Blooming Grove Township, Pennsylvania Short-Term Rental Regulations: A 2026 Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Blooming Grove Township, Pennsylvania, out in the Pike County stretch of the Poconos, and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that you're allowed to, since the township chose back in 2021 to permit and regulate short-term rentals rather than ban them outright.

Allowing it doesn't make it simple, mind you. Ordinance No. 72-2021 layers its own township permit on top of whatever the state and Pike County already ask for, and it goes as far as declaring any violation of its rules a public nuisance, which tells you exactly how seriously the Board of Supervisors takes noise and parking complaints out here. The catch shows up fast if your place sits inside one of the gated lake communities that cover a lot of this township's residential land, Hemlock Farms among them. Before the township issues a permit, you have to show it written proof that you told your homeowners' association, and if that association objects, your application waits until the objection is withdrawn or a court says otherwise. Add a $150 annual permit fee, a local contact person who has to answer within an hour of any complaint, and a septic system that quietly caps how many bedrooms you're allowed to rent, and you can see why this takes more than a five-minute registration.

So let's walk through what applies here in 2026: what the township's permit costs and requires, the documents you'll need before you apply, the state and county taxes that stack on a Poconos rental, and how hard Blooming Grove enforces this once you're up and running. Every figure below comes from the township's own ordinance and fee resolution, or from Pike County's and Pennsylvania's own tax pages, checked as of July 2026. If you're comparing this property against other Pennsylvania markets, make sure you run the numbers through BNBCalc first.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Blooming Grove Township

Running the numbers only makes sense once you know what kind of operation the township will let you run, so start there. The Board of Supervisors wrote directly into the ordinance that short-term rentals had become a significant part of the local tourism economy and a genuine source of revenue for owners, and it said, plainly enough, that most units operate without a problem. Still, the township had fielded enough complaints about noise, parking, litter, septic capacity, security and trespass that it decided the activity needed its own rulebook rather than the general zoning code. That's the whole logic behind Ordinance No. 72-2021: keep the business legal, and use a permit system to manage the friction.

The ordinance applies township-wide to any dwelling unit inside a single-family, two-family or multi-family structure that gets rented for 30 consecutive days or less, and it doesn't carve out particular zoning districts as off-limits. I couldn't confirm from the township's separate zoning ordinance whether any specific district adds its own ban on top of that, since that document runs long and reviewing it fell outside what this guide's research could cover, so treat that as one open question to raise directly with the Zoning Officer before you commit to a purchase.

What you can be sure of is that a homeowners' association can still say no. A large share of Blooming Grove's housing sits inside covenant-governed communities such as Hemlock Farms, and the ordinance requires you to notify your HOA's board in writing and hand the township proof of that notice before a permit gets approved. If the HOA raises an objection within 30 days, the permit stays on hold until the objection is withdrawn or a court, arbitrator or other authority validates your right to rent short-term anyway. Don't skip reading your own association's bylaws on the assumption that the township's approval settles the matter, because the two approvals are separate and either one can stop you.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Blooming Grove Township

The HOA clearance is only a precondition, though, not the permit itself, so the actual licensing still sits entirely with the township. Section 6 of the ordinance requires a short-term rental permit before any dwelling unit gets advertised or rented for 30 days or less, and the permit is issued only to the property owner, never to a management company in its own name. It has to be renewed every year, and any two-family or multi-family building needs a separate permit for each unit being rented, not one blanket approval for the whole structure.

Here's a wrinkle worth flagging rather than smoothing over: the ordinance's own definition in Section 5 describes a short-term rental as a stay of "not less than two (2) days and not more than thirty (30) days." Read literally, a single-night booking falls outside that definition entirely. Whether the township would treat a one-night stay as unregulated or would still expect you to hold a permit is not something the ordinance answers, so ask the Zoning Office directly if your booking calendar includes single-night stays.

The permit itself isn't transferable. If you sell the property, or ownership changes by court order or inheritance, the new owner has to apply fresh before renting it out, though they're entitled to get a permit as long as they meet the same requirements you did. And if you've been convicted of violating the ordinance and then transfer the property to a family member or an entity you control, that transfer doesn't wash the violation away. The new owner inherits the same penalties and revocation that applied to you.

