Franklin County, Ohio Short-Term Rental Regulations: A 2026 Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Franklin County, Ohio and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that the county itself won't stand in your way, because the Franklin County Zoning Resolution readopted on 20 January 2026 doesn't mention short-term rentals anywhere in its 298 pages, and the county issues no short-term rental permit at all. The catch is that the county isn't the government making the decision. Its own directory of local governments lists 16 cities and 9 villages sitting on top of the township layer, and each one writes its own rulebook.

So the same house, moved five miles down the road, can land under a completely different regime. Inside Columbus you apply for a permit, submit to a background check and collect a 5.1% excise tax from every guest. In Dublin you're allowed two weeks of short-term renting a year and nothing beyond that. Plain Township permits short-term rentals only in business and industrial districts, which quietly rules out every house in a subdivision. And Upper Arlington told its residents in writing that the city's prohibition covers any rental shorter than 30 days. Same county, four different answers.

So let's walk through what it actually takes to do this properly: how to find out which of those governments you answer to, what a permit costs where one exists, the tax layers that stack on a Franklin County stay in 2026, how hard any of it gets enforced, and who to call when you get stuck. Everything below comes from the county's, a city's or the state's own pages, and where something is still moving I've said so. Before you spend a dollar on furniture, run the address through BNBCalc first, because in this county the ceiling on your nights is set by a rulebook rather than by demand.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Franklin County

Working out which of those governments you answer to is the first job, then, and it's a good deal less obvious than it sounds. A Columbus mailing address doesn't mean you're inside Columbus city limits, since the city interleaves with Upper Arlington, Bexley, Grandview Heights and Whitehall in ways that make no sense from a map. The county publishes a building and zoning jurisdiction lookup for exactly this reason, and do check your parcel in it before you read another word of any ordinance.

Even the township layer splits in two. The county's Planning and Zoning department says it administers county zoning for ten of the seventeen townships, namely Brown, Clinton, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, Mifflin, Norwich, Pleasant, Sharon and Truro, while Blendon, Jackson, Jefferson, Perry, Plain, Prairie and Washington run their own zoning entirely. Land in one of those seven and the county has nothing to do with your application.

For the ten townships the county does zone, the resolution is genuinely silent on the subject, since I went through the full text of the 2026 version and the phrase "short-term rental" appears nowhere in it. What it does say, at section 300.022, is that "only a use designated as a Permitted Use shall be allowed as matter of right in a Zoning District and any use not so designated shall be prohibited."

That sounds decisive until you notice that a one-family dwelling structure is a permitted use in every residential district. So the real question becomes whether renting that dwelling by the night still counts as using it for residence purposes, and the resolution never answers it.

The nearest thing to lodging in the county's residential districts is a Bed and Breakfast Inn, and it's drawn tightly enough that it can't stretch to cover you. Section 302.0393 makes it a conditional use in the Rural district only. It requires that no more than three bedrooms are available for overnight lodging, that the owner lives on-site, and that the "maximum length of stay of lodgers is two (2) weeks, to prevent the Inn from becoming a rooming house." So nothing in it stretches to an unhosted whole-house rental.

That leaves owners in unincorporated Franklin County in an awkward spot, so be aware of what you can and can't get. Nobody can issue you a short-term rental permit, because none exists.

What it will give you instead, though, is a determination in writing, and the zoning fee schedule prices a Zoning Confirmation Letter at $25 and a residential Certificate of Zoning Compliance at $75, as of July 2026. A certificate is required before "changing the use of buildings or land," which is arguably what you're proposing to do, so getting that answer on paper for $25 beats hearing it from a zoning officer after a neighbour complains. For how the rest of the state handles the same question, Ohio's statewide short-term rental guide covers the pattern county by county.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirements in Franklin County

A $25 letter is about as far as the county goes, and once you cross a city line the picture changes completely. There's no single Franklin County licence to apply for, so what follows is a map of the regimes an owner here is most likely to land in.

Jurisdiction	What it takes	Annual cost
Columbus	Permit before you list, BCI background check, $300,000 liability insurance, 24-hour local contact	$20 application plus $75 primary residence or $150 non-primary, plus $32 per background check
Dublin	Registration, and a hard cap of two weeks of short-term renting per calendar year	$225
Reynoldsburg	Permit, owner's primary residence, three-night minimum stay	$225
Plain Township	Conditional use permit plus a zoning permit, business or industrial districts only	Set by the township
County-zoned townships	No short-term rental permit exists; zoning determinations only	$25 confirmation letter, $75 residential compliance certificate

Columbus carries most of the county's population, so start there. The operative law is Chapter 598 of the city code, in the form Ordinance 1959-2021 gave it. A short-term rental, it says, is "any dwelling with five guestrooms or less that is reserved/rented wholly or partly for a compensatory fee for less than thirty (30) consecutive days." Six or more guestrooms puts you on the hotel and motel track instead, so that definition does a lot of quiet work.

