Prince George’s County, Maryland Short-Term Rental Regulations: A 2026 Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Prince George's County, Maryland and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that you can, and the county has run a proper licensing program for it since October 2019, so nobody here is operating in a grey area. The catch arrives fast, though. The property has to be your own permanent residence, the one you hold the Maryland Homestead Tax Credit on, and even then the county caps you at 180 nights of paying guests a year.

That single rule quietly decides everything else. A host is defined as the legal owner who hands over a homestead credit filing for the address, and since you can only hold that credit at one address in Maryland, there's no path here to a second unit, a portfolio, or an LLC holding four townhouses near National Harbor. Leave the house empty while guests are in it and your ceiling drops from 180 nights to 90. Put a ninth person in the door and you've breached the license. Unfortunately for anyone who arrived looking for an investment thesis, this is a homeowner's side income with a hard annual ceiling bolted on.

So let's walk through what it takes to do this properly: which sections of the County Code actually bind you, what the Department of Permitting, Inspections and Enforcement charges in 2026, the documents you'll be uploading, the two layers of tax riding on every booking, how the county finds people, and who to call when something stalls. Every figure below comes from Prince George's County's or Maryland's own pages, checked in July 2026, and where two official sources disagree I've said which one governs. Before you spend a dollar, run the property through BNBCalc first, because 180 nights is a different business from 365.

What are Short-Term Rental (Airbnb, VRBO) Regulations in Prince George's County, Maryland?

Before you can model those 180 nights, it helps to know where the number comes from, and two bills from 2018 do almost all of the work. The first was the zoning half. CB-010-2018, Chapter 36 added short-term rentals to the Zoning Ordinance "as a permitted accessory use in the Industrial, Mixed Use, Residential and Commercial Zones," which is the sentence that makes the whole activity legal in ordinary neighborhoods rather than a special exception you have to argue for.

The second bill is the one you'll live with. CB-11-2018, Chapter 84 took effect on October 1, 2019 and built the licensing regime, and it now sits in the County Code as Subtitle 5, Division 8, Sections 5-173 through 5-175.10, codified through Bill No. CB-018-2026. Amendments in 2020 and 2024 reshaped it more than most people realize, so anything you read that still quotes "Section 7A-104" is citing the pre-recodification numbering.

Three definitions in Section 5-174 then carry most of the weight, and each one closes a door somebody was hoping to walk through:

• A short-term rental is a residential dwelling unit occupied by a guest other than the permanent occupant for fewer than 31 consecutive days. The county then splits the annual allowance by whether you're there: no more than 90 days per calendar year if the owner isn't present, and no more than 180 days per calendar year if the host is. You can't stack the two, and 180 is the ceiling either way.
• A host is "a legal owner of a residential dwelling unit" who "must provide proof of ownership with a copy of his or her Homestead Tax Credit filing." No credit, no host.
• A permanent resident is someone domiciled in Prince George's County who keeps a place of abode there for 180 or more days a year, owns the property, and holds the homestead credit at that address. The code then adds the line that ends the portfolio conversation: "a host may have only one (1) permanent address."

Do keep in mind that the guest limits bite separately from the day count. Section 5-175.03 says a licensed host shall not rent for more than 30 consecutive days, shall not permit "more than a total of eight (8) guests at any one time," and shall not exceed three guests per bedroom. So a four-bedroom house near FedEx Field still tops out at eight people, because the total cap wins over the per-bedroom arithmetic.

One exemption exists, and it's narrow enough that most people will never touch it. Under Section 5-175.10, added by CB-37-2020, a buyer or seller of real property who enters into a Settlement Occupancy Agreement is exempt from short-term rental licensing altogether. That covers the seller who stays on for two weeks after closing, not the owner who wants to rent weekends.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Prince George's County

Read those definitions back to back and the business question mostly answers itself. Unfortunately for anyone planning to buy a condo in Suitland, furnish it, and run it whole on Airbnb, that plan can't be licensed in Prince George's County, because the license attaches to the address where you hold your homestead credit and you only get one of those. Companies can't be hosts either, since the code hangs the definition on a legal owner producing a personal homestead credit filing. No LLC structure moves that, and no fee buys around it.

