If you rent out a home, condo, cabin, or spare room in Utah for stays under 30 days, you owe a stack of lodging taxes on every booking, and the combined rate on Utah vacation rental taxes typically lands between 9% and 13% depending on where the property sits. That total is built from the state sales tax, a county transient room tax, a municipal transient room tax, a statewide transient room tax, and in some counties a tourism-related surcharge. You collect each of them from the guest and remit the total to the Utah State Tax Commission. Get any piece wrong and the liability lands on you, not the guest.
What Counts as a Short-Term Rental
Utah’s dividing line is 30 consecutive days. Any stay shorter than that is treated as temporary lodging and pulls in every tax below. The property type doesn’t matter: a Park City cabin, a St. George condo, a spare bedroom, or a yurt are all subject to the same rules.1Utah State Tax Commission. Tax Bulletin 13-25 – Transient Room Tax Rate Changes
A guest who stays 30 days or longer without interruption falls into the residential rental category, and the lodging-specific taxes stop applying. Splitting a long stay into back-to-back short reservations doesn’t get you there; the Tax Commission looks at whether the occupancy was actually continuous.
The Taxes That Make Up Your Combined Rate
Each layer below is authorized under a different section of Utah law, and each one applies to the same short-term booking.
State Sales and Use Tax
Utah’s general sales tax applies to lodging. The base rate is 4.85%, made up of a 4.70% primary rate and a 0.15% supplemental rate. Certain counties and cities carry additional state-level components under Utah’s Additional and Supplemental State Sales and Use Tax Acts, which can nudge the state portion a bit higher.2Utah Legislature. Utah Code 59-12-103 – Sales and Use Tax Base, Rates, Effective Dates, Use of Sales and Use Tax Revenue
County Transient Room Tax
Counties can layer on their own transient room tax specifically for short-term lodging. Salt Lake County, as the state’s only first-class county, can charge up to 4.25%. Counties in the second through sixth class can charge up to 4.5% following an increase that took effect in July 2025.3Utah Legislature. Utah Code 59-12-301 – Transient Room Tax
Municipal Transient Room Tax
Cities and towns can add up to 1% on the same short-term lodging charges. Municipalities can spend this revenue on general fund needs like public safety and roads rather than being restricted to tourism uses.1Utah State Tax Commission. Tax Bulletin 13-25 – Transient Room Tax Rate Changes
Statewide Transient Room Tax
On top of the county and municipal versions, Utah imposes a statewide transient room tax of 1.07%. It applies uniformly no matter where the property is.4Utah State Tax Commission. Sales Tax Information for Lodging Providers
Tourism, Recreation, Cultural, and Convention Tax
Some counties impose an additional TRCC tax on lodging. Availability and rate turn on the county’s classification; first-class counties, for example, can charge up to 0.5% on short-term accommodations. Revenue funds cultural facilities, convention centers, and recreational infrastructure.5Utah Legislature. Utah Code 59-12-603 – County Tax, Bases, Rates, Use of Revenue
Finding Your Exact Rate
You don’t have to add these up yourself. The Tax Commission publishes combined rate charts every quarter that show the exact total for each tax location in Utah. Look up your property’s rate on the Tax Commission’s sales tax rate page before you set nightly pricing so the tax you collect actually covers what you owe.
Which Charges Are Taxable
The nightly rate is the starting point, not the whole base. Utah taxes almost every fee attached to a short-term booking. Publication 56 lists the ancillary charges subject to both sales tax and transient room tax:4Utah State Tax Commission. Sales Tax Information for Lodging Providers
- Cleaning fees, even when broken out as a separate line item
- Pet fees
- Damage fees charged upfront (as opposed to a claim made against a deposit after the stay)
- Resort fees and reservation fees
- Energy surcharges
- Rollaway beds and cribs
- Mandatory tips added to the invoice; voluntary tips guests leave on their own are not taxed
If it’s part of the booking, you almost certainly owe tax on it. Collecting tax only on the base room rate is a common way owners end up underreporting and drawing audit attention.
When Airbnb or Vrbo Collects for You
Since October 2019, marketplace facilitators with Utah nexus must obtain a sales tax license and collect, report, and pay the applicable taxes on sales they facilitate. When a platform handles the tax on a booking, you aren’t liable for that tax. You still need your own Utah sales tax license if you have Utah nexus, and you still file returns, but you don’t report the marketplace-facilitated sales on your return. If the platform charges the wrong rate, the guest’s refund request goes to the platform, not you.6Utah State Tax Commission. Marketplace Facilitators and Sellers
This only covers what the platform actually facilitates. If you also take direct bookings through your own website, by phone, or through a smaller channel that doesn’t meet the marketplace facilitator definition, you collect and remit on those yourself. Confirm with each platform exactly which Utah taxes it handles, because some collect the state sales tax without picking up the local transient room taxes.