Make sure you have the permit in hand before "the offering, listing, advertisement or marketing" of the dwelling, since the trigger is the listing going live rather than the first booking landing.

The city's short-term rental permit page links a fresh application pack dated 13 August 2026, and the fee schedule printed on it is short. You pay $20 to apply, then $75 a year for your primary residence or $150 for anything else, plus $32 for each Ohio BCI background check. Those checks aren't a one-off either, since you renew them annually for yourself, for the host if that's a different person, for the 24-hour emergency contact, and for the property manager if you use one.

Two of the ongoing conditions catch people out far more than the fees do. Section 598.04(H) requires liability cover of "not less than three hundred thousand dollars ($300,000)" on each short-term rental, and it adds that "any cancellation of insurance required by this section shall result in an automatic revocation of the respective short-term rental permit." So a lapsed policy costs you the permit. Not a warning letter.

The second is occupancy, and it's decided by a database rather than by your floor plan. The August 2026 application sheet says the number of bedrooms you list "may not exceed what is listed on the Franklin County Auditor's website" and that maximum occupancy "may not exceed three (3) times the number of bedrooms." So a finished basement you've been calling a bedroom won't count unless the Auditor agrees.

Dublin is where the numbers stop working, and it's worth understanding why before you buy anything inside its boundary. American Legal blocks automated access to the codified text, so I read section 122.02 on an Internet Archive copy of Dublin's code. Operators, it says, "are prohibited from renting any room or dwelling to transient guests for more than two weeks total in a calendar year," split across at most two bookings of up to seven days each.

Anything longer has to go to the same tenant on a lease of 30 consecutive days or more, and section 122.04 still charges the full $225 registration for the privilege, while capping occupancy at two per bedroom and asking for proof of rental insurance. Fourteen nights a year against a $225 fee isn't a business, and Dublin plainly meant it that way.

Then there's Plain Township, one of the seven that zones itself, which took a different route to much the same destination. Its zoning resolution requires "both a conditional use permit and a zoning permit," then restricts short-term rentals to the B-2 General Business, I-1 Light Industrial and I-2 General Industrial districts with Board of Zoning Appeals approval, adding that "if the residence does not meet the standards for a conditional use, the standards cannot be waived."

Since almost no houses sit in those districts, that alone settles it for most of the township. Even so, the section keeps going, and the rest of it reads as a deliberate ceiling:

• Fifty short-term rental permits a calendar year across the whole township.
• One permit per applicant, per person, per owner.
• At least 500 feet of separation from any other short-term rental.
• Two occupants per bedroom, and ten people in total whatever the bedroom count.
• Quiet hours from 11:00 pm to 8:00 am, and no weddings, parties or receptions.

The rest of the county is a patchwork I can't map from primary sources alone. WOSU Public Media reported on 15 July 2026 that Reynoldsburg's council approved a $225 yearly permit alongside a primary-residence requirement, a three-night minimum and a two-per-bedroom occupancy cap. The same piece says "cities like Dublin, Gahanna and Hilliard enforce similar requirements," while "others cities including Upper Arlington, Westerville and Worthington have banned short-term rentals completely."

Upper Arlington confirms its own end of that in a city notice stating that "the City's prohibition applies to any rental of less than 30 days in duration." Westerville and Worthington publish their codes through the same blocked publisher, though, so I couldn't read either one myself. Ring the city before you treat WOSU's line as the final word on your address.

Required Documents for Franklin County Short-Term Rentals

Whichever regime you land in, the paperwork is where applications quietly die, and Columbus asks for the longest list. The August 2026 application pack sets out what the License Section wants:

• The application itself, notarized, unless you sign it in front of an agent of the Director of Building and Zoning Services.
• Proof of identity, from a state driver's licence or ID card, a military ID or a passport.
• Two documents proving primary residence, if that's what you're claiming. A BMV vehicle registration, a federal tax document and a utility bill are the examples the city gives.
• A lease or rental contract that explicitly allows short-term rental use, if you're the permanent occupant rather than the owner. A silent lease is a denial, not a maybe.
• A Letter of Good Standing from the Columbus Income Tax Division, pulled through the CRISP portal, and required for each property.
• BCI background check results for you and every listed party, mailed directly to the License Section at 4252 Groves Road if you use an outside WebCheck agency.
• A list of every hosting platform you're registered on, with documentation confirming each registration, plus a form listing any other Columbus short-term rental you have an interest in.
• A 24-hour local contact, including that person's residential address, not merely a phone number.
• A photo of any party who doesn't appear in person, holding their ID so it's clearly visible.

