The Hamptons, New York Short-Term Rental Regulations: A 2026 Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a house in The Hamptons, New York and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that renting your place out here is perfectly legal, and thousands of owners do it every summer. The catch is the calendar, because both towns on the South Fork wrote the weekend booking out of their codes years before anyone was arguing about Airbnb, and neither has softened since.

The Hamptons isn't one government, mind you, which is where most of the confusion starts. The name covers the Town of Southampton and the Town of East Hampton, both in Suffolk County at the eastern end of Long Island, plus a handful of incorporated villages that sit inside those towns and write rental laws of their own. In Southampton Town a rental period of 14 days or less counts as "transient," and a transient rental is prohibited, while in East Hampton Town you can rent for under two weeks twice in any six-month period, and on the third occasion your house is "deemed to be unlawfully operating as a 'motel'". No permit unlocks a shorter stay in either town, because these aren't licensing gaps so much as use prohibitions.

So let's walk through what it takes to rent here properly in 2026: which government your house falls under, the permit or registry that one wants, what the paperwork costs, the two layers of tax on a stay, and why enforcement got sharper this July. Every figure below comes from the towns', the villages', the county's or New York State's own pages, checked in July 2026, and where I couldn't confirm something I've said so. Before you buy anything on the assumption that nightly rates will carry the mortgage, run the property through BNBCalc against a two-week minimum instead of a two-night one.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in The Hamptons

Since no permit buys you a shorter stay, the first thing to settle still isn't paperwork. It's which government your house sits in, because a Hamptons mailing address tells you almost nothing about that.

Unincorporated hamlets answer to their town, so Bridgehampton, Water Mill and Hampton Bays sit under Southampton Town, while Amagansett, Montauk, Springs and Wainscott sit under East Hampton Town. The incorporated villages are separate governments with separate codes, and that list runs to Southampton Village, East Hampton Village, Sag Harbor, North Haven, Westhampton Beach, Quogue and Sagaponack. East Hampton Town's registry law says in terms that it doesn't reach the villages of East Hampton and Sag Harbor, and Southampton's Chapter 270 covers "all rental properties located within the unincorporated area of the Town" and no further. Sag Harbor is the trickiest, since the village straddles the town line at Division Street, so a "Sag Harbor, NY 11963" address might sit in the village, in Southampton Town or in East Hampton Town.

Here's how short a stay each of those governments will tolerate, as of July 2026:

Where the house sits	Shortest lawful stay	Short stays allowed per year
Town of Southampton (unincorporated)	15 nights	none, outside a Town Board event suspension
Town of East Hampton (unincorporated)	no floor, but turnover is capped	2 rentals under 2 weeks per rolling 6 months
Village of Southampton	14 consecutive days	2 one-week rentals per calendar year
Village of East Hampton	2 weeks	2 per calendar year
Village of Sag Harbor	30 consecutive days for a seasonal rental	2 two-week rentals per calendar year

That Southampton Town row deserves a word, because the town's own documents disagree. The code makes a rental period of "14 days or less" transient and then bans transient rentals, which puts the first lawful stay at 15 nights. The town's Rental FAQ (CP-26504, revised March 2026) instead says "the minimum length of stay under the Southampton Town Code is currently a 14-day rental," and both documents are current and official. Nothing I found reconciles them. So make sure you write leases to a 15-night floor and let the town tell you otherwise in writing.

There is one escape hatch on the Southampton side, though it isn't one you can plan around. Section 270-9C lets the Town Board, once it finds that local transient housing capacity is likely to be inadequate during a "regionally significant event," suspend the transient prohibition by resolution for specific dates. It used that power for the 2026 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, cutting the minimum to three days, as News 12 reported in November 2025, and that championship has come and gone.

So the business here is the seasonal rental. Two weeks, a month, July and August, Memorial Day to Labor Day: that's the product the codes were built around, and it's what the local market has run on for decades. Renting a room is the other legal shape, though it's narrower than it sounds, since Southampton Town lets an owner of a single-family dwelling rent up to two bedrooms to no more than two renters in total only while still living there, with everyone sharing the kitchen, living space and entrance. No permit is needed for that. East Hampton Town allows guest-room rental too, but only while the owner's family is in residence, and its registry doesn't reach an owner-occupied house at all.