Registering With the State and Your City
Before you take a first guest, you need a state tax account and a local business license.
State Tax Account
Register for a Utah sales and use tax account through the Tax Commission’s Taxpayer Access Point at tap.utah.gov. The application is Form TC-69, completed online. You’ll need your Social Security Number (sole proprietors) or Federal Employer Identification Number, plus the physical address of the rental.7Utah State Tax Commission. Taxpayer Access Point
Pay close attention to the tax area code assigned to your property during registration. That code drives your combined rate and routes revenue to the correct jurisdictions. Enter the wrong location and every return you file will carry the wrong rate.
Local Business License
Most Utah cities and towns also require a business license before you can operate a short-term rental. The license verifies that the property meets local safety and zoning requirements. Application processes and fees vary, but annual fees generally run somewhere around $40 to $150. Some municipalities treat operating without a license as a misdemeanor, so don’t run guests while you wait for either registration to process.
Filing and Paying
You file and pay through TAP. After you log in, you enter gross receipts for the reporting period and the system calculates the tax using the rates tied to your registered location.
How Often You File
Filing frequency depends on your annual tax liability:8Utah State Tax Commission. Sales and Use Tax
- $50,000 or less in annual tax liability: quarterly returns, due April 30, July 31, October 31, and January 31
- $50,001 to $96,000: monthly returns, due the last day of the month following the reporting period
- $96,001 or more: monthly returns with mandatory electronic funds transfer payments
Most vacation rental owners file quarterly. Returns are due even when you had no guests and collected nothing. A zero-dollar return keeps the account current; a missed filing triggers penalties.
Payment Methods
TAP accepts ACH bank transfers and credit or debit card payments. Owners above the $96,000 threshold must pay by EFT. If a due date falls on a weekend or legal holiday, the deadline shifts to the next business day.8Utah State Tax Commission. Sales and Use Tax
Penalties and Interest for Late Returns
Utah’s late-filing penalty scales with how late you are. It’s the greater of $20 or a percentage of the unpaid tax:9Utah Legislature. Utah Code 59-1-401 – Definitions, Offenses and Penalties
- Up to 5 days late: 2% of the unpaid amount
- 6 to 15 days late: 5% of the unpaid amount
- More than 15 days late: 10% of the unpaid amount
Those are the standard rates. If the Tax Commission determines the underpayment involved fraud with intent to evade, the penalty jumps to the greater of $500 per period or 100% of the entire underpayment.9Utah Legislature. Utah Code 59-1-401 – Definitions, Offenses and Penalties
Unpaid tax also accrues interest at 6% per year for the period from January 1, 2025, through December 31, 2026. Interest is calculated daily on the outstanding balance and stacks with the penalty, so a modest underpayment left alone for several months grows faster than owners tend to expect.10Utah State Tax Commission. Publication 58 – Interest Rates
What Records to Keep
Utah requires records detailed enough to verify the tax you owe, and the Tax Commission can request them for examination without advance notice.11Utah State Tax Commission. Utah Tax Recordkeeping Responsibilities At a minimum, hold booking confirmations, payment records, guest stay dates, itemized receipts showing each charge and the tax collected on it, and copies of your filed returns.
The Tax Commission generally has three years from the filing date to assess additional tax, so three years is the practical floor for retention.12Utah Legislature. Utah Code 59-1-1410 – Limitations on Assessment and Collection Four or five years gives a buffer for late-filed returns or extended assessment periods tied to a substantial understatement.
Income Tax on Your Rental Earnings
The taxes above are collected from guests and passed through to the state. Separate from those, the net income you earn from the rental is subject to Utah’s flat individual income tax of 4.85% for the 2026 tax year, whether you’re a Utah resident or an out-of-state owner earning income from a Utah property.
If you hold the rental through an LLC taxed as a partnership or an S corporation, the entity has its own withholding obligations. Utah requires pass-through entities to withhold state income tax on Utah-source income distributed to nonresident individual owners and to non-individual owners regardless of residency.13Utah State Tax Commission. Publication 68 – Pass-through Entity Withholding Missing that withholding creates liability for the entity itself, not just for the individual owners.
Net rental income is figured after ordinary business expenses: mortgage interest, property management fees, repairs, insurance, depreciation, and supplies. Those deductions reduce Utah taxable income the same way they reduce federal taxable income, because Utah’s calculation starts from federal adjusted gross income.