What's left is a real thing, mind you, and plenty of people run it well. You live in the house, you register it, and you host guests for up to 180 nights a year while you're there, or up to 90 nights if you travel and leave the place to them. The revenue you should be modeling is therefore half a year of nightly rates at best, on one property, in a market where the demand is DC-adjacent rather than resort-seasonal.

Even that version has a list of conditions attached before DPIE will look at you:

• Your HOA can veto the whole thing. The county's own short-term rental licensing page puts it bluntly: "If your HOA does not allow short-term rentals, you are not allowed to participate," and by applying you're attesting that yours does. Section 5-175.01(e) turns that attestation into a license condition, so getting it wrong is a revocation risk rather than a paperwork slip.
• Off-street parking is a quantity, not a box to tick. The code requires at least one off-street space for every three overnight guests, which means eight guests need three spaces on your own property.
• Basements are conditional. DPIE says basements or parts of basements can't be used as bedrooms or habitable space unless its Enforcement Division has approved them, and all construction, secondary stoves included, has to have been permitted.
• The property has to be clean on paper. No outstanding taxes, no liens, no code violations, or the application gets denied.
• You need the trash cans. Two outdoor trash receptacles and one recycling receptacle, all with tight-fitting lids. It sounds trivial. It isn't, because it's the kind of line that holds a whole file up.

Municipal boundaries add one more wrinkle. DPIE administers short-term rental licenses across the county, but eighteen incorporated towns, among them College Park, Hyattsville, Greenbelt, Bowie and Mount Rainier, run their own single-family and multifamily rental licensing, per the county's rental housing licenses page. The code separately requires you to notify the municipality where the rental sits, so if your address falls inside a town, make sure you ask that town what it expects of you before you assume the county license is the end of it. Neighboring counties handle this differently again, and the Montgomery County guide, the Anne Arundel County guide and the Baltimore County guide are the useful comparisons if you're deciding where in the DC-to-Baltimore corridor to buy.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirements in Prince George's County

So let's say your house clears all of that and the HOA is fine with it. Every rental license in the county now runs through Momentum, DPIE's online portal, where you create an account, complete a three-page application, upload your documents and pay. Nothing gets mailed to you, so remember that you print both the temporary and the permanent license yourself from the My Permits/Licenses dashboard.

The sequencing is unusually generous, and it's the part most guides get wrong. Once you've filed a complete application and paid, DPIE issues a 90-day temporary license and you can legally operate on it while staff review the file.

Section 5-175(b) is where that lives, though, and it carries two conditions worth reading twice: those 90 days count against your annual allowance like any other rented night, and if you've previously been denied, suspended or revoked, DPIE will not issue the certificate at all. Assuming nothing turns up in review, the temporary license converts to a permanent one at the end of the 90 days.

Then there's the money, where the ordinance and the county's own fee table have drifted apart. Section 5-175.01(d) still reads "$150 licensing fee, thereafter there will be an annual fee of $150," but the same subsection says fees are subject to change and "shall be prescribed in the Table of Fees." The DPIE Fee Schedule effective March 2, 2025 is that table, and it prices a host license at a $198 license fee plus a $66 administrative fee, plus a 10% technology fee on top. The schedule prints those components rather than one combined number, so budget the pieces rather than a headline figure, and be aware that the widely repeated "$150" is the stale number as of July 2026, not the current one.

Two more charges from the same schedule matter to a host. A second application review costs $132 after your second incomplete submission, which is the county charging you for sloppiness. And an enforcement civil citation for a short-term rental host runs $1,200, plus the technology fee. Platforms carry their own tariff: the code sets $2,500 a year, while the fee schedule now lists $3,300 plus the administrative fee, and that gap resolves the same way, in favour of the table.

