Short-term rentals in Westerly, explained properly.

The Town Clerk's page says the registration process is through a web portal (ViewPoint Cloud) and tells applicants to select the button for Short-term Rental Registration. The fee, any required documents, the renewal date and the review steps have not been reviewed yet.

The Town Clerk's page lists these ordinances under "Applicable Ordinances - Information Package" alongside Section 145-25. We haven't reviewed the text of those chapters yet, so their limits (for example noise hours or parking counts) haven't been reviewed yet.

Section 42-63.1-14, as amended by Public Law 2024, chapter 437 (enacted June 29, 2024; effective January 30, 2025), requires the registration. The state registration records the owner's principal place of business (or an agent or property manager if the owner is outside the state), the owner's or manager's phone number and email address, the rental's address, the number of rooms for rent, whether the registrant rents or owns, and the intended use (entire space, private room or shared space). Registration must be completed before a platform lists the property. The registration number is valid for the year in which it is assigned, and renewals fall due on the anniversary of the original registration. If a listed property is not duly registered after the annual registration period expires, the platform must remove the listing within 14 days of notification from the Department. An owner who lists an unregistered property faces a civil fine of $250 for the first 30 days of noncompliance, $500 for 31 to 60 days and $1,000 for more than 60 days. A platform that offers a rental without requiring the current registration number and expiration date to be displayed faces a civil fine of $250 per day per violation, each listing counting separately. Platforms must also report their Rhode Island listings to the Department quarterly. The Department may charge a registration fee and writes the rules that enforce the section; the fee amount and the rules haven't been reviewed yet.

Section 42-63.1-14(a) also bars a city or town from prohibiting that platform from giving a person or entity the means to rent, pay for or reserve the residential unit. The platform must comply with the room-reseller requirements of sections 44-18-7.3(b)(4)(i) and 44-18-36.1 for the bar to apply, and the Division of Taxation, at a city's or town's request, confirms whether a hosting platform is registered under section 44-18-7.3(b)(4)(i). The section as amended by Public Law 2024, chapter 437 took effect January 30, 2025.

Section 44-18-36.1(a) imposes the 5% hotel tax on the total consideration charged for occupancy of any space furnished by any hotel, travel package, or room reseller or reseller as defined in section 44-18-7.3(b). The same subsection says a house, condominium or other resident dwelling is exempt from the 5% tax under that subsection if it is rented in its entirety. The tax is in addition to any sales tax and is administered and collected by the Division of Taxation. Subsection (b) levies a local hotel tax of 1% on the total consideration charged for occupancy of any space furnished by any hotel, and subsection (c) says the Division distributes the proceeds at least quarterly to the city or town where the space is located. Whether the local 1% tax reaches a whole-home short-term rental depends on how "hotel" is defined in section 42-63.1-2; the saved copy of Public Law 2024, chapter 437 does not show which words were added or removed, so this page does not rely on it. The statute text we reviewed lists amendments through Public Law 2019, chapter 88, and we have not confirmed whether later acts changed these rates, so confirm current rates with the Division of Taxation. We haven't reviewed how these taxes combine on a booking, so no combined total is given.

Section 44-18-7.3(b)(4)(i) says a room reseller or reseller (a person with authority from or through a hotel to reserve or arrange occupancy, where the occupant pays all or part of the rental and other fees to the reseller) must register with, and collect and pay to, the tax administrator the sales and use and hotel taxes, calculated on the rental and other fees the occupant pays the reseller less the fees the reseller pays the hotel. The tax must be stated and charged separately from the rental and other fees. No person may act as a room reseller for any hotel in the state unless the tax administrator has issued a permit under section 44-19-1. Section 42-63.1-14(a) requires a hosting platform to comply with the room-reseller requirements of sections 44-18-7.3(b)(4)(i) and 44-18-36.1 for its bar on local prohibitions to apply. Section 44-18-7.3 was last amended by Public Law 2025, chapter 278, effective October 1, 2025. We haven't reviewed which platforms collect the taxes on a given stay or what an owner's own filing duty is when listing through a platform; check with the platform and the Division of Taxation.