A copy of your permit goes automatically to the Pike County Treasurer, and holding the permit means you're the one who has to collect and remit the county's occupancy tax on every stay, which the tax section below covers in full. You'll also need to name a local contact person, someone who lives close enough and stays reachable enough to manage a problem. An owner who lives within 30 miles of the rental can name themselves, but whoever holds that role has to respond to the township's enforcement officer within one hour of being notified of a violation or disturbance, and if that person isn't the owner, they have to loop the owner in right away. Keep in mind that a management company's failure to control noise or occupant counts still counts as noncompliance by the owner, so hiring a manager doesn't shift the legal responsibility off your shoulders.

The annual permit fee runs $150, set under Resolution No. 3-2024. That resolution's fee schedule lists a single $150 line for short-term rental permits rather than separate application and renewal amounts, so that's the figure to budget for whichever you're doing. Watch the calendar on renewal, though: miss the February 15th deadline and the fee doubles, and if you still haven't paid by May 1st the permit lapses entirely, meaning you'd have to file a brand-new application instead of renewing. The township can also charge a separate inspection fee, set by a future Board resolution, if what you put on your application doesn't match its records, though the current fee schedule doesn't spell out that amount as its own line item.

Required Documents for Blooming Grove Township Short-Term Rentals

Given that a lapsed permit means starting the paperwork over, it's worth getting the application right the first time. Section 8 of the ordinance lays out exactly what has to accompany your application before you can rent the property at all:

• Your name, address, phone number and email, plus a 24-hour phone number if you don't have a managing agent or local contact person to list separately.
• The name, address and 24-hour phone number of your managing agency, agent or local contact person, if you have one.
• A photograph of the property taken from the access road.
• The marketing entity identification number for your listing, meaning the ID your booking platform assigns it.
• A written acknowledgment that every bedroom you're claiming meets the 80-square-foot minimum.
• The number of bedrooms and the maximum overnight occupancy you're applying for.
• For a two-family or multi-family building, how many units exist and how many are being used as a short-term rental.
• A diagram or photo showing your on-site parking spaces and the maximum number of vehicles allowed.
• Signed acknowledgments that you've read the operational rules, and that you'll post the required in-unit notice and window cling.
• A copy of a current Pike County Hotel Room Excise Tax Certificate and a current Pennsylvania Sales Tax License.

Notice that last item lands before you've collected a single dollar of rent. Do check with the Pike County Treasurer's office and Pennsylvania's myPATH portal about getting those two documents in hand well before your township application, since the ordinance treats them as required paperwork rather than something you can add later. Where your property sits inside a covenant-governed community, add your written HOA notice and proof of delivery to that same stack, because the township won't approve the permit without it.

Blooming Grove Township Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you're able to clear the application and start hosting, there's still tax to work out, and two separate governments each take a cut. Pennsylvania levies a State Hotel Occupancy Tax under 61 Pa. Code Chapter 38 at 6% of the rent, applying to short stays booked through Airbnb, Vrbo or directly. Pike County adds its own Hotel Room Rental Excise Tax, set at 3% of the rental charge under County Ordinance No. 18 and unchanged since it took effect in 2005. Add the two together and a guest pays 9% in combined lodging tax on top of your nightly rate.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
State Hotel Occupancy Tax	6.0%	PA Department of Revenue
Pike County Hotel Room Rental Excise Tax	3.0%	Pike County Treasurer
Combined	9.0%	split between the two

Who remits which piece depends on how you book. Under Act 109 of 2018, Airbnb and Vrbo are legally required to collect and remit the state's 6% hotel tax on bookings they process, so most hosts never touch that piece directly. I couldn't confirm whether either platform automatically collects the county's 3% excise tax the same way, since Pike County's own materials don't address third-party marketplace collection the way the state's do, so don't assume the platform has that one covered. As the permit holder, you're the one the ordinance makes responsible for collecting and remitting the county tax to the Pike County Treasurer, and your permit application already requires proof you're registered for it.

If any of your bookings come through a channel that doesn't collect the state tax for you, whether that's a direct booking, a personal website or a smaller platform, you'll need your own myPATH Sales, Use and Hotel Occupancy Tax License to remit the balance yourself. There's no fee to apply, and Pennsylvania's Department of Revenue confirms that a host doesn't need a separate registration once a platform confirms it's collecting and remitting on their behalf, which is exactly the documentation the state's home-sharing page tells you to keep on file.

