Pierce County, Washington Short-Term Rental Regulations: A 2026 Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Pierce County, Washington and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that you can, and by Puget Sound standards the county asks remarkably little of you. In unincorporated Pierce County there's no license to buy, no annual renewal, no cap on how many rentals exist and no inspection. What the county wants instead is a notarized affidavit, a heads-up to the neighbors either side of you, and a brochure in every guest's hand.

The catch is that "Pierce County" means two different things, and mixing them up is how people get a cease and desist. County law reaches only the unincorporated areas, so if your property sits inside Tacoma, Gig Harbor, Lakewood, Puyallup or any of the other twenty-three cities and towns inside the county line, that city writes your rules and the county's affidavit does nothing for you. Gig Harbor, for one, will sell you exactly one permit and no more, while Tacoma wants a business license and, in some configurations, a conditional use permit. The county, by contrast, wants a signature in front of a notary.

So let's walk through what it takes to do this properly in 2026: which rule set applies to your address, what the county actually requires, what Tacoma and the other cities layer on top, the tax stack you'll be collecting, how hard any of it gets enforced, and who to call when something doesn't line up. Every figure below comes from Pierce County's, Washington State's or a city's own pages, checked in July 2026, and where a source wouldn't open or a number stayed unconfirmed I've said so rather than filling the gap. Before you commit to a purchase here, do run the property through BNBCalc first, because the rules being easy doesn't make the numbers work.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Pierce County

Before anything else, then, find out whose rules you're under, because that one answer changes every other answer in this guide. Pull up your parcel on the county's property lookup, or check the address against Washington DOR's Q3 2026 Pierce County rate notice, which lists every incorporated city alongside the unincorporated areas. Assuming you land in the unincorporated column, the rest of this section is your law, whereas a city address means that city's requirements govern instead.

For unincorporated Pierce County, one short code section does nearly all the work. PCC 18A.37.040 covers both bed and breakfasts and what the county calls Short-Term Vacation Rentals, defining a Vacation Rental as "a short-term rental accommodation within a legally established single-family or accessory dwelling." Note that phrase, though, because a cabin or ADU that was never permitted doesn't become legal by being rented. The section then draws its own boundary in one sentence: "Longer term rentals exceeding 30 days are not regulated under this Chapter." Stay above thirty days and you're a landlord under ordinary tenancy law instead.

So inside that thirty-day line, the county sets five conditions, and they're all things you'd probably do anyway:

• Five guest rooms, maximum. That's the ceiling regardless of house size.
• Two guests per bedroom, ten guests total. The county's Good Neighbor brochure spells out the part hosts miss, which is that each child counts as one occupant.
• Tell guests where to park. The owner or a representative has to give guests information showing the guest parking spaces.
• Notify your directly adjacent neighbors that the vacation rental exists. Not the whole street, and not a 300-foot radius, whatever some regulation blogs claim. Directly adjacent.
• File a Vacation Rental Affidavit with Pierce County Planning and Public Works, and give every renter a Good Neighbor brochure.

Exceed any of that and PCC 18A.37.040.C sends you to a Conditional Use Permit, which is a discretionary land use decision with a hearing rather than a form you file. A six-bedroom lodge sleeping fourteen near Mount Rainier is a conditional use property, not an affidavit property, so make sure you count bedrooms and heads before you buy.

What's striking is everything the ordinance doesn't say. There's no owner-occupancy requirement, so an out-of-state investor can run an entire house, and there's no cap on the number of vacation rentals in a neighborhood or in the county either. Nor is there an annual license, a renewal, an inspection, or a fee named anywhere in the ordinance or on the affidavit form. Compared with Seattle's regime next door in King County, or with Gig Harbor a few miles across the Narrows, unincorporated Pierce County in 2026 is about as light-touch as an urban Washington county gets.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirements in Pierce County

Light-touch doesn't mean unlicensed, though, because two of the three layers that apply to you come from outside the county entirely. Pierce County itself issues no short-term rental license, and its own Business Licensing page is unusually blunt about it. "A Pierce County business license is required for only a few types of businesses," the page says, then names them all, from adult entertainment and pawnbrokers through to peddlers, process servers, for-hire drivers and the kennel categories. Vacation rentals aren't on that list, so the page closes the question by saying that anything not on it doesn't need a county license. The page blocks automated tools, mind you, so I read the archived November 2025 capture rather than the live one.