A license expires annually on the anniversary of its issuance, and Section 5-175.02 requires you to apply for renewal 30 days before that date. Renewal isn't a rubber stamp either, because you have to file a guest log alongside it.

That log has to show the total guests for the calendar year, the guests on each individual booking, the dates the property was rented, and the days it was and wasn't owner-occupied. That last column is how the county audits your 90-versus-180 split, so keep it as you go. Reconstructing it in December is misery.

One structural rule surprises people. Section 5-175 only lets DPIE issue a license to a host who uses platforms that are themselves licensed by Prince George's County, so your standing depends partly on whether Airbnb, Vrbo or whoever else you list with holds a county platform license. You also have to name every platform you intend to use on the application, which is why it's worth checking that status before you commit to a channel.

If it goes wrong, the penalties are written to be uncomfortable rather than ruinous. Section 5-175.07 makes any violation of the division subject to a civil fine of not less than $1,000, imposed by violation notice or administrative citation, and lets the Director suspend or revoke a license for a code violation, for a nuisance, for a stop-work order, or for refusing DPIE reasonable access to inspect. Platforms that take a booking fee for an unlicensed host are liable for $1,000 per violation under Section 5-175.06. Should you want to fight any of it, you have ten calendar days to appeal to the county's Administrative Hearing Unit, which must give its decision in writing within 30 days, and judicial review after that runs to the Circuit Court for Prince George's County.

Required Documents for Prince George's County Short-Term Rentals

Since every one of those fees is non-refundable, it's worth getting the file right the first time rather than paying $132 to be reviewed twice. DPIE says plainly that every document has to be in hand before you submit, and the list on its licensing page is more specific than most counties bother to be:

• Your Maryland Homestead Tax Credit. Complete the eligibility application and the whole process before you apply for the rental license, because DPIE treats the credit as the proof that the address is your permanent residence.
• Photos of the smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, installed in all bedrooms or in the hallway outside them, with each photo labelled to show where in the house it was taken.
• A photo of the fire extinguisher. It has to be a minimum 2A:10BC, shown charged, hung or mounted in a fixed spot on the travel path to an exit, not next to the stove, with the top of the extinguisher no higher than five feet.
• A photo of the posted floor plan showing fire exits and escape routes, conspicuously displayed inside the rental, plus the posted emergency contact information.
• Current liability insurance of at least $1,000,000. A platform's policy can satisfy this if it meets the same figure and DPIE approves it.
• Neighbor notification proof. The county supplies the "Short-Term Rental License Neighbor Notification" form, and you serve it on the neighbors immediately left, immediately right, in front and behind the property.
• HOA notification proof, on the county's separate form.
• Proof of off-street parking, at the one-space-per-three-guests ratio.
• Your emergency contact's details. This must be somebody other than you who lives in Prince George's County or within 25 miles of it, and who can respond to the property when something needs immediate attention.
• A list of every platform you intend to use, and completion of the county's human trafficking training videos and quiz.

Two ongoing obligations start the moment you're licensed rather than at renewal. Contact details for you and your emergency contact have to be updated within five business days of any change, or you risk denial or revocation. And the house rules DPIE approves under Section 5-175.06(a) have to stay posted at or beside the main entrance guests use, next to your license and the department's contact information.

