Short-term rentals in Greenville, explained properly.

The City Code requires every person doing business in the city to pay an annual license tax and obtain a business license. The City's short-term rental page says applicants need a current business license, and its FAQ says the same for anyone establishing a general lodging use. The business license amount for a short-term rental is not stated in what we read; ask the City.

The City's page links an online permit form for the licensing step and a contact for setting up the accommodations tax account. The FAQ says owners or operators seeking to establish a general lodging use must secure an Occupancy Permit and a business license and pay accommodations tax. We did not open the online form, so the fee, review steps and renewal term are not stated.

When a general lodging use is in the same building as a multi-unit living use, the Development Code requires the owner of the dwelling unit to obtain a license to operate a short-term rental and caps short-term rentals at 25% of the units in buildings of four or more units. In one, two and three-unit dwellings all units may be used as short-term rentals. The City's page repeats the 25% limit for multi-unit dwellings. This applies only where the zoning allows general lodging.

The City's page says at least one parking space is required for a single unit. We did not find a parking standard for short-term rentals in the Code pages read, so ask Planning how it applies.

The Development Code says structures used as short-term rentals are subject to all fire and building code standards. The specific standards (smoke alarms, egress, inspections) were not read.

The City says dwellings rented for 30 days or longer are regulated as household living and are permitted in residential districts, but owners who host rentals of at least 30 days and less than 90 days must pay accommodations taxes on the property.

The City asks residents to report illegal vacation rentals to Planning and Zoning, and to call the police non-emergency line for nuisance behavior such as loud parties. Penalties and fines for operating without a license were not found in what we read.

The City says local accommodations taxes of 3% on rentals of 1 to 89 days are due on the 20th day of each month. The City Code sets two charges on gross proceeds from accommodations for transients: a 2.3% accommodations fee (Sec. 40-84) and a 0.7% local accommodations tax (Sec. 40-114), which add to the 3% the City states. Both are remitted to the City and are due on the same dates as the state accommodations tax. The 2.3% fee ends when the Greenville Memorial Auditorium District arena bonds are paid in full (Sec. 40-91); we did not check whether that has happened. The state tax is shown in the state section and is separate. We did not read Greenville County's own charges or the Department of Revenue's chart for Greenville County, so no combined total is shown.

South Carolina charges a 7% tax on rent for rooms, lodgings or sleeping accommodations furnished to transients, including rentals of a residence (S.C. Code § 12-36-920(A)). The South Carolina Department of Revenue (SCDOR) describes this as 5% sales tax plus 2% accommodations tax, together with any local sales and use taxes that SCDOR collects for counties. SCDOR's ST-575 chart lists the total accommodations rate for each county and city.

SCDOR applies accommodations tax to sleeping accommodations of any kind rented to guests for less than 90 consecutive days, including rooms or spaces in your own home and condos. Rentals to the same person for 90 continuous days are not taxed. A home with six or fewer bedrooms is exempt only when the owner or operator lives on the same premises at the time and does not use a rental agency or online travel company to rent the rooms.

SCDOR says owners who book short-term rentals directly must hold a Retail License to file and pay accommodations tax, with one license for each rental location. If you rent only through a property management or online travel company that takes the reservation and the payment, that company remits the tax for the full booking and you do not need a Retail License. A license is also not required if you rent a room or space for no more than one week each calendar quarter, but the tax must still be filed and paid once a year.

Accommodations tax returns and payments must be filed electronically (SCDOR's MyDORWAY or approved software), by the 20th of the month following the end of the filing period.

Under the Local Accommodations Tax Act, a city or county may add a local accommodations tax of up to 3% on stays taxed under S.C. Code § 12-36-920(A). A county may not charge more than 1.5% inside a city or town without that municipality's consent. SCDOR notes that many local accommodations taxes are not administered by SCDOR, so owners must contact the city or county where the rental is located to report them.