Washington State is where you do register. The Department of Revenue's business license application is required once your gross income reaches $12,000 a year, or sooner if you have to collect retail sales tax, which as a lodging operator you do. That gets you a UBI number and an excise tax account. DOR says the application fee varies by the endorsements you need, so I won't quote a figure I haven't seen. Budget about ten business days online, longer if a city endorsement rides along, and up to six weeks by mail.

Then there's the city layer, and here the county fragments. Tacoma is the one most hosts are asking about, and the city's own Short-Term Rentals tip sheet lays the rules out by what you're renting rather than by zone alone:

• An entire home or an entire ADU is allowed in all Residential, Commercial, Mixed-Use and Downtown districts, and the owner does not have to live there. Where a property has both a house and an ADU, you may rent one of them and must occupy the other.
• One or two guest rooms inside a dwelling you live in are allowed in every residential district, single-family included.
• Three to nine guest rooms need an approved Conditional Use Permit, and only in the R-3, R-4L, R-4, R-5, RCX and NRX districts. In commercial, mixed-use and downtown districts you can run one to nine rooms without one.

Before a Tacoma listing goes live you'll need a City of Tacoma business license from the Tax and License office, plus a Transient Accommodation License if you're renting three or more individual rooms, under TMC 6B.20 and TMC 6B.140. The city's fee schedule puts the annual business license at $37 as of July 2026 if your worldwide gross is under $12,000 per branch, rising to $190 from $12,000 up to $250,000, which is where a single rental will usually land. Licenses expire on 31 December and renewals are due by 31 January, so a December purchase means paying twice inside two months. The transient accommodation fee isn't labeled as such on that schedule, so do confirm it with Tax and License at (253) 591-5252 instead of assuming.

Gig Harbor is the outlier, and if you're shopping the waterfront it's the one to understand before you make an offer. The city's Short-term Rental Program has run under chapter 17.85 of its municipal code since Ordinance 1507 took effect on 8 March 2023, and it requires a Type II permit, which is a reviewed land use application rather than a counter transaction.

It also allows one short-term rental permit per operator, full stop. So a portfolio strategy inside Gig Harbor city limits isn't available at any price. One owner, one rental. You'll need both a state and a city business license, and DOR's Gig Harbor endorsement page prices the city one at $60 for premises up to 200 square feet and $120 above that. A $650 permit fee circulates widely in secondary write-ups, but I couldn't find it on any city fee schedule I could open, so treat that figure as unverified and ask the city.

The other twenty-one cities and towns each set their own terms, ranging from nothing much to Gig Harbor's model. Assuming your property sits inside a city limit, call that city's planning counter before you file anything with the county, because the affidavit buys you nothing there.

Required Documents for Pierce County Short-Term Rentals

Assuming the county's rules are the ones that apply to you, the paperwork is short, and yet one detail on it still catches almost everyone out. The Vacation Rental Affidavit, last revised 25 August 2025, has to be signed in front of a notary public, because it carries a full Washington notary block at the bottom. So this isn't a form you scan and email on a Sunday evening. Build a notary appointment into your timeline.

