Middle Smithfield Township, Pennsylvania Short-Term Rental Regulations: A 2026 Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Middle Smithfield Township, Pennsylvania and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that the township allows it, and does so more openly than plenty of its Poconos neighbors. Since 2017, short-term rentals have run under their own chapter of the township code, and that chapter still governs every listing here in 2026.

The catch, and there is one, is that "allowed" comes with real conditions attached. You need an annual license from the Zoning Officer before you can take a single booking, your septic system quietly caps how many bedrooms you're allowed to advertise, and occupancy tops out at 14 people no matter how big the house is. Layer Monroe County's hotel tax and Pennsylvania's hotel tax on top of that license, and you're looking at three separate government offices before your first guest checks in.

So this guide walks through all of it: who issues the license and what it takes to qualify, the documents you'll need on hand before you apply, the taxes that stack on top of the license fee, and how seriously the township enforces its own rules. Every figure below comes from Middle Smithfield's own code and Monroe County's own tax ordinance, checked in July 2026, and anywhere the record didn't give me a clean answer, I've said so rather than guessed. If you're also sizing up other Pennsylvania markets against this one, run the numbers through BNBCalc as you go.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Middle Smithfield Township

Since the research basis here is Middle Smithfield's own code, it's worth starting with what that code is: Chapter 150, "Short-Term Rentals," first adopted by the Board of Supervisors on September 14, 2017 as Ordinance 216, then rewritten in its entirety on August 23, 2018 as Ordinance 221. That's the version still in force. It covers essentially every residential dwelling unit in the township, including a converted nonresidential structure, and the property owner carries the compliance duty even when a renting guest is the one who breaks a rule.

There's one exemption worth knowing before you plan around it. The chapter doesn't apply to a hotel, motel, inn, bed-and-breakfast, boarding house or group home, but only where the owner or a representative is physically on site 24 hours a day. Almost no Airbnb host qualifies for that carve-out, so assume the full ordinance applies to your listing unless yours is a hosted, always-staffed operation.

Two things make Middle Smithfield's version of this business different from a typical suburban STR ordinance, and both trace back to where the township sits. First, a huge share of the housing stock runs on private septic rather than public sewer, and the township ties your allowable bedroom count directly to what your septic system can handle. Second, this is genuinely vacation-home country: gated communities and HOA-governed developments are common enough that the license application asks about both by name. Middle Smithfield "strongly recommends" checking your HOA or POA's own rules before you apply, since plenty of them restrict or ban short-term rentals outright regardless of what the township allows. Don't skip that call. A township license doesn't override a deed restriction, and you can't get the license fee back once you've paid it.

If you're an absentee owner, there's a third wrinkle. The township requires a local "person in charge" if the owner doesn't live nearby, and that person must reside or keep an office within 15 miles of the property and be reachable around the clock. You'll also want to notify the township in writing within 14 days if that contact ever changes. Miss that window and you're technically out of compliance even if nothing else about your rental changed.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Middle Smithfield Township

Given that the HOA check and the local-contact rule are the first gate, there's still the license itself to clear before you can take a single booking. Section 150-5 is blunt about it: no owner may operate a short-term rental in Middle Smithfield Township without first obtaining a license from the Zoning Officer, and operating without one is a violation in its own right, separate from anything else you might get cited for.

A few structural details matter more than they look, starting with who the license belongs to. It's issued only to the property owner, not to a tenant or a management company, and it's non-transferable, so selling the property means the new owner starts the application over, fee included. It runs for one "annual term," which the ordinance defines as November 1 through the following October 31, so your renewal clock doesn't follow the calendar year the way most permits do. Just make sure you diary that October date, because a lapsed license means you're back to square one with a new application.

On the fee itself, I have to be honest about a gap. Section 150-8 sets the fee "by resolution duly adopted by the Board of Supervisors" rather than in the ordinance text, and the township's own fee-schedule document is a scanned image with no text a browser or a script can read, so I couldn't pull a confirmed current dollar amount from it. Treat that number as unverified until you check it yourself: call the Zoning office at 570-223-8920, ext. 126, or open the Current Fee Schedule PDF on the township's own site before you budget for this. Keep in mind that a fee like this can change from one budget cycle to the next, so verify it fresh rather than trusting an old number you found somewhere else.

