Short-term rentals in Williamsburg, explained properly.

The City's short-term rental checklist says the Board of Zoning Appeals application must be filled out completely with a $300 filing fee. The fee comes from an undated checklist, so it needs review. The City's Planning Fee Schedule page is listed on the City site but was not read.

Sec. 21-605.2(f)(5) and Sec. 21-605.3(e)(5) require the applicant to provide the zoning administrator a copy of a business license issued by the Williamsburg Commissioner of the Revenue 'not less than 30 days after the approval of the special exception but prior to occupancy by the transient visitor'. The City's page links to a Business Licenses page, which was not read. The licence tax is in the next rule.

Sec. 18-389 (Ordinance 14-20, adopted August 14, 2014) applies to every person engaged in the short-term rental business as defined in Va. Code 58.1-3510.4. The annual business license is $0.20 for each $100 of gross receipts during the preceding calendar year; if the person's certification as a short-term rental business is revoked or not renewed, that rate does not apply for those years. An additional 1% tax applies to gross proceeds, meaning the total charged for daily rental property excluding state and local sales tax. The Va. Code definition and the certification process were not read. No combined total with the lodging tax or state sales tax is given.

The applicant gives the zoning administrator a copy of a general liability insurance policy in the name of the owner (or owner and/or lessee under Sec. 21-605.3) covering rental to visitors, with coverage of not less than $500,000.00.

The plan is submitted to the Planning Department for review and approval as part of the permitting process. It lists local points of contact for complaints, garbage, unruly tenants and utility issues. Under Sec. 21-605.2 the plan must be provided as part of the rental contract; under Sec. 21-605.3 it is provided to all transient visitors renting the room. Where the property is in a subdivision with a homeowners' or property owners' association, the zoning administrator must also receive written confirmation from the association that the short-term rental is permitted under the subdivision's restrictive covenants.

For an individual owner the affidavit comes from the owner or owners named in the original title certification. For a corporation, the president's affidavit and the controlling stockholders' affidavits are used; for an LLC, the members' affidavits. If fee simple ownership changed since the last certification, a licensed Virginia attorney certifies the current ownership again from the land records. The section applies to the owner path in Sec. 21-605.2.

Sec. 21-605.3 (adopted October 10, 2024) adds this path to Sec. 21-605.2. The lessee must reside at the property during any rental period; only one lessee and his or her family may live there with the transient visitors, and additional unrelated persons may not live in or rent rooms in the dwelling. The 104-night cap, one-room limit, insurance, management plan and register rules apply as under Sec. 21-605.2. Virginia law on lessee hosting is on the state page.

The limit appears in the Limitation subsection of each section and is tied to the special exception approval. The City's page states the same cap.

The room may consist of a bedroom, bathroom, closet(s) and a sitting area for the exclusive use of the transient visitors, and may not include cooking facilities separate from the primary cooking facilities serving the dwelling. Under Sec. 21-605.3 a lessee may offer one single-family residential property in the City.

The limit is in Sec. 21-605.2(h)(9) and Sec. 21-605.3(g)(10), and the City's checklist and page repeat it.

The limit is in Sec. 21-605.2(h)(4) and Sec. 21-605.3(g)(5).

Both conditions are in the special exception conditions of Sec. 21-605.2(h) and Sec. 21-605.3(g).

The Board of Zoning Appeals considers the location of the space and may bar parking in front yards and street side yards of corner lots. Spaces and driveways must be gravel, compacted stone, concrete, asphalt, brick or paving stones. Spaces and driveways, including those for the dwelling, may not occupy more than 30 percent of a front or rear yard, nor more than 15 percent of the total lot area for lots of 20,000 square feet or less, nor more than ten percent for larger lots. Existing parking that uses these surfaces may be used for the required space even if it does not meet the size standards; all new spaces and driveways must meet them.

The register is open to inspection on request of the zoning administrator, and the permit application contains written consent for that inspection. Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors must be working on each floor. No visible evidence of the rental may show on the outside of the property. The owner must ensure visitors comply with City ordinances, including the noise and nuisance ordinance, and provide a copy of Chapter 12 of the City Code at the dwelling. Outdoor burning must comply with Chapter 5 of the City Code.

Revocation follows Sec. 21-97(g), which was not read. The code makes it unlawful to rent a room to transient visitors in any dwelling outside Secs. 21-605.2 and 21-605.3. Penalty amounts for violations were not read.

Code of Virginia § 15.2-983 defines a short-term rental as a room or space offered for dwelling, sleeping or lodging for fewer than 30 consecutive days in exchange for a charge. Any locality may, by ordinance, set up a short-term rental registry and require operators to register every year. Registration is ministerial: the operator's name, the address of each property offered, and, if the operator is a lessee or sublessee, an attestation that the owner has given permission. A locality may charge a reasonable fee tied to the cost of the registry. People licensed by the Real Estate Board (or owners represented by a real estate licensee), time-share registrants, places licensed by the Department of Health and businesses licensed by the locality for rental or property management (such as hotels and bed and breakfasts) cannot be required to register. A registry ordinance may set a penalty of up to $500 per violation for offering an unregistered property, and may bar an operator from offering a property after repeated registry violations or after violations of state and local short-term rental laws on more than three occasions. No local ordinance may prohibit an operator from offering a property solely because the operator is a lessee or sublessee, if the owner has given permission; a locality may limit a lessee or sublessee to one short-term rental. No local ordinance enacted after December 31, 2023 may require a special exception, special use or conditional use permit for a short-term rental in a dwelling that the owner also legally occupies as a primary residence. Otherwise, localities keep their general land use and zoning authority over short-term rentals, and the statute does not override recorded covenants, condominium instruments or property owners' association declarations. The section was last amended in 2024 (Acts of Assembly 2024, chapters 700 and 792).

Virginia's retail sales tax applies to accommodations, which the Retail Sales and Use Tax Act defines to include short-term rentals as well as hotels, motels, inns and similar places. A taxable retail sale includes charges for accommodations furnished to transients for less than 90 continuous days. The Department of Taxation says the tax applies to the total charge for the accommodation, and that fees charged by booking agents and other companies that handle reservations are also taxable; under the statute the room charge includes any fee retained for facilitating the sale.

The Virginia Department of Taxation lists the general sales tax rate by location: 7% in James City County, Williamsburg and York County; 6.3% in Charlotte County, Danville, Gloucester County, Halifax County, Henry County, Northampton County, Patrick County and Pittsylvania County; 6% in the Central Virginia region (Charles City, Chesterfield, Goochland, Hanover, Henrico, New Kent, Powhatan and Richmond City), Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia; and 5.3% everywhere else. The page lists different rates only for groceries and for aircraft, watercraft and motor vehicles. Rates are set by the locality where the sale is made. Local lodging or transient occupancy taxes charged by cities and counties are separate and are listed on each city page.

The Department of Taxation says the tax is collected by either the accommodations provider or the accommodations intermediary, depending on how the stay was booked. Online travel companies, travel agents and similar businesses that facilitate bookings are accommodations intermediaries. When a short-term rental is booked through an intermediary, the intermediary collects the tax on the total charge, including its own fees, and reports the sales tax on the entire transaction on its Virginia sales tax return.

When a reservation is made directly with the accommodations provider, the Department of Taxation says the provider collects the tax on the total charge for the lodging and reports it on its Virginia sales tax return. Sellers whose sales go through a marketplace facilitator's platform generally do not need to collect sales tax on those sales, but may still need to register to collect it on their own sales outside the platform; registering gives you a sales tax account number and a Certificate of Registration (Form ST-4).