Everything the affidavit asks for is straightforward once you've gathered it:

• The property, by site address and parcel number, with your declaration of intent to use it as a short-term vacation rental under PCC 18A.37.040.B.
• Owner contact information, which is required, plus a representative and a property management company with address, email and phone if either applies. If you live out of the area, this is the field that names whoever the county and your neighbors will actually reach.
• Every website where the rental is advertised. Add a second platform later and your filing is out of date.
• An attestation that you notified your directly adjacent neighbors. Keep proof, since the county takes your word on the form and won't have any record of your own.
• A declaration that each renter gets a Good Neighbor brochure.

That last one isn't a formality, and the county's brochure template shows why. It warns renters that they "may be cited, fined, or evicted for creating a noise disturbance or violating any of the provisions" of PCC 18A.37.040. It states the ten-occupant maximum with children counted, asks for quiet after 10 p.m. in backyards and hot tubs, and tells guests never to block a driveway. It also prints the Sheriff's non-emergency line at (253) 798-7530 alongside a blank field for your local contact's phone number, so do fill that field in properly. A neighbor with your number calls you, whereas a neighbor without it calls code enforcement.

Make sure you read the sentence you're signing, as well, because the affidavit doesn't leave much room. By signing it you declare that you understand that "failure to meet these standards will result in a cease and desist of the vacation operation". There's no fine schedule printed on the form and no license to suspend, so the stated consequence is that the operation stops. That's the whole enforcement clause.

Two more documents belong in the same folder even though the county doesn't ask for them. Your liability insurance certificate matters because state law sets a floor of one million dollars, and your in-unit postings, meaning the address, emergency numbers, a fire exit floor plan and the maximum occupancy, are a state requirement rather than a county one. Both are covered further down in the statewide section.

Pierce County Short-Term Rental Taxes

With the file assembled and the affidavit notarized, you're clear to take bookings, and that's where the money starts flowing in a direction you'll need to account for. Washington doesn't run a separate lodging tax return for hosts. Instead your short-term rental income runs through the ordinary state excise tax system, with a lodging surcharge layered on top of retail sales tax at your specific address.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
State retail sales tax	6.50%	Washington Dept of Revenue
Local retail sales tax	1.70% to 4.00%, by address	Washington Dept of Revenue
Special hotel/motel tax	2.00% countywide, 5.00% in Fife, Lakewood and Puyallup	Washington Dept of Revenue
Retailing B&O tax	0.471% of gross	Washington Dept of Revenue, paid by you
Convention and trade center tax	none in Pierce County	not applicable

The last row is worth pausing on, because it's the error I saw most often while researching this guide. Several regulation write-ups assert a 7% convention center tax on Tacoma stays. There isn't one. DOR's lodging taxes page applies that tax to King County, and every Pierce County row in DOR's own quarterly workbook shows N/A in the convention center column for a property of twenty-five units or fewer, which is every individual host reading this.

For the rate you'll actually charge a guest, DOR publishes a combined figure per location in its Q3 2026 lodging rates workbook, effective 1 July through 30 September 2026. Every individual host falls in its twenty-five-units-or-fewer tier, which works out like this:

Where the property is	Total lodging tax
Fife, Lakewood, Puyallup	13.60%
Tacoma	12.50%
Fircrest, Milton, Ruston, Steilacoom, University Place, Edgewood, unincorporated transit-district areas	12.20%
DuPont, Sumner	11.70%
Bonney Lake, Orting, unincorporated Pierce County	11.60%
Gig Harbor	11.20%
Buckley, Roy	10.30%
Carbonado, Eatonville, South Prairie, Wilkeson, unincorporated non-RTA areas	10.20%

That bottom row covers most of the rural east county, including the Mount Rainier corridor, so a cabin near Ashford collects more than two full points less than a condo in Tacoma. That gap is real money. Fife, Lakewood and Puyallup sit at the top because they charge the higher 5.00% rate.

I'm quoting DOR's own published total rather than adding the pieces up, and there's a reason for that. In the 5.00% jurisdictions the components and the total don't reconcile: Lakewood's combined sales tax is 10.30% and its special hotel/motel tax is 5.00%, which would come to 15.30%, yet DOR publishes 13.60%. The footnotes don't explain the gap, so I'm using the column the state prints rather than arithmetic that might be wrong.