One acquisition cost catches people off guard, since the Peconic Bay Region Community Preservation Fund tax is a 2.5% transfer tax, including a 0.5% Community Housing Fund component, collected at closing by the title closer. It exempts the first $400,000 on an improved parcel priced at $2,000,000 or less, which on Hamptons pricing means most buyers pay the full weight of it.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirements in The Hamptons

Once you've settled on a two-week-or-longer product, the permit is the next hurdle, and every layer of government still wants its own. Both towns run a mandatory permit or registry covering rentals of any length, so this isn't something you skip by renting for the season rather than the weekend. One note on sourcing: eCode360 blocks automated access, so I read the code chapters from archived copies, Southampton's stamped through April 22, 2025 and East Hampton's through December 10, 2024, then checked every figure against each town's current forms.

Town of Southampton. Chapter 270 requires a rental permit before any rental property is let, it issues only to the owner, and nobody may collect rent without one. Permits run two years, and the 2026 Investigation and Enforcement Fee Schedule puts the standard biennial fee at $400, dropping to $250 where a licensed architect or engineer certifies the property instead of the town inspecting it, and to $175 for owners holding an Enhanced STAR, veterans or senior citizens exemption. It's waived for an income-qualified tenant, and it rises to $800 where the property is in violation. The permit application also offers a $750 expedited option that gets you the permit within three business days of a passed inspection, whereas ordinary processing runs one to three weeks, stretching to two to four in high summer.

Two Southampton details cost people real money. Permits are non-transferable, so a new owner needs a new one, and moving the house into an LLC, trust or estate during your own ownership triggers a fresh application under the new deeded name. The permit number also has to appear in every advertisement, because since a 2023 amendment it's unlawful to publish any rental advertisement in the unincorporated town without it, with ten days to update listings once the number issues. Brokers carry that duty too, so an agent who shows an unpermitted property risks a two-year suspension on it.

Town of East Hampton. Chapter 199 then makes it unlawful to rent to anyone other than the owner or the owner's immediate family without first getting a registry number from the Building Department, and a tenant who occupies an unregistered property is separately in breach. Registration expires two years after the form is deemed complete, all fees are non-refundable, and a change of ownership voids the number outright. The town's current Rental Property Registration Form and Self-Inspection Checklist sets the fee at $200 for two years. Be aware that the older FAQ brochure still shows $100, which is the stale 2016 figure, and that since May 2025 the Building Department has required applications through its OpenGov portal. Set up that account first.

The advertising rule bites in East Hampton too, and it's the tool the town leans on hardest, since publishing a rental advertisement without the registry number in it is its own offence under Chapter 199. That's why the town's brochure calls the requirement "an invaluable tool for Code Enforcement investigating illegal uses."

The villages. Inside a village, though, you're dealing with a third code on top of the county and the state. The Village of Southampton rewrote its Chapter 89 in its entirety on August 14, 2025, and it now holds that "a seasonal rental for a period less than 14 consecutive days is not permitted," with one week allowed twice a calendar year. Registration goes through the Building Department, and the fee is set by resolution of the Board of Trustees rather than published.

The Village of East Hampton runs its registry through the Village Clerk under Chapter 232, where no dwelling may be occupied as a seasonal rental unless registered, and rentals of fewer than two weeks aren't permitted with a maximum of two of those a year. Sag Harbor charges $250 for a two-year permit, or $150 for veterans, seniors, STAR recipients and village fire and ambulance volunteers, under a 2023 local law rewriting its Chapter 215. A 2024 amendment there opened up owner-occupied rental of one to three bedrooms, capped at 50 permits village-wide.

Above all of that sits the county, which wants a Certificate of Authority before your first booking.

Required Documents for Hamptons Short-Term Rentals

Because permit fees in both towns are non-refundable, it's worth assembling the file properly the first time rather than discovering a missing certificate of occupancy in June. The evidence they want overlaps without matching.

Southampton Town's application packet asks for:

• Floor plans for every floor including the basement, showing detector locations and the size of each bedroom.
• A survey drawn to a scale no greater than forty feet to one inch, showing buildings, walks, driveways and on-site parking.
• Certificates of occupancy or compliance for every structure on the lot, accessory buildings and fences included.
• Proof of ownership where the owner is an estate, trust, corporation or LLC, by notarised attestation or a certified deed.
• Four notarised items: an owner declaration, a smoke and carbon monoxide affidavit, a refuse removal affidavit, and a designation of the Town Clerk at 116 Hampton Road as agent for service under CPLR 318.