Pennsylvania Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

Since two of your three tax layers come from Harrisburg and Milford rather than the township, it helps to see how much of this framework sits above Blooming Grove entirely. Pennsylvania has no statewide short-term rental preemption law and no state-mandated registry, which is why townships like Blooming Grove get to write their own permit systems in the first place. The General Assembly's own Joint State Government Commission said as much in a March 2025 staff study, calling the current setup "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, exactly the kind of quirk you saw in Blooming Grove's own two-day floor.

Three bills are pending in Harrisburg that would change that patchwork, though none has passed as of this writing. House Bill 2303 would add a whole "Transient Lodging" chapter to state law, creating operator tiers and a countywide registry system. House Bill 1256, the "Short Term Rental Compliance Act," and Senate Bill 1105, aimed at hotel tax reporting in counties outside Philadelphia and Allegheny, are both still sitting in committee. Until one of them moves, don't plan around a statewide registration requirement or a state-set tax rate different from the 6% state hotel tax already in place, because current law doesn't have one.

If you're weighing this property against other Pennsylvania markets, the Pennsylvania short-term rental guide walks through that statewide patchwork in full, and the Bucks County guide and Montgomery County guide are useful side-by-side reads, since they show how differently that same patchwork plays out downstate compared to a Poconos vacation-home township.

Does Blooming Grove Township Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Given that the whole ordinance grew out of noise, parking and septic complaints, it would be strange if the township didn't back it with real enforcement, and it does. Section 4 declares any violation a public nuisance outright, which hands the Board of Supervisors a lower bar than an ordinary zoning dispute. The ordinance lets the Board appoint more than one enforcement officer, and that can include the Zoning Officer, a Pennsylvania State Constable, or a contracted security firm. Any of them can inspect a property whenever there's reason to believe a rule is being broken, and advertising a listing at more occupancy than your permit allows is itself a separate violation, not just a paperwork mismatch.

The penalties escalate quickly once a violation is confirmed. A civil case before a district judge carries fines up to $600 per violation, plus an additional $50 a day for as long as the violation continues after the township files its complaint, plus court costs and the township's attorney's fees. The Board can choose criminal enforcement instead, with fines up to $1,000 per violation. Co-owners share liability jointly and severally, so one owner can't hide behind another's name on the deed. And a conviction hits your permit directly: the first one gets it revoked for a full year, a second conviction makes that revocation permanent, and any violation tied to the sewage act can trigger immediate revocation regardless of prior history. Reinstatement is possible, but only at the Board's discretion, and only once it's satisfied the underlying problem has been fixed.

Be aware that the township built a fast-response mechanism directly into the permit itself: your local contact person's one-hour reply window to any complaint. That requirement exists precisely because the ordinance's own findings describe transient occupants as hard to hold accountable once they've checked out, so the township pushes accountability back onto the owner instead. Watch out for the parking and noise rules especially, since those are the two complaint categories the ordinance calls out by name, and they're the ones a neighbor in a tight lake community is most likely to phone in.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Blooming Grove Township

Assuming your property clears the HOA and zoning questions above, the order you tackle these steps in matters more than it looks like it should, since skipping ahead tends to waste time and the $150 fee alike.

1. Confirm your HOA's position first, if you have one. Notify the board in writing and keep proof of delivery. If your community objects, resolve that before you spend anything else on the application.
2. Check your septic permit and bedroom count. The number of bedrooms you can rent can't exceed what your sewage permit approved, and with no permit on file the township defaults to three bedrooms unless you can document the system handles more.
3. Designate your local contact person. If you live more than 30 miles away, you'll need someone else who can respond to a violation notice within an hour.
4. Get your tax paperwork lined up. Apply for your Pike County Hotel Room Excise Tax Certificate and, if needed, your Pennsylvania myPATH sales/hotel occupancy tax license before you file the township application, since both are required attachments.
5. Assemble the rest of the application packet. Roadside photo, parking diagram, bedroom acknowledgment, marketing ID number and the signed acknowledgments described above.
6. Submit the application and pay the $150 fee to the township office, and budget extra time if an inspection turns out to be required.
7. Post the required notices inside the unit, including the 911 address sign, the short-term rental window cling, and the front-door notice covering occupant limits, parking rules and trash pickup.
8. Diarize your renewal date. Renew before February 15th to avoid the doubled fee, and don't let it slide to May 1st, or the permit lapses and you're filing fresh rather than renewing.