Do check your own address in DOR's Tax Rate Lookup Tool before your first booking, because these rates move every quarter. A countywide increase of one tenth of one percent for Local Law Enforcement Programs took effect on 1 July 2026, which is why every figure above sits a tenth higher than it did in the spring.

Who hands the money over depends on your platform, and the answer isn't the same for all of them. DOR's own page says Airbnb has collected and sent in state and local retail sales tax and the special hotel/motel tax for Washington hosts since 15 October 2015. Even so, you still register with DOR, still file an excise tax return, still report your gross rental income, and then claim the "Gross Sales Collected by Facilitator" deduction so the platform's payment isn't taxed twice. The Retailing B&O tax stays yours after any small business credit. DOR names only Airbnb on that page, so keep in mind that if you're booking through Vrbo, Booking.com or direct, you should assume you're collecting and paying it yourself until that platform tells you otherwise in writing.

Deductions and Write-Offs

On the federal side a Pierce County short-term rental is an ordinary trade or business, so the usual deductions apply. Mortgage interest, property tax, insurance, utilities, cleaning and turnover labor, platform fees, supplies and repairs all come off, and so does depreciation on the building and on the furniture you bought to make it rentable. Washington has no state income tax, which quietly improves the after-tax picture here relative to Oregon or California.

Two things trip people up. First, if you use the place yourself, you have to apportion nearly everything by nights of personal versus rental use, and that arithmetic is fiddlier on a mountain cabin you visit than on a Tacoma duplex you never sleep in. Second, the Retailing B&O tax is levied on gross income, not on profit, so a bad year still owes it. Talk to a Washington CPA before your first return rather than after it.

Washington State Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

Underneath the county affidavit and the city licenses sits a statewide layer that applies to you no matter which of those two you're dealing with. Washington has no preemption statute, which is exactly why Pierce County and Gig Harbor can look so different from each other. Chapter 64.37 RCW sets a consumer-safety and tax floor for every short-term rental in the state and leaves local zoning and licensing completely untouched. There's no statewide registry and no state STR permit, so anyone telling you to register with Olympia is describing the ordinary business license, not a lodging registration.

The floor itself is short and specific. RCW 64.37.050 says you have to carry at least one million dollars of primary liability insurance covering the rental unit, or run the property through a platform that provides equivalent coverage. Don't assume your homeowner's policy does this, because it generally doesn't, and RCW 64.37.040 in fact obliges platforms to warn you of exactly that in writing.

RCW 64.37.030 then adds the operational duties, and they're the ones an inspector or an unhappy neighbor can point at. You have to give every guest contact details for someone who's available to respond during the stay, and you have to meet the carbon monoxide alarm rules under RCW 19.27.530. On top of that, five things go up conspicuously inside each unit: the street address, emergency contact information for police, fire and medical services, a floor plan showing fire exits and escape routes, the maximum occupancy, and your own contact details. Enforcement is graduated, since a first violation gets a warning letter from the city or county attorney, and any violation after that is a class 2 civil infraction under chapter 7.80 RCW.

One piece of pending legislation is worth tracking, though it's still only pending. SB 5576 and its companion HB 2559 would let a county, city or town impose a local excise tax of up to 4% on short-term rental charges, earmarked for affordable housing, and going through both bill histories in July 2026, neither has passed. SB 5576 cleared the Senate 27-21 in March 2025, never got a House floor vote, and was reintroduced into Senate Ways and Means on 12 January 2026. HB 2559 passed House Finance on 29 January 2026, went to House Appropriations on 3 February, and has sat there since. My guess is it comes back in 2027, but don't build it into a pro forma yet. A bill in committee isn't a tax.

If you're comparing Pierce County against the rest of the state, our Washington statewide guide maps the whole framework, the King County guide covers the Seattle side of the metro where the rules get tighter, and the Snohomish County guide covers the north end.