Once you're licensed, Section 150-7 sets the actual operating standards, and they're detailed enough to plan a listing around:

• Occupancy caps out at 14. The limit is two people per bedroom plus four more, or 14 total, whichever number is lower.
• Day guests are capped separately, at 75% of your maximum permitted occupancy, on top of whoever's staying overnight.
• Bedroom count follows your septic permit, not your floor plan. With no septic permit on file, you're limited to three bedrooms unless you can prove the system handles more; advertise more than five and you need the Sewage Enforcement Officer to sign off first.
• Parking stays on your own lot. One car per bedroom, nothing in the street right-of-way, nothing on the lawn.
• Safety equipment goes well beyond basic smoke detectors: one in every bedroom, one in every common hallway outside a bedroom, one on every floor, GFI outlets within six feet of any water source, a metal dryer vent, a carbon monoxide detector if there's a fuel-burning appliance or an attached garage, a fire extinguisher in the kitchen, and pool or hot tub barriers that meet the 2009 International Residential Code.
• A posted notice goes up near the front door with the 24-hour contact, the 911 address, the occupancy and parking limits, the trash day, and a line telling guests the unit is subject to inspection.

Build your listing around that list before you buy furniture or set a nightly rate, because a house that doesn't fit the septic-driven bedroom math can't be marketed around the shortfall.

Required Documents for Middle Smithfield Township Short-Term Rentals

Since that fee doesn't come back once it's paid, getting the paperwork right the first time matters more here than it does on a simpler application. Middle Smithfield's own short-term rental application and Section 150-6 together spell out exactly what has to accompany it:

• A copy of the current recorded deed, establishing you as the owner.
• Owner contact information, plus a managing agent's contact information if you don't live locally.
• The dwelling type (single-family, townhome or condo, multifamily, or individual rooms) and the total bedroom and bathroom count.
• Sewage system details. If you're on private septic, that means the system's approximate age and capacity, plus a professional evaluation and proof it was pumped within the last 12 months.
• Whether the property sits in a gated community or under an HOA or POA, and if so, which one.
• A copy of your current Monroe County Hotel Room Excise Tax certificate.
• A copy of your current Pennsylvania Sales and Use Tax permit.
• A trespass waiver, signed by the owner, allowing the Enforcement Officer onto the property to check compliance.
• The application fee itself.

Signing the application isn't a formality either. It certifies that you've read and understood both Section 150-7's operating standards and Section 150-13's violations and penalties, and that filing the paperwork alone doesn't guarantee a license. Do check every box before you submit, because the township can and does return applications that arrive incomplete, and you'll lose time you didn't need to lose.

Middle Smithfield Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you clear the license and are able to start hosting, there's still tax to sort out, and it comes in two separate layers here rather than one. Because a county office and a state office each administer their own piece, the two don't share a form or a due date, so it helps to take them one at a time.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
Pennsylvania Hotel Occupancy Tax	6%	PA Department of Revenue, generally collected and remitted automatically by the booking platform under Act 109 of 2018
Monroe County Hotel Room Rental Excise Tax	3%	Monroe County Treasurer, remitted quarterly by the "Booking Agent and/or Operator"

The state piece is the more familiar one. Pennsylvania's Hotel Occupancy Tax runs 6% of the rent as of July 2026, and under Act 109 of 2018, booking agents like Airbnb and Vrbo have to collect and remit it for you when a guest books through them. If you also take direct bookings outside a platform that collects for you, you're on the hook to register and remit that portion yourself through myPATH, the state's online tax system.

