Short-term rentals in Athens-Clarke County, explained properly.

The Finance Department's short-term rental page says Business Occupation Tax Certificates are required for short term rental operators; the application is on the Finance webpage. The Planning Department's home occupation application tells applicants to take their home occupation approval with the completed Business Occupation Tax Application to the Business Tax Office, and lists a notarized State Affidavit Verifying Residency Status form and E-Verify forms as mandatory. The certificate fee is not stated in the sources read.

The home occupation application asks the applicant to acknowledge that no individual short-term rental shall have an occupancy duration in excess of 30 consecutive days. The form is the only source read for this limit; the code definition of a short-term rental was not read, so this is marked for review. The sentence is split by the form's layout in the saved text.

Under Sec. 9-15-16(O)(7) as reproduced on the application, either the principal residential structure or an accessory structure can be used as a home-occupation short-term rental, and a portion or all of the structure can be used, despite the usual 25 percent limit for home occupations. Only one structure on the same parcel may be an STR at any given time.

Sec. 9-15-16(H) as reproduced on the application bars on-street parking of business-related vehicles, including occupants of an STR, at any time. The application also asks whether the property has adequate on-site parking under Sec. 9-15-28(a)(5), and commercial STRs must meet the parking standards of Sec. 9-30-2, which was not read.

Sec. 9-15-16(E) as reproduced on the application says there shall be no signs on the property advertising the home occupation, except for those on a business-related vehicle. The application also asks the applicant to acknowledge there will be no signs advertising the STR.

The Fire Marshal's Office guidelines attached to the home occupation application include: address plainly visible from the street with numbers at least four inches; smoke alarms in each sleeping room, in areas giving access to sleeping rooms and on each level; carbon monoxide detectors in sleeping areas of dwellings with gas appliances or an attached garage; multi-purpose 2A10BC extinguishers on each level, under one year old or serviced and tagged annually; annual inspection of installed fire alarm or sprinkler systems; an additional means of emergency escape from each sleeping room; and an emergency evacuation plan with emergency contacts posted in each bedroom. The application asks whether the applicant has completed the Fire Marshal's Office STR Acknowledgement.

Sec. 9-15-28(a)(2) requires the business owner to give written notice of the name, address and phone number of the managing agent or local contact to the property owners within 300 feet of the parcel boundary: all adjoining parcels, and parcels across an adjoining street that also adjoin that street. The notice must be repeated within 10 days of a change in the contact's information. In the RM-1, RM-2, RM-3, C-G, C-D, C-O, C-N, C-R, E-O and E-I districts, subsection (b)(2) replaces this for a commercial STR inside a condominium or townhouse fee-simple complex: notice goes to the owners or occupants of units sharing a common wall or common floor or ceiling and to the homeowners', condominium or townhouse association, again within 10 days of a change.

Sec. 9-15-28(a)(3) requires the business owner to disclose in writing to renters the managing agent or local contact's name, address and phone number; the maximum number of guests set by the State of Georgia or Athens-Clarke County officials such as the Fire Marshal or Chief Building Official; the maximum number of vehicles and where they are to be parked; and the applicable County code provisions on noise and parking. Subsection (a)(1) requires posting emergency contact information (police, fire, hospital) and showing renters where the fire extinguishers are.

Sec. 9-15-28(a)(4) applies to commercial short-term rentals. Legally permitted accessory dwelling units and guest houses are the stated exception.

An STR that is not permitted outright, not a special use and not a home occupation STR is a legal non-conforming use only if its parcel is on the County's Legal Non-Conforming STR List (properties that operated as an STR at some point in the 12 months before September 19, 2023, or added after an application within six months of the list's publication). Sec. 9-15-28(c)(5)(E) says that status continues for 24 months measured from March 1, 2025, the publication date of the final list, after which all legal non-conforming STR uses are null and void, which works out to March 1, 2027.

Sec. 9-15-28(c)(5) provides that a sale or other conveyance of the parcel after the section's effective date, or abandonment of the use for 12 consecutive months, makes the legal non-conforming use null and void. A change of 30 percent or more in the voting stock of a corporation owning the parcel, or a transfer of 30 percent or more of the ownership or equity interest in a partnership or LLC so that control changes, counts as a conveyance, as does any change in a beneficial interest in a trust owning the parcel. The 30 percent rule does not apply to entities whose stock is exchange-listed or sold over the counter under securities regulation.

Georgia charges sales tax on accommodations. The state rate is 4%, and each county adds its own local sales taxes; the Georgia Department of Revenue publishes the combined rate for every county in a quarterly rate chart.

Georgia charges a $5.00 State Hotel-Motel Fee for each night an accommodation is rented, including short-term rentals. It is a flat amount per night, not a percentage of the rent, and is collected from the guest.

The $5 state fee does not apply once a stay becomes an extended stay: from the 31st day of uninterrupted occupancy by the same guest, the fee is no longer collected. If the guest checks out and checks back in, the count starts again.

If you list your home with an online booking platform that handles payment (a "marketplace innkeeper"), the platform must collect and remit the state hotel-motel fee for each night of those stays. For stays you book yourself, you collect and remit the fee.

Owners who collect the state hotel-motel fee must register on the Georgia Tax Center for a sales tax number and a state hotel-motel fee number, and file the fee return electronically by the 20th of the following month. A return is due every month, even when no rooms were rented and even if sales tax is filed quarterly or yearly.