Dublin's list is shorter and aimed elsewhere. Section 122.04 wants the names of every hosting platform and every advertising outlet you'll use, proof of rental insurance, evidence that you meet the ownership or permanent-occupancy test, and the maximum occupancy you intend to accommodate. Plain Township asks for more drawings than documents: a site plan showing the dwelling, the driveway, the designated parking and the location and number of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, plus a parking plan with one nine-by-eighteen-foot off-street space per bedroom, and the signature of your property caretaker alongside your own.

One thing worth getting ahead of, because it applies everywhere. Remember that permits in this county attach to a specific property and a specific person. Columbus voids a permit on any transfer of ownership, Plain Township makes its permit non-transferable and expires it every 31 December, and Dublin's registration runs to 31 December of the year it's approved with renewals due by the first Monday of November. So buying a house that already holds a permit buys you nothing but the house, and you start the paperwork again from scratch.

Franklin County Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you clear all that and are able to start taking bookings, there's still tax to sort out, and this is where the county's split personality shows up most sharply. Four separate charges circle a lodging stay here, yet only one of them is likely to touch you.

Charge	Rate	What it applies to	Remitted to
Columbus short-term rental excise tax	5.1%	A short-term rental inside Columbus city limits	Columbus Income Tax Division
Columbus hotel-motel excise tax	5.1%	Hotels and motels inside Columbus	Columbus Income Tax Division
FCCFA county lodging tax	4% countywide, plus 0.9% inside Columbus	Establishments with five or more guest rooms	Columbus Income Tax Division, for the FCCFA
Ohio sales tax on lodging	5.75%	Lodging by a "hotel", meaning five or more rooms	Ohio Department of Taxation

Stack the first three and you get the numbers on the city's own hotel-motel and short-term rental excise tax page: 10.0% for a hotel inside both Columbus and Franklin County, 5.1% for one inside Columbus only, and 4% for a hotel elsewhere in the county. Then look at the line that matters to you. For a short-term rental the same page lists one rate and one rate only, "inside the City of Columbus: 5.1%," with no county component beside it.

That gap is deliberate rather than an oversight. The Franklin County Convention Facilities Authority's own tax regulations define a hotel as an establishment "in which five or more rooms are used for the accommodation of such guests," and they've read that way since the 4% countywide levy took effect on 1 October 1988, with the extra 0.9% inside Columbus following on 1 January 1989.

Meanwhile a Columbus short-term rental is five guestrooms or fewer by definition, so it drops out of the county tax on the wording rather than through any exemption you have to claim. Ohio's 5.75% sales tax on lodging misses it for the same reason.

Keep in mind that this cuts both ways outside the city. A short-term rental in an unincorporated township may owe no lodging tax whatsoever, since the county's tax doesn't reach it and there's no township levy to replace it, while a rental in a suburb that has adopted its own bed tax will owe whatever that city charges. So ring your city's finance office, and don't assume either answer.

Inside Columbus, meanwhile, the mechanics are unforgiving in a small way. The city says property owners "are responsible for collecting the 5.1% short-term rental excise tax from guests and remitting the tax on their behalf," returns run through the CRISP portal only, and they're due by the 20th of each month. Since every account has to file monthly "regardless of whether any rental activity occurred during the filing period," a quiet January still needs a zero return from you. And don't forget that the 5.1% then sits on top of the 2.5% Columbus city income tax you'll owe on what you earn.

The part I'd flag hardest is platform collection, because plenty of hosts assume somebody else is handling it. Airbnb's Ohio occupancy tax page names three jurisdictions where it collects and pays over the tax, and they're Cuyahoga County, Cincinnati and Cleveland. Columbus isn't on that list. Neither is Franklin County.

Everywhere else in the state, Airbnb tells hosts they "are responsible for assessing all other tax obligations," so treat yourself as the collector unless your platform says in writing that it pays the Columbus Income Tax Division. There is one genuine relief in all this, mind you. Stays of 30 consecutive days or longer to the same guest fall outside both Chapter 598 and the excise tax, which is why so much former nightly inventory in this market has drifted into furnished mid-term rentals.