Who to Contact in Blooming Grove Township about Short-Term Rental Regulations and Zoning?

Whichever step trips you up, the township keeps its short-term rental contacts small enough that you're rarely more than one call away from the right person.

Zoning, code enforcement and HOA questions

Michael McCaffery handles Zoning & Code Enforcement, and he's the first call for permit questions, HOA notice requirements, and anything about how the ordinance applies to your specific property. Reach him at 570-775-6461 extension 4 or [email protected], in office Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Applications, fees and the permit itself

Jo-Anna Donahue, the township's Secretary-Treasurer, processes applications and the $150 permit fee. Call 570-775-6461 extension 1 or email [email protected], Monday through Friday from 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Septic and bedroom capacity

Since your bedroom cap still runs straight through your sewage permit, Glen Martin, the Sewage Enforcement Officer, is who to call about that specific limit. He's reachable at 570-775-6461 extension 5, available Mondays from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

General township office

For anything that doesn't fit the three contacts above, the general line is 570-775-6461, Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The mailing address is 488 Route 739, Blooming Grove, PA 18428.

Pike County and Pennsylvania tax offices

Outside the township, two more offices matter. Sherry Wolf at the Pike County Treasurer's office handles the county's room excise tax; reach her at [email protected] or by mail at 506 Broad Street, Milford, PA 18337, (570) 296-3441. For the state side, the myPATH portal handles Sales, Use and Hotel Occupancy Tax License registration, and the PA Department of Revenue's home-sharing page spells out what a booking platform's collection does and doesn't cover for you.

If you're still deciding whether a Poconos property pencils out against other Pennsylvania options, BNBCalc's Pennsylvania market data is worth checking before you sign anything, since permit costs and tax rates are only half of what decides whether a place like this actually earns its keep.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Blooming Grove Township in 2026?

Yes. The township permits short-term rentals under Ordinance No. 72-2021, which requires an annual $150 permit issued to the property owner, a designated local contact person, and written notice to your homeowners' association if one governs your property. Zoning-wide, the ordinance doesn't ban the use outright, but a permit is mandatory before you advertise or rent for 30 days or less, and operating without one exposes you to fines and eventual permit denial.

How much does a short-term rental permit cost in Blooming Grove Township?

The permit fee is $150 a year, set under Resolution No. 3-2024. Miss the February 15th renewal deadline and the fee doubles; miss May 1st entirely and the permit lapses, meaning you'd have to file a brand-new application rather than a renewal. The township can also charge a separate inspection fee if your application doesn't match its records, though that amount isn't published as its own line item.

What taxes do you have to collect on a Blooming Grove Township short-term rental?

Two layers apply on top of your nightly rate: Pennsylvania's 6% State Hotel Occupancy Tax and Pike County's 3% Hotel Room Rental Excise Tax, for 9% combined. Airbnb and Vrbo are required by state law to collect and remit the 6% state tax on bookings they process. As the permit holder, you're responsible for remitting the county's 3% to the Pike County Treasurer, since no county page confirms the platforms handle that piece automatically.

What happens if you operate a short-term rental in Blooming Grove Township without a permit?

You're exposed to civil fines up to $600 per violation plus $50 a day for as long as the violation continues, or a criminal case carrying fines up to $1,000 per violation, at the township's choice. A conviction also affects any future permit: co-owners are jointly and severally liable, and the ordinance treats advertising over your allowed occupancy as its own separate violation, not just a technicality.

Does an HOA like Hemlock Farms need to approve a short-term rental in Blooming Grove Township?

If your property sits inside a subdivision governed by a homeowners' association, yes, effectively. The ordinance requires you to notify your HOA's board in writing and give the township proof before it will issue a permit. If the association objects within 30 days, your permit is held up until the objection is withdrawn or a court, arbitrator or other authority rules that you're allowed to rent short-term anyway.

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