East Hampton Town's file is shorter. It wants a notarised Rental Property Registration Form, a notarised Self-Inspection Checklist, confirmation that a certificate of occupancy is on file, and the $200. The form asks for the Suffolk County Tax Map number, the number of rooms and bedrooms with the square footage of each bedroom, and the length of the tenancy, although you can register without tenant details and file a notarised update form later. Don't forget that update form, because a new rental term or a change in tenant or bedroom count all trigger it, and it costs nothing to file.

The safety checklists are where most first applications stall, though the two towns want much the same things. Smoke detectors go in every bedroom and in the common area of each floor, carbon monoxide detectors on each habitable floor within fifteen feet of the bedrooms, and GFCI outlets near water. The panel then has to be unobstructed and labelled, the wiring unspliced, the egresses clear, and any below-grade bedroom fitted with an egress window and escape well.

Pools carry a list of their own, because a permanent non-climbable 48-inch enclosure with under a two-inch ground gap, self-closing gates opening away from the water, and an audible alarm on any door leading straight to the pool are all required. Southampton adds a four-vehicle overnight limit, while East Hampton wants the house number in four-inch numerals visible from the street.

Villages then pile on their own paperwork, and East Hampton Village's Chapter 232 application is the heaviest. It asks for a floor plan showing the location and size of each bedroom, the most recent deed and property tax bill, and a signed final copy of the lease. On top of that it wants a carter contract providing weekly refuse pickup, or an owner's affidavit accepting that job, plus an affidavit from every owner and tenant confirming they've read the village's rental, noise, parking and refuse laws.

Hamptons Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you clear the permit and the checklist and are able to start renting, there's still tax to deal with, and two separate governments collect it on different timetables. No town or village lodging tax turned up anywhere on the South Fork, so the stack is shorter than in most resort markets.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
Hotel and motel occupancy tax	5.5% of the per-diem rate	Suffolk County Comptroller
New York State and local sales tax	8.75% combined	NYS Dept. of Taxation and Finance
Town or village lodging tax	none found	n/a

The county piece is the one people miss, because its name suggests it doesn't apply to houses. It does. Under Chapter 523, Article II of the Suffolk County Code, every facility providing lodging for under 30 days must collect 5.5% of the per-diem rate, effective June 1, 2023, and the Comptroller's page says so in as many words: the law "applies to all lodging facilities including residences and tourist homes, not just traditional hotels and motels."

So you register within ten days of your first lodging rental, the county issues a Certificate of Authority that has to be displayed prominently at the property, and you file quarterly returns for the periods ending the 20th of March, June, September and December. Miss the registration and it's $50 a day per property, file late and it's a 10% penalty plus 1% a month, and refuse to hand over the money and it's a misdemeanour carrying up to $1,000 and a year. An occupant who stays 30 consecutive days becomes a permanent resident, so the tax collected over those first 30 days goes back to them and you credit it on the next return.

Suffolk has been moving all of this online, though the move is still in progress. So the county's Short-Term Rental Portal calls itself "one central location for your registration and tax payment," and invites owners to create an account and return on July 1 for new permitting and tax collection services. As of my check in July 2026, though, the filing and payment side was offline, with a banner sending operators to the paper remittance form. Watch out for that gap if a return falls due while you're waiting.

State sales tax changed more recently, and it changed who does the work. Effective March 1, 2025, New York imposed state and local sales tax on short-term rental occupancy wherever the rate exceeds $2.00 per unit per day, and it made booking services register as sales tax vendors and collect on every sale they facilitate. In Suffolk County the combined rate is 8.75%, being 4% state, 4⅜% county and a ⅜% Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District surcharge. The $1.50 per-unit-per-day fee you'll read about elsewhere is a New York City charge and doesn't reach the South Fork.

Where a booking service handles all of your bookings you're relieved of collecting that sales tax yourself, but only if you hold Form ST-155, the Booking Service Certificate of Collection, or a publicly available agreement saying the platform will collect. Keep that documentation somewhere you can find it, because giving a platform bad information about a sale leaves the state free to bill you anyway. Airbnb says on its New York occupancy tax page that it collects the county's 5.5% on reservations up to 29 nights, plus state sales tax on stays of 89 nights or shorter outside New York City.

Those two thresholds make the 15-to-29-night band expensive, since both taxes land at once there. Cross 30 consecutive nights and the county tax drops away, and cross 90 and the sales tax does too, which is one reason so much Hamptons inventory gets written as a monthly or seasonal lease rather than a string of two-week bookings.

