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

Do you own a place in Lehman Township, Pennsylvania and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that short-term rentals are legal here, in Pike County's stretch of the Poconos, and the township has run a real licensing system for them since 2018. The catch, and it's a genuine one, is that Lehman Township has reportedly stopped issuing new permits since around January 2025, so that "yes" depends heavily on whether you already hold a permit, can buy a property that comes with one attached, or are willing to wait the process out.

That pause isn't written into the ordinance itself, mind you. Ordinance No. 140 of 2020, as amended by Ordinance No. 145 of 2021, still reads like an open licensing process: an application, a fee, an inspection, and a $300,000 insurance requirement. What multiple Poconos-market sources report, though, is that the township quietly closed the door on new applications while roughly 200 existing permits carry on as grandfathered. I couldn't confirm that pause on an official township page, so treat it as a strong signal to call before you buy, not as settled law.

So this guide walks through what the ordinance requires, what the taxes look like once you stack the state's rules on top, how strictly the township enforces all of it, and who to call to get a straight answer on whether new permits are open again by the time you're reading this. Every figure below comes from Lehman Township's own ordinances or Pennsylvania's own tax pages, checked in July 2026, and where the picture is genuinely unclear, I've said so rather than guessed. If you're weighing this property against other Pennsylvania markets, run the numbers through BNBCalc first.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Lehman Township

Before you get anywhere near a BNBCalc projection, though, it helps to know exactly what the township is regulating, because most of the confusion here starts with people assuming an occasional weekend rental works the same way a full-time hotel does. Ordinance 140 defines a "short-term rental" fairly broadly: any structure, or portion of one, rented for at least two consecutive nights but no more than 30 consecutive calendar days. That has to happen in a zoning district where residential use is allowed. Those districts cover detached single-family homes, two-family dwellings, condos, duplexes, triplexes, townhomes and multi-family buildings alike. Rent a place for 31 nights or more, though, and you're outside this ordinance entirely, under ordinary landlord-tenant law instead.

Not every residential zone qualifies, either. Township meeting minutes from June 2019 are useful here: they record the solicitor's read that short-term rentals are permitted in the MDR, VC and GC zones, and not in the LDR, or low-density residential, zone. That reading predates the current ordinance text, though, so do check it against the current zoning map with the Zoning Officer before you assume a specific address qualifies. A zoning line can shift a property from "legal with a permit" to "not eligible at all" without the underlying ordinance changing a single word.

Then there's the eligibility question everyone wants answered: can you get a permit at all right now? Lehman Township's own short-term rentals page states plainly that new short-term rentals aren't permitted in residential zones, and Poconos-market reporting from mid-2026 describes roughly 200 existing permits still operating as grandfathered while new applications go nowhere. One market source even describes buyers checking for a "Certificate of Non-Conformity" from the seller before closing, on the theory that it helps a new owner inherit the prior grandfathered status. None of that language appears in Ordinance 140 or 145 themselves, which still describe an ordinary new-owner application under Section 109(B) whenever a property changes hands. If the pause turns out to be real and permanent, other Pennsylvania markets are worth a look too, and the Bucks County guide and the Montgomery County guide both run under entirely different permitting frameworks.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Lehman Township

Assuming you clear that gate, either because you already hold a permit or the township confirms it's accepting new ones again, the licensing mechanics themselves are still fairly straightforward on paper. No owner may rent, offer to rent, or advertise a short-term rental without a valid permit issued by the Code Official under Section 104 of Ordinance 140, and the application itself runs through that same office rather than through the Board of Supervisors directly.

The ordinance sets a permit fee "established by resolution of Board" rather than stating a dollar figure in the ordinance text, and I couldn't find a current fee schedule published anywhere on the township's site. Make sure you call the township directly for the number before you budget around it, since a fee that isn't published anywhere online is exactly the kind of thing that's easy to guess wrong on.

Once you're through the application, the permit still carries a real set of ongoing conditions, under Section 108:

• Inspection. Your rental has to pass a compliance inspection against the 2015 International Property Maintenance Code, performed by someone holding a current Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry commercial and residential inspection certification, with a dated report submitted in the year each permit is issued.
• Insurance. You need general liability coverage of at least $300,000 combined single limit, plus a signed agreement indemnifying the township against claims arising from the rental.
• A local emergency contact. You must give the Code Official a 24-hour phone number for someone who can actually respond to complaints, not a number that rings out.
• Parking. One off-street space per bedroom, minimum, and the maximum number of vehicles allowed at the property is capped at however many off-street spaces you have.
• Permit number on every listing. Every advertisement for the rental has to include the township-issued permit number.
• An adult on the reservation. The primary occupant has to be an adult, reachable by phone at all times, and you're required to collect that person's name, address, and driver's license or passport number before they check in, along with a signed acknowledgment that they're responsible for everyone in the unit.
• No weddings or conferences. Section 108(G) limits use to overnight lodging specifically; it isn't a venue.
• No new tenants during a declared pandemic emergency. A leftover from the 2020 rewrite, this one's still on the books: if the Commonwealth, the Governor, or the township itself declares a pandemic emergency, no new tenants, regardless of how long they'd be staying.

A permit runs for the calendar year it's issued plus the following year, and as amended by Ordinance 145, renewal is now due biennially on the anniversary of the date it was first issued, rather than a fixed December 31 cutoff that used to bunch every renewal into the same season. Permits aren't transferable between owners; sell the property and the buyer has to apply for a new one under their own name, whatever the current status of the new-permit pause turns out to be by then.

If your address is more than 30 air miles from your own front door, so to speak, you're required to appoint an agent who lives within 30 air miles of the property to handle compliance on your behalf, and that agent's failure to comply counts as your own non-compliance under the ordinance. Absentee owners running this as a true side investment should treat that agent requirement as a real cost line, not a formality.