Does Pierce County Strictly Enforce Short-Term Rental Rules?

Strictly is the wrong word for it, though quietly getting stricter would be fair. Pierce County enforces its development regulations by complaint, not by patrol. There's no registry to audit, no license renewal that triggers a review, and no platform-level verification of the kind New York City uses, where an unregistered listing simply can't take a booking. In practice, what starts a case is a neighbor who's had enough of the parking, the noise or the hot tub.

That neighbor has an easy path, too. Pierce County Code Enforcement runs an online complaint portal and a public case search for unincorporated Pierce County, and takes calls at (253) 798-4636 on weekdays between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. The Good Neighbor brochure you're required to hand out prints that same number, which is worth sitting with for a second, since the county obliges you to give every guest the phone number for reporting you. Every guest.

What changed recently is the price of ignoring a case, because Ordinance O2025-571 rewrote Chapter 18.140 PCC, "Compliance", after passing the county council 4-2 on 9 December 2025. Its staff report, indexed in the county's own legislative system, says section 18.140.050 was amended "to increase the maximum civil penalty from $1,000 to $2,500" for failing to comply with the county's development regulations or with a written order. That's two and a half times the old ceiling. The same package also lets the county record a Notice of Non-Compliance against the property title, which is the part that shows up in a title search when you try to sell. I'd read all that as the county sharpening the tool before it decides what to point it at, rather than as a crackdown on rentals, since nothing in the ordinance mentions them at all.

Inside city limits none of this applies and you're dealing with that city's inspectors instead, which the county's code enforcement page helpfully lists out. Bonney Lake takes complaints at (253) 862-8602, Gig Harbor at (253) 851-8136, Lakewood at (253) 589-2489, Puyallup at (253) 841-4321, University Place at (253) 566-5656, and Tacoma through TacomaFIRST 311 at (253) 591-5000. Gig Harbor, having built a permit system, has the most to enforce and the clearest record of who holds what.

The honest summary is that a compliant Pierce County host is unlikely to hear from anyone, and a non-compliant one is unlikely to hear from anyone until a neighbor complains. That's still a real risk, though, because the affidavit's own language says the remedy is a cease and desist rather than a fine you can absorb. The rental stops.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Pierce County

Given how much of that turns on where the property line falls, the order below matters, and step one is the one that saves you the most wasted effort:

1. Confirm your jurisdiction. Look up the parcel and establish whether it's unincorporated or inside a city. Everything downstream depends on this, so don't take a listing agent's word for it.
2. Check that the dwelling is legally established. PCC 18A.37.040 only covers a legally established single-family or accessory dwelling, so an unpermitted cabin or a converted garage needs sorting out before it can be rented at all.
3. Count rooms and heads against the standards. Five guest rooms, two guests per bedroom, ten guests total. Over any of those and you're in Conditional Use Permit territory, which is a hearing rather than a filing.
4. Notify your directly adjacent neighbors, in writing, and keep a copy. You'll be attesting to this under a notary's seal.
5. Get the Vacation Rental Affidavit notarized and filed with Pierce County Planning and Public Works, with the parcel number, your contact details and every listing URL on it.
6. Register with the Washington Department of Revenue for a business license and an excise tax account, and add a city business license if you're inside one.
7. Buy the insurance. One million dollars of primary liability under RCW 64.37.050, and tell your carrier what the property is actually being used for.
8. Set up the unit before the first guest: address and emergency numbers posted, fire exit floor plan, maximum occupancy, working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, and the Good Neighbor brochure with your local contact's phone number filled in.
9. Sort the tax mechanics. Confirm what your platform collects, put the DOR filing frequency in your calendar, and remember the Retailing B&O is yours even when the sales tax isn't.
10. Keep your filing current. Add a platform, change property managers or move house, and the contact and listing details on that affidavit need updating.