Prince George's County Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you clear the paperwork and are able to start taking bookings, there's still tax sitting on top of every night you sell. Two governments are involved and they use different clocks, so it's easier to take them one at a time.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
Maryland sales and use tax	6%	Airbnb on platform bookings, the host on direct bookings
Prince George's County hotel and motel tax	7%	Airbnb on Airbnb bookings, otherwise the host remits to the Director of Finance
Maryland sales tax on Airbnb's service fee	3%	Airbnb

The county piece is the one to understand properly. Section 10-219 of the County Code levies the hotel and motel tax on gross amounts paid for renting a room "for less than ninety (90) consecutive days," and sets the rate at seven percent effective July 1, 2015. Section 10-218.01 gives the Council authority to go as high as ten percent, so seven is a policy choice rather than a ceiling, and it's a rate I'd watch across budget cycles. A guest who does reach 90 consecutive days gets a refund of the tax collected on the first 89, and a lodging business where 70% or more of rental income comes from residents of 90 days or longer is exempt on certification to the Director of Finance.

Maryland's 6% sales and use tax stacks underneath that, and it reaches short-term rentals because Chapter 704 of 2019 made a short-term rental platform a vendor and a booking through one a taxable sale. Airbnb's Maryland tax page confirms the platform collects the 6% on the listing price including cleaning fees, 3% on its own service fees, and the county's 7% hotel tax on reservations of 89 nights and shorter. I could not verify Vrbo's Maryland behavior from a primary source, so if you list there, do check with the platform in writing before you assume the county tax is handled.

Take a direct booking and both taxes become yours to collect. That means a sales and use tax license from the Comptroller under Tax-General § 11-702, which under § 11-706 stays effective "until it is surrendered by the licensee or revoked for cause," with registration and filing running through Maryland Tax Connect. On the county side, Section 10-218 wants the hotel tax paid over by the last day of each month, covering the month before, though an operator running year-round can ask the Director of Finance in writing for quarterly filing instead. Licensed platforms pay theirs quarterly, by the last days of April, July, October and January.

Falling behind gets expensive quickly. Section 10-220 adds interest of two-thirds of one percent a month plus a penalty of one percent a month, which the code itself totals as "one and two-thirds percent (1 2/3%) per month (equivalent to twenty percent (20%) per year)." Section 10-222 then lets the Director estimate what you owe if you don't file, and unpaid tax becomes a lien on your real and personal property, enforced the same way County real estate taxes are.

So keep your records for at least two years. Section 10-224 requires exactly that, and it gives the Director the right to inspect them at any reasonable time.

One quirk is worth knowing if your address sits inside a town. Where hotel tax revenue is generated within a municipal corporation, the County collects it and then distributes 50% of it back to that municipality, which is a small reason your town council has an opinion about short-term rentals at all.

Maryland-Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

The county sets those rates, but the frame around them is Annapolis's, and 2026 changed that frame more than any year since the licensing program started. Maryland doesn't broadly preempt local short-term rental rules, and the General Assembly said so in writing: Chapter 9 of 2026 provides that its new subtitle may not be read to require a county to authorize short-term rentals, or to "preempt or prohibit a county or Baltimore City from enacting other measures regarding short-term rentals." Prince George's County's 90 and 180 day caps are therefore safe from a state override.

That same chapter, the Jillian and Lindsay Wiener Short-Term Rental Safety Act, is the statewide layer you'll feel first. Signed on April 14, 2026 and effective October 1, 2026, it applies to any unit offered for fewer than 30 consecutive days and requires hosts to post an evacuation diagram and emergency numbers and to provide a working fire extinguisher plus working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, interconnected where multiple smoke alarms are required, and replaced if they're non-functioning, over ten years old or undated. Booking services have to notify hosts and collect their compliance documentation. If you're already meeting DPIE's photo requirements, most of this is a formality, though the alarm-age rule is new and worth checking against the units on your ceiling.

Two other state moves are already scheduled. By July 1, 2028, every county where short-term rentals are allowed must require an annual inspection of each unit against those fire-safety standards, and may charge for it, so expect Prince George's County to add an inspection fee to that same Table of Fees before then. Then, from July 1, 2027, Chapter 638 of 2025 moves collection of the county hotel rental tax onto the booking platforms themselves. Any platform clearing $100,000 in sales or 200 transactions will collect the tax and hand it to the Comptroller, who then distributes it back to the county, and state tax law wins wherever a local rule conflicts with it. So your 7% won't change, though who banks it will.

