Short-term rentals in Cullman, explained properly.

Sec. 62-103 defines Short-Term Rental (STR) for its own purposes as the rental of a dwelling unit for less than 30 days per rental period, and its regulations apply to short-term rental of dwellings in residential districts only.

The owner gives the contact's name and telephone number with the license application. The contact must answer calls 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for the duration of each short-term rental period. Before any change of contact, the owner submits the revised information to the police and fire departments.

Proof of insurance is due within 30 days of approval of the STR license and must be resubmitted each year for renewal of the license.

The notice gives the names and telephone numbers of the owner and the emergency contact (if not the owner), the city's code enforcement telephone number for reporting violations, the maximum number of renters permitted to stay in the unit, and the maximum number of vehicles allowed to be parked at the property.

The building official sets the number of bedrooms and parking spaces as part of the STR license and may inspect the dwelling to verify the application. The owner must, by written agreement with the renter, limit overnight occupancy to the maximum approved with the license.

Sec. 62-103(2)a says the dwelling may not be rented for such events or used for them during any short-term rental period.

No recreational vehicles, buses or trailers may be stored on the street or forward of the front building line. The STR must comply with all applicable city regulations including building construction, fire safety, noise, and garbage collection and disposal.

The house rules must comply with Sec. 62-103. When notified that a renter or guest has violated the section or any noise, garbage or other applicable City Code provision, the owner or emergency contact must promptly notify the renter and take the action needed to prevent a recurrence.

The tax and the rate are not named in the section. State lodgings tax and platform collection rules are on the Alabama state layer of this page; the City's own lodging tax, if any, is not shown here and this page does not total state and city taxes.

If the building official finds a violation after investigation, the owner is notified in writing of the provisions violated, the corrective action and a compliance due date. The fines are in addition to the other remedies in the subsection. No STR license may be renewed unless all outstanding penalties assessed against the licensee are paid in full to the city.

A suspended license is re-instated for the remainder of its current approval period once the violation is corrected, and the building official may extend the compliance date if substantial progress has been made and the public is not adversely affected. When noise, occupancy, parking or other conduct violations occur during more than one rental period in the same license year or within any six-month period, the building official requests a hearing before the council; after a public hearing the council may revoke the license for the rest of its current approval period and suspend the owner's ability to renew for an additional year.

Section 40-26-1 of the Code of Alabama levies a privilege or license tax on every person in the business of renting or furnishing rooms, lodging or accommodations to transients in any hotel, motel, inn, tourist camp, tourist cabin or any other place in which rooms, lodgings or accommodations are regularly furnished to transients for a consideration. The rate is 5% of the charge in the 16 counties of the Alabama mountain lakes area (Blount, Cherokee, Colbert, Cullman, DeKalb, Etowah, Franklin, Jackson, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison, Marion, Marshall, Morgan and Winston) and 4% in every other county, and the charge includes any charge for personal property and services furnished in the room. The tax does not apply to rooms, lodgings or accommodations supplied for 180 continuous days or more. The Alabama Department of Revenue says lodgings tax is collected through an account at My Alabama Taxes, and that counties and cities may add their own lodgings taxes of between 1% and 13%, some collected by the Department, some by third-party administrators and some by the local government itself. Local lodgings taxes are shown on each place's page.

Section 40-26-1.1 of the Code of Alabama (the Alabama Tourism Tax Protection Act of 2024, Act 2024-334) says an accommodations intermediary, meaning a business other than the owner that facilitates a lodging transaction and charges the guest a room or accommodations fee it keeps as compensation, must collect and remit the state lodgings tax and parallel local levies for transactions on or after January 1, 2025. The tax is charged on the room charge, the full retail price the guest pays including any fees. When the intermediary handles the booking for an accommodations provider (an owner with an active lodgings tax account who collects and remits the tax), the tax collected may be remitted to the provider if an executed written agreement says who remits it, and the intermediary is then not liable for tax the provider fails to remit. The intermediary must state the tax separately on the bill. Where the owner has hired a licensed professional property management company, that company is the merchant of record. The Department of Revenue's notice describes the same rules. Which local lodgings taxes a platform collects in a given place is not stated in these sources; check with the platform and the local tax office.

Section 40-26-1.1(g) requires every accommodations intermediary and accommodations provider to submit an annual report, in a form set by the Department of Revenue, listing the physical address of each accommodation rented or furnished for more than 14 days during the previous year; the report is confidential taxpayer information. Exempt are licensed professional property management companies that collect and remit the state lodgings tax (or manage homes leased for a month or more as the tenant's principal residence), hotels that collect and remit the tax, tourism marketing organizations funded by the tax, and marina, tent camping and RV providers that collect and remit it. The Department of Revenue's notice describes the same reporting rule and exemptions.