Once the property's running, the Washington market rankings are then worth a look, since they show where Pierce County sits against Spokane, the coast and the Cascades on the numbers that decide whether this was worth doing.

Who to Contact in Pierce County about Short-Term Rental Regulations and Zoning?

Whichever of those steps you get stuck on, a handful of offices handle almost all of it between them, and picking the right one first will save you an afternoon.

Filing the affidavit, zoning questions and conditional use permits

The Pierce County Development Center, part of Planning and Public Works, takes land use applications and answers what-is-allowed-in-my-zone questions for unincorporated Pierce County.

• Address: Pierce County Annex, East Entrance, 2401 S 35th St, Tacoma, WA 98409
• Phone and live chat: (253) 798-3739, Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• Walk-in lobby: Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., with technical support unavailable 12 to 12:30 p.m.
• Online: the Development Center pages carry the forms index and the Online Development Guide

Complaints, and the number your neighbors will dial

Pierce County Code Enforcement handles code complaints in unincorporated Pierce County only.

• Address: 2401 S 35th St, Room 2, Tacoma, WA 98409
• Phone: (253) 798-4636, Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., closed major holidays
• Non-emergency incidents: (253) 798-4721, option 1
• Sheriff non-emergency: (253) 798-7530, the number printed on the Good Neighbor brochure

State registration and every tax on the stack

The Washington State Department of Revenue owns the business license, the excise tax return, the sales tax and the lodging taxes. There's no county tax office to call about any of it.

• Phone: 360-705-6705, the number DOR prints on its own rate notices
• Online: the personal home rentals guide covers registration and which taxes apply, and the Tax Rate Lookup Tool gives you the exact rate for your address

Inside a city

• Tacoma zoning and short-term rental questions: Planning and Development Services, [email protected], (253) 591-5030
• Tacoma business licensing: Tax and License Division, 747 Market Street, Room 212, Tacoma, WA 98402, (253) 591-5252, [email protected], phones Monday to Friday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• Gig Harbor short-term rental permits: [email protected], (253) 851-6170

One practical note on reaching those county pages yourself. Pierce County's website blocks automated access, so several of the pages cited above were read from archived captures. In a browser they open normally.

What Do Airbnb Hosts in Pierce County on Reddit and Bigger Pockets Think about Local Regulations?

Given how quiet the enforcement picture is, it won't surprise you that the forums are quiet too. What follows is my read of what I could actually reach and read rather than any kind of survey, so weigh it accordingly. Reddit blocks automated access and its platform terms don't permit the commercial use these guides represent, so I haven't characterized any Reddit thread here; what I can point to is BiggerPockets, which I read directly.

• The regulations barely come up, and I think that's the finding. Search BiggerPockets for Pierce County short-term rental discussion and you find market questions, financing questions and neighborhood questions, but almost nothing about permits. Compare that with the volume of threads about Seattle's regime or Gig Harbor's one-permit rule, and the absence starts to look like a signal: a rule set with no license, no cap and no fee doesn't generate complaint threads.
• Seasonality dominates the east county conversation instead. On a Pacific Northwest market research thread, BiggerPockets Pro member Michael Baum of Olympia writes that "Ashford is a neat little town, but I don't see it being profitable for most of the year", because "the road to Paradise is closed pretty much after Oct so that negates visitors." That's the Mount Rainier corridor, where much of the county's rural inventory sits, and the constraint there is the calendar rather than the code. Our Ashford guide covers that gateway market.
• Older Washington threads worry about tenancy, not permits. The same contributor warned back in 2021 on a Tacoma condo thread about long-stay guests establishing tenancy, "especially in King, Pierce and Snohomish county". The moratorium that prompted it is long gone, yet the point holds for anyone tempted to take a sixty-day booking without a lease.
• HOAs and condo boards do most of the real gatekeeping. Nothing in county or Tacoma code stops a homeowners association from banning short-term rentals in its covenants, and that's a far more common reason a Pierce County property can't be listed than any government rule.