Ohio Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

Every one of those local rules exists because Ohio allows it, and that's worth understanding before you assume the state will rescue you from a city ordinance you dislike. Ohio has no general preemption statute for short-term rentals. Cities and villages draw their authority straight from Article XVIII, Section 3 of the Ohio Constitution, while counties and townships get theirs by statute, so every level of local government sets its own zoning, permitting and occupancy rules with no statewide ceiling above them.

There's no statewide short-term rental licence or registry either. The only state-level registration a host might need is the ordinary county vendor's licence, $50 through a county auditor or OH|TAX eServices, and only if the rental is subject to Ohio sales tax in the first place. For most single-house listings it isn't, because ORC 5739.02 levies the 5.75% sales tax on "lodging by a hotel" and ORC 5739.01 defines a hotel as an establishment with five or more rooms.

The lodging taxes work the same way, which is how Franklin County ended up where it is. ORC 5739.08 lets a municipality or township levy up to 3% on hotel lodging, while ORC 5739.09 lets a county levy up to 3% plus a further point for resort-area public safety since 30 September 2025.

Then there's the escape hatch, and it's the provision to keep an eye on. ORC 5739.091 lets a county, township or municipality resolve to extend its own "hotel" definition to establishments with fewer than five rooms, purely for its own lodging tax. Franklin County hasn't done it, which is exactly why the county tax stops short of your house today. A future board of commissioners could reverse that without asking Columbus.

Now, two bills would rewrite all of it, though they've been sitting still for a year and a half. House Bill 109 and Senate Bill 104 are companions in the 136th General Assembly, and their shared long title is to "limit the authority of local governments to regulate short-term rental properties, to extend local lodging taxes to short-term rentals, to require collection of those taxes by short-term rental platforms."

Ohio's legislature website wouldn't load from where I was working, so I read both on Internet Archive snapshots, HB 109 as captured on 15 July 2026 and SB 104 on 28 May 2026. Both still showed their current version as "As Introduced," HB 109 in House Development and SB 104 in Senate Local Government, with no substitute and no committee report behind either. So a bill in committee is not a rule, and you shouldn't buy anything on the strength of one.

Elsewhere in Ohio the same statutes land differently, which is instructive if you're choosing between metros. The Hamilton County guide covers a market where Cincinnati's booking platforms do collect the local tax for you, while the Cuyahoga County guide covers the one county in the state where Airbnb pays over the county bed tax directly.

Does Franklin County Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Pending bills don't help anyone today, though, and what does bite is how each of these governments answers a complaint. None of them blocks transactions the way New York City does, so an unpermitted listing here keeps taking bookings until somebody reports it. Enforcement is therefore complaint-driven almost everywhere in the county, which in practice means your neighbours decide how much risk you're carrying.

In the unincorporated townships the county assigns a named zoning officer to each area, and the county's zoning page publishes their direct lines, so a complaint about you takes one phone call. Section 710.01 of the zoning resolution then makes any violation a misdemeanour "subject to the penalty provided in Section 303.09, Ohio Revised Code," and the fee schedule adds a $150 penalty plus the underlying fee if you seek zoning compliance after the fact.

Watch out for how slow the remedy runs in the other direction, though. The county's own operations notice warns that permit reviews take at least three weeks and email replies at least five days.

Columbus enforces through its License Section, which asks complainants to log the incident with 311 and email [email protected]. On paper the fines look small, since section 598.20 sets an unclassified misdemeanour fined "not more than two hundred fifty dollars ($250.00)," rising to a third-degree misdemeanour on a repeat, with strict liability and each listing counting as a separate offence.

The real teeth sit in the next clause, though, which requires that "all gross revenue or compensation from a reservation(s) or rental(s) that is obtained in violation of C.C.C. 598.02(A)(2) shall be remitted to the city of Columbus, subject to local and state laws governing forfeiture." Operating without a permit doesn't only cost you a fine. It costs you what you earned.

Losing a permit you already hold is easier than most owners expect, too. Beyond the automatic revocation that follows a lapsed insurance policy, Chapter 598 lets the Director act on three or more calls for service inside twelve consecutive months, on uncorrected Division of Fire orders, and on a property or host that isn't in good standing with the Columbus Income Tax Division. So fall behind on the 5.1% and you're not merely a late filer, you're a revocation candidate. Dublin runs a progressive schedule of its own, with fines to $250 and up to $1,000 on subsequent convictions.