There's no statewide short-term rental license or registry, which is why everything operational lives with the county. The bill that would've shifted the balance, HB 993 of 2026, would've barred local bans aimed only at tenants and subtenants who host, and it passed the House 102-31 in March 2026 before dying without a Senate third reading. So renters in Prince George's County still have no route to a license. Our Maryland statewide guide maps how the counties differ, the Baltimore City guide covers the state's other big licensing regime, and this look at Maryland rental property investing is the wider view if short-term isn't the only model you're considering.

Does Prince George's County Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Enforcement here isn't a state question at all, and the county's approach is less about inspectors knocking than about data arriving on its own. Because licenses are only issued to hosts using licensed platforms, and because Section 5-175.04 makes every platform collect your license or 90-day certificate before it will list you, the compliance check happens at listing rather than after a complaint.

The reporting obligation on platforms is where it gets serious. Each month, on or before the last calendar day, a licensed platform has to send DPIE the address of every host site, the municipality, the license number, the total nights each listing was rented, the amount paid to the host, and the total taxes charged and paid for each stay. That's a monthly reconciliation file naming your address and your nights, which is why quietly exceeding 90 or 180 days is a harder trick than it looks.

Neighbors have their own channel too. DPIE routes complaints about unlicensed rentals to PGC311, reachable on 3-1-1 or 301-883-4748, and it warns on its own page that an unlicensed operator "may be permanently barred from participating in the program."

The nuisance definition in Section 5-174 then gives that some teeth, because a property where police have answered complaints or calls for service three or more times in any 30-day period meets it. Once it does, Section 5-175.07 lets the Director suspend or revoke on the spot.

Transparency was the 2024 addition. CB-066-2024, enacted in October 2024, wrote Section 5-175(h) into the code, requiring DPIE to maintain an online searchable public database of every licensed short-term rental showing the address, council district, municipality, license number and whether the property carries outstanding code violations. WTOP reported that the Council passed it unanimously, though not before amending host names out of it. Council Chair Jolene Ivey framed the bill as a response to party houses. She was, she said, "not the only council member who has been contacted by people in a neighborhood who are really being disturbed by the activities that are going on in a handful of Airbnbs or Vrbos." I could not find a live public version of that database in July 2026, so treat it as a legal requirement that may or may not be searchable when you go looking.

Now for the honest part, because the enforcement picture has a hole in it. The county publishes no license counts, no violation counts and no annual short-term rental report that I could locate, even though Section 5-175.05 requires DPIE to give one to the County Executive by February 1 each year and the Executive to forward it to the Council by March 15. The Council's own fiscal note of April 15, 2026 rather makes the point. One of the questions it puts to committee is whether DPIE even has "an estimate of the number of violators for rental and short-term rental licenses," which is not a question a committee has to ask when the answer already sits on a dashboard. The same note also flags that enforcement responsibility itself "may change pending anticipated agency restructuring, which could transfer enforcement authority to the Department of Homeland Security." So the rules are strict on paper and the platform data pipeline is real, while how hard any of it gets worked is something the Council was still asking about a few months ago.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Prince George's County

Given how much of that turns on eligibility rather than effort, the order below saves you money as much as time. The early steps tell you whether the later ones are worth attempting, and the fees don't come back.