The forward-looking risk is the one nobody's arguing about yet, and it's worth watching if you're buying, because Pierce County's own Land Use and Housing Code Updates page already lists "Short Term Rental Regulations" under Upcoming Projects. Engagement, it says, will open soon to hear what residents think the role of short-term rentals in Pierce County ought to be. That was the position as of the November 2025 capture I could read, and no later snapshot exists. Behind it, the University of Washington's Livable City Year partnership with Pierce County ran a Winter 2026 practicum on "the impacts of short term rentals on affordable housing in Pierce County", which Planning and Public Works asked for to inform possible code changes.

Now, is any of that actually law yet? No, and I checked rather than assumed: searching the Pierce County Council's legislation index in July 2026 turns up zero proposals, in any year, whose title mentions short-term or vacation rentals. Still, a county that commissions research on whether to change a rule isn't a county that intends to leave it alone forever, so if you're underwriting a Pierce County purchase on today's light-touch regime, build in the possibility that it tightens.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you need a permit to run an Airbnb in Pierce County, Washington?

In unincorporated Pierce County, no permit and no license. Under PCC 18A.37.040 you file a notarized Vacation Rental Affidavit with Pierce County Planning and Public Works, notify your directly adjacent neighbors, and give each renter a Good Neighbor brochure. Neither the ordinance nor the form names a fee. Inside a city the answer changes: Gig Harbor requires a Type II short-term rental permit and allows one per operator, and Tacoma requires a business license plus a conditional use permit for three to nine guest rooms in certain residential zones.

How much tax do you charge on a short-term rental in Pierce County?

It depends on the exact address. For a property of twenty-five units or fewer, Washington DOR's Q3 2026 lodging schedule puts the total lodging tax at 12.50% in Tacoma, 11.60% in unincorporated Pierce County inside the transit district, 11.20% in Gig Harbor and 10.20% in unincorporated non-RTA areas such as Eatonville and the Mount Rainier corridor. Fife, Lakewood and Puyallup reach 13.60%. On top of that you owe Retailing B&O tax of 0.471% on gross income, which you pay rather than the guest.

Does Pierce County limit how many short-term rentals you can own?

Not in the unincorporated county. PCC 18A.37.040 sets no cap on the number of vacation rentals countywide, in a neighborhood, or per owner, and it contains no owner-occupancy requirement, so an investor who lives elsewhere can operate a whole house. Cities are different, though. Gig Harbor allows exactly one short-term rental permit per operator under chapter 17.85 of its municipal code, which rules out building a portfolio inside those city limits.

Can you rent an entire house short-term in unincorporated Pierce County?

Yes, provided the dwelling is legally established and you stay inside the standards. Five guest rooms is the maximum, occupancy is capped at two guests per bedroom and ten guests overall with children counted, and stays over thirty days fall outside the ordinance entirely as ordinary tenancies. Exceed any of those numbers and PCC 18A.37.040.C requires a Conditional Use Permit, which is a discretionary land use decision rather than a form you file.

What happens if you don't file the Pierce County Vacation Rental Affidavit?

The affidavit itself states that failure to meet the standards "will result in a cease and desist of the vacation operation". Enforcement runs on complaints through Pierce County Code Enforcement at (253) 798-4636, in unincorporated areas only. Ordinance O2025-571, passed 9 December 2025, also raised the maximum civil penalty under PCC 18.140.050 from $1,000 to $2,500.

Rules this light are a real advantage while they last, and what's worth remembering is that they're a policy choice rather than a fact of geography. Somebody chose not to cap, not to charge and not to inspect, and somebody can choose otherwise. So underwrite on what the property earns, not on how easy the paperwork feels this year.

Last verified: July 2026. Every ordinance, tax rate, state law, and contact detail in this guide links to or comes from its official source.