Clackamas County Transient Lodging Tax Requirements

If you rent out short-term lodging in Clackamas County, Oregon, you must collect a 6% transient lodging tax from guests staying 30 days or fewer, register with the county Finance Department, and file a return with payment every month by the 15th.¹ The Clackamas County transient lodging tax sits on top of Oregon’s statewide 1.5% lodging tax, so guests pay at least 7.5% in combined lodging taxes before any city tax is added.²

Who Has to Collect It

The county code’s definition of a “hotel” is broad. It covers motels, inns, bed and breakfasts, vacation rentals, hostels, RV and trailer parks, rooming houses, dormitories, and condominiums rented to short-term guests, along with traditional hotels.³ If people sleep on the property and pay rent for fewer than 31 consecutive days, you are inside the ordinance.

The “operator” is whoever runs the property. That can be the owner, a property manager, or a managing agent, and if you hire someone to manage your rental, both of you carry the same obligations to the county.³ Platforms like Airbnb and VRBO may collect and remit certain lodging taxes in some jurisdictions, but you are still responsible for confirming that the Clackamas County 6% is actually being paid. If the platform doesn’t handle it, you do.

The Rate and How It Shows Up to the Guest

The county rate is 6% of the rent charged for occupancy.¹ Collect it at the same time you collect rent, and list the tax as a separate line on your records and on any receipt given to the guest. You cannot advertise that you’ll absorb the tax or that it won’t be added to the rent; the code specifically forbids that.³

Oregon’s 1.5% state lodging tax is filed separately with the Oregon Department of Revenue unless a specific administrative arrangement sends both to the same place.⁴ Cities within the county may add their own tax on top of both.

Stays That Are Exempt

Chapter 8.02 lists five categories of occupancy that do not trigger the tax.³

Stays of more than 30 consecutive calendar days. A guest paying on a monthly basis is also excluded, regardless of how many days are in that month.
Daily rent of less than $15.01.
Private homes or vacation cabins that the owner personally uses and rents out only incidentally to that use.
Occupants of hospitals, medical clinics, convalescent homes, and senior living homes.
U.S. Government employees staying while conducting official government business. State employees and federal workers traveling for personal reasons are not covered.

Keep the paperwork that backs up every exemption you claim: the government travel authorization for a federal employee, the written agreement or booking record for a stay that ran past 30 days, and so on. Without proof, the county can disallow the exemption and charge you the full tax.

Registering With the County

Before you collect anything, register with the Clackamas County Finance Department using the Transient Lodging Tax Registration Form on the county’s website.¹ Anyone taking over an existing lodging property has to register too.

Mail the completed form to the Finance Department at 2051 Kaen Road, Oregon City, OR 97045, or scan and email it to tlt@clackamas.us. Incomplete forms are returned. Once the county receives a complete form, a welcome packet usually arrives in the mail within about 10 business days.

Monthly Filing and Payment

Returns and payments are due on the 15th of the month for the previous month’s collections. March collections, for example, are due April 15. There is no quarterly option in the county code.³

Use the Monthly Transient Lodging Tax Report Form on the county website. You enter your gross rent, any exempt amounts, and the 6% tax owed, then submit through the county’s online portal or mail a check to the Finance Department.⁵

You get to keep 5% of what you collect as reimbursement for the cost of collecting and remitting. The county effectively receives 95% of the gross tax.³

What Happens If You Pay Late

A return is delinquent if it isn’t postmarked by the last day of the month in which it was due. A March return due April 15 becomes delinquent on April 30 if still unpaid.¹ From there the charges stack:³

10% penalty on the unpaid tax at the point of delinquency.
An additional 15% penalty once the delinquency passes 30 days, taking the total penalty to 25%.
A further 25% fraud penalty if the county determines the nonpayment was intentional evasion.
Interest at 0.5% per month on the unpaid tax, running from the first delinquency date. Partial months count as full months.

All penalties and interest merge with the tax debt and become part of what you legally owe. If a late payment has a legitimate explanation, you can petition the Board of County Commissioners to waive some or all of the penalties on a showing of good cause. The Tax Administrator can grant a one-month filing extension, but even then interest runs at 1% per month on the outstanding balance.³

Records You Have to Keep

Operators must maintain guest records of room sales and accounting books covering every rental transaction, and retain them for three years and six months.³ That covers booking confirmations, receipts, exemption certificates, long-stay agreements, and the monthly returns themselves.

If you use Airbnb, VRBO, or a similar platform, download and save your own copies of the transaction records. Platform dashboards can change or lose historical data, and the obligation to produce records at a county review sits with you, not with the booking site. The county’s finance director can request to examine your books at any time.¹

1
Clackamas County. Transient Lodging Tax
2
Oregon State Legislature. ORS 320.305 – Rate and Computation of Tax
3
Mt. Hood Territory. Clackamas County Code Chapter 8.02 – Transient Room Tax
4
Oregon Department of Revenue. Transient Lodging Tax
5
Clackamas County. Monthly Transient Lodging Tax Report Form