The county piece is where Middle Smithfield differs from most of Pennsylvania, and it's also why the license application asks for that hotel tax certificate up front. Monroe County's Hotel Room Rental Excise Tax runs 3% of what a guest pays, effective since April 10, 2017, and the county's own ordinance places the remittance duty on the "Booking Agent and/or Operator" directly, due to the County Treasurer by the 25th day of the first month of each calendar quarter. Since I last checked, I couldn't confirm from an official page whether Airbnb or Vrbo remit this county-level piece automatically the way they do the state's 6%, so don't assume it's covered because your state tax shows as collected. If you miss the quarterly deadline, the county charges 18% annual interest on what's outstanding, and it can pursue a civil action, attorney's fees, and even a lien against the property. Almost all of that county revenue, after a 4% administrative cut, funds the Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau's tourism marketing for the region, which is a fairly direct trade: the tax that funds Pocono tourism promotion is paid by the very rentals that tourism brings in.

Your rental income itself is ordinary taxable income at both the federal and state level, on top of these occupancy taxes, and neither the township nor the county has any role in that side of your return. If you're weighing whether the numbers here pencil out once both tax layers and the license fee are in the mix, BNBCalc is the place to run that math before you commit to a property.

Pennsylvania Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

Once you've mapped the local and county layers, the state layer above them explains why a township just a few miles away can run an entirely different set of rules. Pennsylvania has no statewide preemption law for short-term rentals. The state's own Joint State Government Commission confirmed as much in a March 2025 staff study, calling the whole state "a patchwork of primarily county and municipal zoning ordinances and regulations" where even the definition of "short-term rental" changes from one municipality to the next. That's exactly what you're seeing here: Middle Smithfield licenses and caps occupancy at 14, while a neighboring Poconos township can set entirely different numbers, or none at all.

There's no statewide short-term rental license either, only the general Sales, Use and Hotel Occupancy Tax License, and you only need that one if you take bookings outside a platform that already collects and remits Pennsylvania's hotel tax for you. A few bills would change this picture: House Bill 2303 would build a statewide "Transient Lodging" framework with tiered operator categories and a countywide registry, House Bill 1256 (the "Short Term Rental Compliance Act") would set compliance standards at the state level, and Senate Bill 1105 addresses hotel tax reporting for counties outside Philadelphia and Allegheny. None of the three has passed as of my last check, so don't plan around any of them yet. If you're weighing Middle Smithfield against other parts of the state, our Pennsylvania short-term rental guide maps the wider picture, and markets like the Bucks County and Montgomery County suburbs of Philadelphia run on a different set of local rules than anything in the Poconos.

Does Middle Smithfield Township Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Given how specific those state bills still are compared to what's already on the books locally, it's fair to ask whether Middle Smithfield enforces its own chapter, and the answer is yes, with real teeth behind it. Section 150-13 treats a violation as a summary offense, heard before a Magisterial District Judge, carrying a fine of $100 to $1,000 per violation plus court costs and the township's reasonable attorney's fees. Each day a violation continues counts as a separate offense, and the township can also seek an injunction rather than only collect a fine.

The license itself carries its own separate consequence, apart from any fine. Rack up three uncured or repeated violations within any rolling 12-month period, and the Zoning Officer can revoke your license or deny its renewal outright: six months for a first set of three, a full year for any set after that. Marketing plays into this too. Advertising a listing at an occupancy above what your license allows is its own violation under Section 150-10, which tells you the township is watching listings themselves, not only waiting on neighbor complaints.

That said, I couldn't find an official published count of active licenses or issued citations to size up how often any of this gets used in practice. One Poconos-focused real estate site put the active license count in the neighborhood of 150, though I wasn't able to verify that figure against an official township list, so treat it as a rough estimate rather than a confirmed number. What is confirmed is the mechanism: a licensed host who ignores repeated warnings loses the ability to operate at all, not only the money from one bad citation.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Middle Smithfield Township

With the enforcement stakes laid out, the order you tackle these steps in matters, since skipping ahead tends to cost you either time or the non-refundable fee.