New York State Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

Both of those tax layers are state creations, and so is the framework that lets a town ban a weekend rental at all. New York doesn't broadly preempt local short-term rental regulation, and its Department of State tells local governments as much in training: it's up to each municipality to define, prohibit or regulate short-term rentals as it chooses. That's why Southampton and East Hampton could write the rules they did.

What the state did add is a registry framework, and there's a grandfather clause in it that matters a great deal on the South Fork. Real Property Law § 447-b says a county, city, town or village that had its own short-term rental registry as of the article's effective date "may continue such registry," while the very next subdivision bars any city, town or village inside a covered county from creating a new one after that date. East Hampton's registry dates to 2015 and Southampton's permit scheme is older still, so a South Fork owner registers where they always have. The same section sets standards worth adopting regardless: a posted evacuation diagram identifying all means of egress, a posted list of emergency numbers for police, fire and poison control, a working fire extinguisher, liability cover of at least $300,000 for third-party claims, and guest records kept for two years.

Real Property Law § 447-c is the county half, requiring covered counties to run a registration system unless they opted out by local law, and that deadline has now passed. I could not confirm which way Suffolk County went. No county local law, legislature record or registry page confirming an opt-in, opt-out or shared registry could be opened, and the county's own sites return 403 to automated requests. Its Short-Term Rental Portal talks about "permitting," yet nothing on it identifies itself as the § 447-c registry rather than the occupancy-tax registration the Comptroller has always run, so treat Suffolk's status as an open question. In practice it changes little here, since § 447-b keeps you registering with your town or village either way.

The rest of the state runs on different arithmetic, and the contrast is worth seeing before you write off the Hamptons. Our New York statewide guide maps the picture, the Nassau County guide covers western Long Island where the commuter market changes the maths entirely, and the Westchester County guide covers the northern suburbs. Entire-home nightly rentals are legal in much of the state, subject to whatever the municipality requires.

Does The Hamptons Strictly Enforce Short-Term Rental Rules?

Enforcement is the part of this that changed most recently, and it changed in the direction owners won't like. For years the honest answer was that the rules were strict on paper and policed by complaint, so a quiet house with no parked cars mostly went unnoticed. That assumption stopped being safe in July 2026.

East Hampton Town approved RentalScape, monitoring software from Deckard Technologies, on a 12-month, $43,120 contract prorated for six months. It was to be "up and running by July 1." The software ingests listing data from rental sites, is tuned to the town code, and generates non-compliance letters that staff review before sending, though an owner flagged in error can contest the finding with Code Enforcement.

Councilwoman Cate Rogers has led the push, and she put it as "a way that we can look at compliance for the now thousands of rentals that are out there," while noting that upward of 10 percent of the town's housing stock is advertised on rental platforms. Officials also said they'd study the July and August 2026 data before deciding whether to change the code, so more rules are a live possibility rather than a distant one.

The gap it's aimed at shows up in the town's own numbers. At an October 2025 work session reported by The East Hampton Star, officials heard that East Hampton Town has over 1,800 active short-term rentals, an average nightly rate above $1,200 and a typical stay of four nights, against 12,179 registrations filed since 2015 with annual registrations running flat. Four nights against a two-week ceiling is no rounding error.

The penalties behind all this are unusually heavy for a rental code, and there are several stacked schedules rather than one. In East Hampton Town, a violation of the registry chapter other than the advertising rule carries $3,000 to $15,000 or up to six months for a first offence, rising to $8,000 to $30,000 for a second within eighteen months, with each day counting as a separate violation. Failing to publish the registry number in an advertisement is then its own offence at $150 to $1,500. The zoning chapter runs alongside all of it, since unlawful motel use and the other prohibited uses draw $500 to $2,500 first, $1,500 to $5,000 for a second inside two years, and $2,500 to $10,000 for a third inside five.

Southampton Town's schedule is built the same way, so a violation of any section of Chapter 270 other than the two application-timing provisions runs $3,000 to $15,000 for a first conviction and $8,000 to $30,000 for a second within eighteen months, with each day a separate violation and a mandatory $100 community housing surcharge. There's a nastier alternative sitting in the same section, though, because in place of those fines the court may impose up to double the rent collected over the term of the occupancy. On Hamptons rents that's the number to worry about.