1. Confirm the homestead credit before anything else. Apply for the Maryland Homestead Property Tax Credit on the address and let it complete. Without it you're not a host under the code, and DPIE says outright that applying first risks denial.
2. Read your HOA documents, then get the notification form. If short-term rentals are prohibited where you live, stop here. If they're allowed, DPIE's Enforcement Division forms page carries both the HOA and neighbor notification letters.
3. Serve the neighbor notices. Left, right, front and behind, on the county's approved letter, and keep the proof.
4. Clear the property. No outstanding taxes, no liens, no open code violations, and get any unpermitted work or unapproved basement space sorted before an inspector sees it.
5. Fit and photograph the safety kit. Smoke and CO alarms in every bedroom or the hallway outside, a mounted 2A:10BC extinguisher on the path to an exit, a posted floor plan with escape routes, posted emergency contacts. Label every photo with its location in the house.
6. Line up the rest of the file. A $1,000,000 liability policy, proof of off-street parking at one space per three guests, your emergency contact within 25 miles, your list of platforms, and the human trafficking training certificate.
7. Apply in Momentum and pay. You'll get a 90-day temporary license on payment; print it, and start counting those days against your annual allowance from the first booked night.
8. Put the license number in every listing and display the license, your emergency contact and DPIE's details inside the property, alongside the approved house rules by the main entrance.
9. Set up tax and the guest log on day one. Confirm in writing which taxes your platform collects, register with the Comptroller if you take direct bookings, and start the log that your renewal will demand.
10. Diarize the renewal for 30 days before your anniversary, with the guest log attached.

Somewhere between steps one and seven you'll want to know what the nights are worth, and that's a different question from whether you're allowed to sell them. The Maryland short-term rental market data on BNBCalc Markets is where I'd start on the revenue side, then halve the calendar, because a legal Prince George's County listing is a part-year asset by design.

Who to Contact in Prince George's County about Short-Term Rental Regulations and Zoning?

Whichever of those steps stalls, three offices handle almost everything between them, and knowing which one owns your question saves a long hold.

Licensing, applications and enforcement

The Department of Permitting, Inspections and Enforcement administers short-term rental licenses through its Enforcement Division, and its Permitting and Licensing Division handles the application itself.

• Address: 9400 Peppercorn Place, Largo, MD 20774
• Main number: 301-636-2000
• Permitting and Licensing Division: 301-636-2050
• Enforcement Division: 301-883-6168
• Administrative Hearing Unit (where appeals are heard): 301-636-2020
• Online: the Momentum portal for applications and payments, and MyPGC.us/ContactDPIE for licensing questions by email

DPIE's own contact page asks you to check the individual division's page for customer hours rather than publishing one set, and I couldn't find published counter hours for the licensing desk in July 2026, so call ahead before driving to Largo.

Complaints, and the number a neighbor would dial about you

PGC311 takes reports of unlicensed short-term rentals and routes them to DPIE.

• Phone: 3-1-1 from inside the county, or 301-883-4748
• Worth knowing in both directions, since the same line is how you report the party house four doors down.

Hotel tax and county payments

The Office of Finance collects the hotel and motel tax, and Section 10-221 makes its Treasury Division the source of the report forms.

• Address: Wayne K. Curry Administration Building, 1301 McCormick Drive, Largo, MD 20774
• Quarterly platform remittances and monthly operator remittances both go to the Director of Finance

For the state layers, Maryland's 6% sales and use tax, vendor licenses and filing all sit with the Comptroller of Maryland through Maryland Tax Connect, not with the county. And if your question is whether a particular structure or use is permitted at all rather than whether it can be licensed, that's a zoning question for the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission's Development Review Division, co-located with DPIE on 301-952-3530.

What Do Airbnb Hosts in Prince George's County on Reddit and Bigger Pockets Think about Local Regulations?

Since that zoning line is where a lot of host confusion starts, it's fair to say where the public conversation actually sits. I should be straight about method first: Reddit, BiggerPockets and the Airbnb Community Center all blocked automated access while I was researching this, so what follows is my read of documents I could open rather than a survey of threads, and you should weigh it accordingly.