1. Check your HOA, POA or gated-community rules first. If your deed restricts short-term rentals, no township license will override that, and the fee doesn't come back.
2. Confirm what your septic system supports. Your allowed bedroom count follows your septic permit, not your floor plan, so this decides how big a listing you can legally advertise.
3. Gather the documents. Deed copy, septic evaluation and pumping proof if applicable, Monroe County Hotel Room Excise Tax certificate, Pennsylvania Sales and Use Tax permit, and a signed trespass waiver.
4. Apply to the Zoning office and pay the fee. Confirm the current amount by phone or from the township's own fee schedule before you budget for it.
5. Install the required safety equipment and post the notice near your front door before your first guest arrives, not after.
6. Register for Pennsylvania's Hotel Occupancy Tax through myPATH if any bookings won't come through a platform that collects it for you.
7. Set up quarterly remittance for Monroe County's excise tax, and confirm directly whether your booking platform is already covering it.
8. Keep occupancy and parking within the license limits on every single booking, since three violations in a rolling year can cost you the license itself.
9. Diarize October 31. That's when your annual term ends, and renewal isn't automatic.

Once you've worked through that list, it's worth checking whether the numbers still make sense once the license and both taxes are in the mix. BNBCalc's Pennsylvania market page shows what listings across the state are actually earning, so you can weigh a Poconos property against everywhere else in Pennsylvania before you commit real money to it.

Who to Contact in Middle Smithfield Township about Short-Term Rental Regulations and Zoning

Whichever step trips you up, three offices between them cover almost every question in this guide.

Township licensing and zoning

Middle Smithfield Township, 147 Municipal Drive, East Stroudsburg, PA 18302.

• Main phone: 570-223-8920 (fax 570-445-3720)
• Zoning Administrator (short-term rental applications): Mayra Colon, extension 126, [email protected]
• Zoning Officer (general zoning and enforcement): Shawn McGlynn, extension 128

Monroe County hotel excise tax

Monroe County Treasurer, Monroe County Administrative Building, One Quaker Plaza, Room 103, Stroudsburg, PA 18360.

• Office phone: (570) 517-3185 (main department line: (570) 517-3180)
• Fax: (570) 517-3859
• Hours: 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday
• Treasurer: Ira Jolley

Pennsylvania state tax registration

PA Department of Revenue, for the Sales, Use and Hotel Occupancy Tax License and myPATH registration.

• General information: 717-787-1064
• Online: myPATH

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Middle Smithfield Township in 2026?

Yes, with an annual license from the Zoning Officer. Operating without one is a violation on its own, separate from any other citation you might get. You'll need to clear an HOA or POA check first if one applies, confirm your septic system supports the bedroom count you want to list, and gather the documents the township requires before you apply.

How much does a short-term rental license cost in Middle Smithfield Township?

The township sets the fee by Board of Supervisors resolution rather than in the ordinance itself, and I couldn't confirm a current dollar figure from a source I could read, since the fee schedule document is a scanned image with no extractable text. Call the Zoning office at 570-223-8920, extension 126, or check the Current Fee Schedule PDF directly before you budget for it.

What's the maximum number of guests allowed in a Middle Smithfield Township short-term rental?

Occupancy tops out at two people per bedroom plus four more, or 14 total, whichever is lower. Day guests are capped separately, at 75% of your maximum permitted occupancy, on top of whoever's staying overnight. Your bedroom count itself is limited by what your septic permit allows, not by your floor plan.

Do you have to pay hotel tax on a Middle Smithfield Township short-term rental?

Yes, and it stacks in two layers. Pennsylvania's Hotel Occupancy Tax runs 6% of the rent, generally collected automatically by Airbnb or Vrbo under state law, and Monroe County adds its own 3% Hotel Room Rental Excise Tax on top, remitted quarterly to the County Treasurer. Confirm directly whether your booking platform covers the county piece, since that isn't guaranteed the way the state tax is.

What happens if you operate a short-term rental in Middle Smithfield Township without a license?

You're looking at a summary offense fine of $100 to $1,000 per violation, plus court costs and the township's attorney's fees, and each day the violation continues counts separately. Beyond the fine, three uncured or repeated violations within a rolling 12 months can cost a licensed host the license itself, for six months on a first offense and a full year after that.

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