The direction of travel is tightening rather than loosening. Columbus council held public hearings on short-term rentals in December 2025 and again in April 2026, both listed on the city's legislative calendar as reviews of "potential updates to the City's ordinances and procedures relating to short term rentals," even though Chapter 598 itself hasn't been amended since 2021.

WOSU tied that wider push to a shooting at a party at a Columbus short-term rental on 4 July 2025 that killed a 17-year-old and injured five others, which is the kind of event that moves a council quickly. One honest gap is worth naming as well. I couldn't find an official count of how many Columbus permits are active, because the city doesn't publish one, so nobody outside the License Section really knows how big the legal market is. Take any number you see elsewhere with caution.

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

Given how much of that turns on which side of a boundary you sit, the order of the steps below matters more than it looks. The early ones tell you whether the later ones are worth attempting at all.

1. Find your jurisdiction before anything else. Run the parcel through the county's building and zoning jurisdiction lookup. A Columbus postal address proves nothing, and Upper Arlington, Westerville and Worthington are all reported to prohibit this outright.
2. Read your own city's chapter, not a summary of it. Dublin's two-week cap and Plain Township's commercial-districts-only rule are the sort of thing that never survives into a blog roundup, and both of them end the conversation for a typical suburban house.
3. In an unincorporated township, buy the $25 answer. A Zoning Confirmation Letter from Franklin County Economic Development and Planning costs less than an hour of anyone's time and puts the county's reading of your use in writing.
4. Check the Auditor's bedroom count. Columbus caps occupancy at three times the number of bedrooms the Franklin County Auditor records, so pull your parcel record before you advertise sleeping space you can't legally offer.
5. Line up the insurance and the local contact early. Columbus wants $300,000 of liability cover and a 24-hour contact with a residential address, and Plain Township wants that contact within 60 minutes' travel of the property.
6. Book the background checks. BCI checks are needed for you and every listed party, they cost $32 each at the License Section, and out-of-state applicants take noticeably longer.
7. Get the Letter of Good Standing. It comes from the Columbus Income Tax Division through CRISP and it's required for each property, so start it before the rest of the pack is ready.
8. Register for the excise tax before your first guest. Inside Columbus you file monthly through CRISP by the 20th, even in a month with no bookings.
9. Put the permit number on every listing, keep your records for four years, and diarise the renewal, since Columbus runs annually and both Dublin and Plain Township expire on 31 December regardless of when you applied.

Once the rules are clear for your specific address, the arithmetic is then the easy part. Pull the nightly rates and occupancy for the Ohio market and test them against the number of nights your jurisdiction will actually let you sell, because fourteen legal nights at any rate is a different proposition from a full calendar.

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

Since almost every step above ends with a phone call, knowing which office owns your question saves an unreasonable amount of time on hold. Four of them handle nearly everything.

County zoning, for the unincorporated townships

Franklin County Economic Development and Planning administers zoning for Brown, Clinton, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, Mifflin, Norwich, Pleasant, Sharon and Truro Townships.

• Address: 150 S. Front Street, FSL Suite 10, Columbus, OH 43215
• Main: 614-525-3095
• Zoning: 614-525-3094
• Planning: 614-525-7268 and [email protected]
• Building: 614-525-3166 and [email protected]
• Applications: by mail, in person by appointment only, or online through the county's permit portal at co-franklin-oh.smartgovcommunity.com

Zoning complaints and compliance questions go to the officer assigned to your township:

• Hamilton, Mifflin, Pleasant and Sharon: Kelsey Shires, 614-525-7270, [email protected]
• Franklin, Norwich and Truro: Kimberly Godfrey, 614-525-5627, [email protected]
• Brown, Clinton and Madison: Reggie Hairston, 614-525-5116, [email protected]

The county asks you to email before visiting, and its own operations notice warns that voicemails and emails take at least five days to answer.

Columbus permits and complaints

The City of Columbus License Section, inside the Department of Building and Zoning Services, registers hosts and enforces Chapter 598.

• Address: 4252 Groves Road, Columbus, OH 43232
• Phone: (614) 645-8366, fax (614) 645-8912
• Hours: Monday to Friday, 8:00 am to 3:30 pm
• Applications: [email protected]
• Regulations, and complaints about a rental: [email protected], alongside a 311 report
• Wider licensing complaints: [email protected]

Columbus and county lodging tax

The Columbus Income Tax Division collects both the city's excise tax and the county authority's, and it's the office that issues your Letter of Good Standing.

