and it may ask for your registration number if a jurisdiction audits. Tax registration sits alongside permits and zoning, which our guide to checking STR rules covers.
• Returns, even when the platform pays. Denver says that "even if you only use AirBnB and lodger's taxes are collected, you must submit required filings on time." Its short-term rental tax instructions have you report total sales from every platform, then deduct the sales a licensed platform such as Airbnb already paid the tax on. Austin wants a quarterly report of how much tax each platform collected for you, and a report even if you had no receipts.
• Direct bookings and other channels. A stay booked on your own site, or on a channel that doesn't collect for your area, carries the full tax. You charge it, file it, and pay it.
• Taxes the platform passes to you. In some places Vrbo collects a tax from the guest and sends it to you instead of the government. Vrbo says you are responsible for remitting those. Airbnb does the same with custom taxes. If you are eligible for its custom tax feature, Airbnb collects them from the guest and sends them to you as a separate pass-through payout, and you must file, pay, and report them yourself.

How the rates stack

Occupancy tax is usually several taxes added together. A state sales or hotel tax comes first, then county and city lodging taxes, and sometimes district taxes on top. Each layer can have its own rules for who collects it.

Sources: the Texas Comptroller and City of Austin, the Denver Treasury rate table, the Manatee County Tax Collector, and the Airbnb and Vrbo tax pages for each state. Rates apply to the city or county limits named and change over time.

Austin's 11% city rate is a 9% occupancy tax plus a 2% venue tax, on top of the state's 6%. Austin has required platforms to collect the city tax since April 1, 2025. Denver's 14.75% applies to lodging under 30 days. Manatee's 13% applies to rentals of six months or less, and the county requires a zero return for any period with no rentals.

For permit rules and the tax notes on each city we cover, see the STR regulations directory. The Austin and Denver pages link to each city's official sources.

How to check your address

1. Open Airbnb's list of areas where it collects and remits occupancy tax. Pick your state and read every tax named on its page, including the county and city lines.
2. Open Vrbo's Tax by jurisdiction page and choose the US list for your state. Each entry names the tax, the area, the stay length, and the date Vrbo started collecting.
3. In the Vrbo Owner Dashboard, open the listing, select Property, then Taxes. "Vrbo's taxes" are the ones it pays. A "Your taxes" section appears in some places for taxes you owe.
4. Find the state revenue department, county tax collector, and city finance office for the exact address. Note which taxes they charge, whether they need you to register, and how often you must file.
5. Compare the lists. Any tax the government charges that a platform page doesn't name is yours to collect on that platform's bookings.

City limits matter. A house just outside a city may owe county tax but not the city's. Confirm which city and county the address is in before you rely on a platform's list.

What the tax is charged on

Occupancy tax usually applies to more than the nightly rate. Airbnb's pages for Texas, Colorado, and Florida apply the tax to the listing price including any cleaning fee, and its Denver entry also includes guest fees. Denver's own rule taxes the total amount charged for the lodging, including any fees a guest must pay to get it. If you collect a tax yourself, charge it on the cleaning fee and other required fees unless your tax office says otherwise.

Stay length matters too. Most of the taxes above stop at 29 or 30 nights, while Florida's applies to stays up to six months. If you think a stay is exempt from a tax Airbnb collects, Airbnb says accepting the reservation waives that exemption.

How it shows up in pricing and the deal math

Occupancy tax is charged to the guest on top of your price. When the platform collects and remits it, the tax never reaches your payout, and it doesn't count as rental revenue in your deal math. Airbnb also charges its host fee on the booking subtotal before taxes, so the tax doesn't raise your fee.

The guest pays $161.50 more than your price, and your payout is the same as it would be with no occupancy tax. Airbnb's Texas page also lists state and local sales tax on the taxable portion of its service fees, which this example leaves out. The tax still matters for pricing, because guests weigh the total they pay. In Austin, a $200 night costs the guest $234 once both taxes are added.

The risk is a tax nobody collects. On the same $950 Airbnb booking in Manatee County, Airbnb collects the $66.50 state share, but the $57 county tax is yours. If you never add it to the guest's charge, it comes out of your revenue. On $60,000 of bookings a year, that is $3,600. Add the county tax to what the guest pays, or plan for the cost.

Budget for the paperwork as well. Licenses, tax accounts, and monthly or quarterly returns take time or a bookkeeper's fee, and late or missed returns can bring penalties and interest. List them with your other operating expenses. Income tax on your profit is a separate matter covered in our Airbnb tax deductions guide.