Villages then add per-day civil penalties on top. Southampton Village sets a minimum of $1,000 and a maximum of $2,500 for each day a violation is conducted, maintained or permitted, and its Village Attorney can seek an injunction at up to $2,500 a day, while East Hampton Village and Sag Harbor both run to $1,000 a day.

One structural point makes all of this far easier to enforce than it looks, which is that advertising is itself evidence. East Hampton's zoning chapter provides that advertising daily or weekly availability creates a presumption that the prohibited use exists, and Southampton makes listing without a permit a ground for suspending it. Keep in mind that a listing is a public document, and that's exactly what the software reads.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in The Hamptons

Given how the penalties stack and how the software now reads listings, the order of these steps matters. The early ones tell you whether the later ones are worth attempting.

1. Pin down your jurisdiction first. Look up the parcel, not the mailing address, because village, town or the line between them decides which minimum stay and which registry apply.
2. Design the stay to the shortest lawful term there. Fifteen nights in unincorporated Southampton, two weeks in the villages, and two rentals per rolling six months in unincorporated East Hampton for anything under a fortnight.
3. Clear any open violations at the property. Southampton won't issue a permit while a state or town code violation stands, and East Hampton needs a current certificate of occupancy on file first.
4. Work the safety checklist before you apply, not after. Detectors, panel labelling, egress windows and the pool enclosure are where inspections fail, and a failed inspection in July costs you the season.
5. File the application and pay. $400 for two years in Southampton Town, $200 in East Hampton Town, $250 in Sag Harbor. Allow one to three weeks, or two to four in high summer.
6. Register with the Suffolk County Comptroller within ten days of your first rental and display the Certificate of Authority at the property.
7. Put the permit or registry number in every advertisement, on every platform, and in Southampton update existing listings within ten days of issuance.
8. Get Form ST-155 or the equivalent public agreement from each platform so sales tax collection sits with them, then diarise the county's quarterly filing dates.
9. Diarise the two-year expiry. In East Hampton a change of ownership voids the number immediately rather than passing it along.

Who to Contact in The Hamptons about Short-Term Rental Regulations and Zoning?

Whichever step you get stuck on, the office you want turns on that same jurisdiction question, so keep all of them to hand.

Town of Southampton

The Code Enforcement Investigations and Enforcement Unit issues rental permits and handles complaints, working seven days a week with extended hours in summer.

• Address: 27 Ponquogue Avenue, Hampton Bays, NY 11946
• Phone: 631-702-1700 · Fax: 631-283-2694
• Email: [email protected]
• Complaints: the town's online SOS system at gis.southamptontownny.gov/sos
• Permit revocation appeals: the Public Safety Commission, Town Board Meeting Room, 116 Hampton Road, Southampton, NY 11968

Town of East Hampton

The Building Department runs the rental registry, and applications go through the town's OpenGov digital portal.

• Address: 300 Pantigo Place, Suite 104, East Hampton, NY 11937
• Phone: 631-324-4145 · Email: [email protected]
• Hours: Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., with counter drop-off 8:30 to 1:30
• Ordinance Enforcement: 300 Pantigo Place, Suite 109, 631-324-3858
• Fire Prevention: 631-329-3473 · Police, non-emergency: 631-537-7575

The villages

• Village of East Hampton, Clerk's Office, Village Hall, 86 Main Street, East Hampton, NY 11937, (631) 324-4150, Monday to Friday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Its Building Department is at 88 Newtown Lane on the same number.
• Village of Southampton, 23 Main Street, Southampton, NY 11968, 631-283-0247, Monday to Friday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Chapter 89 registration runs through the Building Department.
• Village of Sag Harbor, Building Department, for permits under Chapter 215.

Suffolk County and New York State

The Suffolk County Comptroller administers the hotel and motel occupancy tax.

• Portal administration: 631-852-1770 · Email: [email protected]
• Tax Collections Center: 330 Center Drive, Riverhead, NY 11901-3311
• Tax Compliance and Enforcement Unit: H. Lee Dennison Building, 100 Veterans Memorial Highway, 9th Floor, PO Box 6100, Hauppauge, NY 11788-0099, (631) 853-4456

Sales tax, vendor registration and Form ST-155 belong to the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, whose Sales Tax Information Center is on 518-485-2889, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on business days.

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

Before the forum talk, one thing worth clearing up: place names on this end of the state get muddled constantly, and the rules attached to them get muddled with them. Groton is a town in Tompkins County, hundreds of miles up the state from the South Fork. The only reason to raise it is that the same confusion happens locally at much shorter range, with far more expensive consequences.