The clearest signal is a discrepancy hosts hit in real life. Airbnb's own Prince George's County page still tells hosts to "pay a $150 fee" for the temporary license and to "renew your license annually and pay an annual $150 fee," which matches the ordinance text and not the fee table DPIE has been charging from since March 2025. Anyone budgeting from the platform's guidance turns up short at checkout. The same page is right about the parts that matter most, mind you: the listing has to be your primary residence, you must show a valid license number on it, and the caps are 180 owner-occupied nights or 90 unoccupied ones.

The county's own record then tells you what drives the politics, since the database bill was argued on party houses and neighbor complaints. The Council heard the counter-argument too, from a resident who warned them that "disseminating that information is dangerous to us as homeowners." Both of those instincts show up in how hosts talk about the program: the compliance list feels heavy for a homeowner renting a spare room, and the day caps feel arbitrary until you understand the county is regulating for the handful of addresses generating the calls.

One live bill is worth tracking if you advertise anywhere. CB-023-2026, presented on March 24, 2026 and still held in the Planning, Housing and Economic Development Committee as of my last check in July, would require your license to be displayed within twelve feet of the primary entrance with occupancy limits and emergency contacts on it, require the license number and its validity dates in every advertisement, and add penalties of up to $100 for a first display violation and $250 after that. Its sharper edge is a proposed $1,000 per month fine for non-compliant digital advertising of a short-term rental. It hasn't passed, so don't plan around it, but the direction is unmistakable and it costs nothing to put your license number in the listing today.

That direction is the thing to take away, honestly, and it isn't peculiar to this county. Rules written in 2018 for a novelty get tightened once the data starts arriving, and the operators who survive that are the ones already doing on Tuesday what the next bill will require by law.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Prince George's County, Maryland in 2026?

Yes, in your own home. Prince George's County licenses short-term rentals through the Department of Permitting, Inspections and Enforcement, and the property must be the host's permanent residence, evidenced by a Maryland Homestead Tax Credit filing at that address. A licensed host may rent for up to 180 days a calendar year while present, or up to 90 days a calendar year when the property is unoccupied by the owner, with a maximum of eight guests at any one time and no more than three per bedroom. Investor-owned units and company-held properties cannot be licensed.

How much does a Prince George's County short-term rental license cost?

The DPIE Fee Schedule effective March 2, 2025 prices a host license at a $198 license fee plus a $66 administrative fee, plus a 10% technology fee, and all of it is non-refundable. A second review after an incomplete application costs an extra $132. The County Code still prints an older $150 figure, but it defers to the Table of Fees, so the schedule governs. Licenses expire on the anniversary of issuance and must be renewed 30 days before that date, with a guest log filed alongside the renewal.

How many days a year can you rent a short-term rental in Prince George's County?

180 days a calendar year if you're present for the stays, and 90 days a calendar year if the property is unoccupied by the owner. The two allowances cannot be combined, and 180 is the absolute maximum in any case. Days rented under a 90-day temporary license while your application is being reviewed count towards the same total. No single booking may run longer than 30 consecutive days, since a stay of 31 days or more stops being a short-term rental under the county's definition.

What taxes apply to a Prince George's County Airbnb?

Two, plus one on the platform's own fee. Maryland charges 6% sales and use tax on the accommodation, and Prince George's County levies a 7% hotel and motel tax on stays of fewer than 90 consecutive days. Airbnb states that it collects both, along with 3% on its own service fees. Hosts taking direct bookings must register with the Comptroller of Maryland and remit the county tax to the Director of Finance, monthly by default. Late remittance accrues interest and penalty totalling 1 2/3% a month, or 20% a year.

Can renters or investors run a short-term rental in Prince George's County?

No. The code defines a host as the legal owner who supplies a Homestead Tax Credit filing for the property, and a host may hold only one permanent address, so tenants, subtenants and owners of non-primary residences are all outside the program. A 2026 state bill that would've barred local bans on tenant-operated rentals passed the Maryland House but died in the Senate, leaving the county's position unchanged. Buyers and sellers under a Settlement Occupancy Agreement are the one narrow exemption from licensing.

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