• Main line: (614) 645-7370
• Hotel and motel excise tax: (614) 645-8328
• CRISP help line: (614) 645-8899
• Hours: Monday to Friday, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm
• Mail: Columbus Income Tax Division, PO Box 182158, Columbus, OH 43218-2158
• Filing and payments: crisp.columbus.gov, since the Division no longer takes returns in person

The Franklin County Convention Facilities Authority sits behind the county lodging tax at 400 N. High Street, Columbus, OH 43215, on (614) 827-2500, though the city's FCCFA contact page notes it handles statistics rather than your account.

Your own city, if it isn't Columbus

For anywhere else in the county, the planning or community development department is the right first call. Upper Arlington directs prohibition questions to Community Development on 614-583-5070, and Dublin's registrations run through the Planning Director's office. These are small cities, so one call usually gets you a person.

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

Those numbers matter more here than in most markets, and the reason shows up in how hosts talk about the place. What follows is my read of recurring themes rather than a survey, so do weigh it accordingly, and note that I haven't scraped Reddit for it.

• The suburb question dominates everything else. Investors asking about "Columbus" almost always mean the metro, and the useful answers come back about the city line. On BiggerPockets a local agent answering a thread about the Columbus short-term rental market pointed straight at Short North near High Street, Southern Orchards near the hospital and the campus area, all of which are squarely inside Columbus. Nobody recommends the suburbs, and once you've read Dublin's chapter you can see why.
• The Columbus permit is treated as annoying rather than prohibitive. The complaints cluster around the notarization, the annual background checks and the Letter of Good Standing, which is fair for a process with four moving parts and no online submission.
• Enforcement is discussed as a neighbour problem. Because Columbus works from complaints and calls for service, the operators who get into trouble are the ones whose guests make noise, and three calls in a year is a revocation ground rather than a warning.
• Nobody argues the rules are going away. The pending state bills come up constantly, and the sensible response is the one the calendar supports: both have sat in their first committee since February 2025.

The wider lesson holds well beyond this county. Where a metro is carved into two dozen small governments, the rules that decide your business aren't the famous ones you can look up in an afternoon; they're the ones written by a council of seven people in a suburb you drove through without noticing. Find out whose name is on your parcel before you fall in love with the numbers.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you need a permit to run an Airbnb in Franklin County, Ohio?

Not from the county. Franklin County issues no short-term rental permit and its zoning resolution never mentions the use. Whether you need one depends entirely on the city, village or township your parcel sits in. Columbus requires an annual permit before you list, Dublin and Reynoldsburg require registration, and Plain Township requires a conditional use permit plus a zoning permit. In the ten townships the county zones, no permit exists to apply for.

How much does a Columbus short-term rental permit cost in 2026?

The application fee is $20, then $75 a year if the property is your primary residence or $150 a year if it isn't. Add $32 for each Ohio BCI background check, which is required annually for the applicant, the host if different, the 24-hour emergency contact and any property manager. The permit runs one calendar year from issue, and a change of ownership voids it rather than transferring it.

What taxes apply to a short-term rental in Franklin County?

Inside Columbus city limits, a 5.1% short-term rental excise tax, collected from the guest and remitted monthly through the CRISP portal by the 20th. The Franklin County Convention Facilities Authority lodging tax and Ohio's 5.75% sales tax on lodging both apply only to establishments with five or more guest rooms, so they miss a typical house or condo. Outside Columbus, check whether your own city levies a bed tax.

Does Airbnb collect and remit taxes for Franklin County hosts?

No. Airbnb's Ohio occupancy tax page lists only three jurisdictions where it collects and remits: Cuyahoga County, Cincinnati and Cleveland. Columbus and Franklin County appear on neither list, and Airbnb states that hosts elsewhere are responsible for assessing all other tax obligations. Assume you are collecting and remitting the 5.1% yourself unless your platform confirms in writing that it pays the Columbus Income Tax Division.

Which Franklin County suburbs allow short-term rentals?

Columbus, Dublin, Gahanna, Hilliard and Reynoldsburg all permit them under their own rules, though Dublin caps short-term renting at two weeks per calendar year and Reynoldsburg requires a three-night minimum and an owner-occupied property. WOSU reported in July 2026 that Upper Arlington, Westerville and Worthington prohibit short-term rentals outright, and Upper Arlington's own notice confirms its prohibition covers any rental under 30 days.

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