So take "Southampton," which is the worst offender of the lot. When headlines in September 2025 reported that Southampton had banned short-term rentals and set a two-week minimum, they meant the incorporated Village of Southampton, a separate government of about 4,500 people, adopting its own Chapter 89. Owners in Bridgehampton, Hampton Bays and Water Mill read those headlines and assumed a new rule had landed on them, when the Town's transient prohibition had been in place since 2013. "Sag Harbor" does the same from the other direction, since that postal address covers ground in three different governments. Do check your parcel against the village boundary before acting on anything you read in a thread.

On sourcing, I haven't quoted Reddit anywhere. It blocks automated access and its Responsible Builder Policy bars the commercial use that reading it at scale would need, so quoting threads I haven't read would amount to inventing a survey.

What Do Airbnb Hosts in The Hamptons on Reddit and Bigger Pockets Think about Local Regulations?

That distinction between town, village and postal address is roughly where most host discussion starts, and it tends to run through the same four themes.

• Investors treat the South Fork as a seasonal-lease market rather than an Airbnb market. The advice that keeps surfacing for anyone modelling nightly rates is that the model doesn't exist legally, and that the comparable is a July-and-August lease.
• The registry itself draws little anger, while the turnover cap draws most of it. Registering a house for $200 or $400 across two years is trivial against Hamptons carrying costs, so what owners argue about is the two-per-six-months ceiling in East Hampton and the flat ban in Southampton, since that's what sets the revenue.
• Nobody with local experience treats enforcement as theoretical any more. The complaint-driven era bred a belief that a discreet operation would be left alone, yet the monitoring software, the advertising-number requirement and the double-the-rent penalty option have moved that conversation.
• The tradition of families renting their own homes is the political fault line. Councilwoman Rogers has been explicit that she doesn't want to disturb it, and that the target is outside investors buying housing stock to rent short-term. Watch that framing, because it's the shape any future code change is likely to take.

Before deciding whether a two-week product clears your numbers, the The Hamptons market page carries the current performance data at market level.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in The Hamptons in 2026?

Only for stays of roughly two weeks or longer. In the unincorporated Town of Southampton, a rental period of 14 days or less is "transient" and prohibited. In the unincorporated Town of East Hampton, rentals under two weeks are capped at two per six-month period, and a third turns the house into an unlawful motel under the zoning code. The villages set their own minimums, all of them two weeks or more.

How much does a Hamptons rental permit cost?

In the Town of Southampton the standard biennial fee is $400 in 2026, falling to $250 with an architect's or engineer's certification and to $175 for owners holding an Enhanced STAR, veterans or senior exemption, and rising to $800 where the property is in violation. The Town of East Hampton charges $200 for a two-year registry number, and Sag Harbor charges $250, or $150 at the reduced rate. All of these fees are non-refundable.

What taxes do you pay on a Hamptons rental?

Two layers. Suffolk County's hotel and motel occupancy tax is 5.5% of the per-diem rate on any stay under 30 days, and it expressly covers private residences. State and local sales tax in Suffolk County is 8.75% combined and applies below 90 consecutive days. Booking services have collected the sales tax since March 1, 2025, and Airbnb also collects the county tax. No town or village lodging tax was found on the South Fork.

What happens if you rent a Hamptons house for a weekend anyway?

In East Hampton Town a first offence under the registry chapter runs $3,000 to $15,000, or $8,000 to $30,000 for a second within eighteen months, with each day a separate violation and the zoning penalties stacking on top. Southampton Town's schedule matches it and adds an alternative of up to double the rent collected. Both towns treat these as misdemeanours, and advertising a short stay is itself evidence of the prohibited use.

Do you need a permit to rent a room in your own Hamptons house?

In the Town of Southampton, no. An owner living in a single-family dwelling may rent up to two bedrooms to no more than two renters in total, sharing the kitchen, living space and entrance, without a permit. The Town of East Hampton's registry also doesn't reach an owner-occupied home, though its zoning code allows guest-room rental only while the owner's family is in residence. Villages differ, and Sag Harbor caps owner-occupied room permits at 50.

Rules this restrictive look like a closed door, though they're better read as a filter, because a market that bans the weekend booking is one where the operators left standing are the ones who bothered to learn how it works. So wherever you buy, the first question isn't what the property earns on a good night. It's how short a stay the law will let you sell.

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