Required Documents for Lehman Township Short-Term Rentals

Since the permit itself hinges on paperwork the ordinance spells out in detail, it's worth gathering everything before you walk into the Code Official's office rather than after. The application under Section 105 needs your name, address and phone number as owner, plus the same details for an agent if the 30-mile rule applies to you. It doesn't stop there, either: you'll also need a dated inspection report from the current permit year, naming the certified inspector, their city, and their certification number, along with proof of that $300,000 liability policy with the indemnification agreement executed.

One document trips people up more than the rest: proof that the rental isn't prohibited by a homeowners association, property owners association, or any recorded covenant. Here's the wrinkle worth understanding, because it cuts against what most owners expect. If it turns out your HOA does prohibit short-term rentals, the township doesn't refuse your permit on that basis. It issues the permit anyway and notifies the HOA, because the Code Official has no authority to enforce a private covenant, and this ordinance is expressly separate from whatever your HOA's rules say. That's good news for the permit application and genuinely bad news for anyone who assumed a township permit settles the HOA question, too. It doesn't.

Beyond the permit application itself, keep in mind the paperwork you'll generate on an ongoing basis. Every tenant needs a written lease or rental agreement with a copy of the ordinance attached as an exhibit, and you're required to retain those agreements for at least two years and produce them to the Code Official within five business days of a request. Do check that your booking platform's standard rental terms satisfy that requirement, because a generic Airbnb confirmation email likely doesn't.

Lehman Township Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you're able to get through all of that paperwork and start hosting, there's still tax to think about, and it stacks in two layers here rather than one. Pennsylvania's own Hotel Occupancy Tax runs at 6% statewide, applied under 61 Pa. Code Chapter 38 to any short-term stay under 30 days, and Pike County reportedly layers a hotel room rental tax on top that funds the Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau's promotion budget across Carbon, Monroe, Pike and Wayne counties. I found that county rate reported consistently at 3% by multiple Poconos-focused sources, but Pike County's own site blocked automated access during this research pass, and an archived snapshot turned up nothing either, so treat that county figure as unconfirmed until you check it against the Pike County Treasurer's office directly.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
PA Hotel Occupancy Tax	6%	Booking platform (per Act 109) or host via myPATH
Pike County Hotel Room Rental Tax	approximately 3%, unconfirmed	Pike County Treasurer

Most of the state layer takes care of itself. Since Act 109 of 2018 passed, Airbnb and Vrbo have to collect the state's 6% and hand it over for you, so if every booking runs through a major platform, you likely never have to register at all. Book directly, though, or through a smaller platform that skips this, and you'll need to sign up for a Sales, Use and Hotel Occupancy Tax License through myPATH and pay the tax yourself. What isn't clear from anything I could find, as of July 2026, is whether platforms extend that same collection duty to the county-level charge, so don't assume Airbnb is handling the Pike County piece just because it handles the state piece; confirm that directly with the county.

Pennsylvania Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

Zoom out from Lehman Township's own rules, and you'll find there isn't much of a statewide framework sitting above them at all. Pennsylvania has no statewide short-term rental preemption law and no state-mandated registry, which the General Assembly's own Joint State Government Commission confirmed directly in a March 2025 staff study describing the whole state as "a patchwork of primarily county and municipal zoning ordinances and regulations," where even the definition of "short-term rental" varies township by township. That's exactly why Lehman Township can run its own permit system with its own inspection standard and its own reported new-permit pause, and why a neighboring Pike County township could run something entirely different. Our Pennsylvania statewide guide maps that patchwork in full if you're weighing Lehman against a different part of the state.

A few bills would change that picture if any of them passed, though none has yet. House Bill 2303 would add a whole new "Transient Lodging" chapter to state law, creating tiered operator categories and a countywide registry, and it's still pending in committee as of the latest reachable status. Two more bills sit in that same holding pattern: House Bill 1256, the "Short Term Rental Compliance Act," and Senate Bill 1105, which focuses on hotel tax reporting in counties outside Philadelphia and Allegheny. So don't plan around any of them; what governs Lehman Township today is the local ordinance and the state's existing 6% tax, nothing more.

Does Lehman Township Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Given how much of this guide has been about a rule that isn't formally written down anywhere, it's fair to ask whether the township actually enforces what is written down. The answer, based on the ordinance's own text, is yes, and it's gotten somewhat tighter over time. The original 2018 ordinance gave owners ten days to cure a violation and ten days to file an appeal; the 2020 rewrite cut both windows to five calendar days, which leaves considerably less room to fix a problem before the clock runs out.

Penalties themselves are meaningful rather than symbolic. A violation is a summary offense carrying a fine of up to $1,000 plus prosecution costs, with up to 30 days' imprisonment in default of payment, or alternatively a civil penalty of up to $600 plus court costs and reasonable attorney's fees. Crucially, each day a violation continues counts as a separate offense, and so does each section of the ordinance you're out of compliance with, which means a small problem left unaddressed can compound fast. A permit can be revoked outright, too, either because your application contained false information or because you violated the ordinance after a notice to cure and didn't fix it in time. Even homeowner associations have a role. They're required to cooperate with the Code Official's enforcement, which includes granting community access and helping flag rentals operating in violation.

The reported pause on new permits reads, in a way, as the township's biggest enforcement lever of all: it's a lot harder to run an illegal short-term rental in Lehman Township when the legal ones are a fixed, dwindling, closely tracked pool of roughly 200. That scarcity also explains some of what you'll read online, which the next section gets into.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Lehman Township

Assuming your situation still makes sense after all of that, and you're either the owner of an existing permit or genuinely confident the township is accepting new applications, the order below is worth following roughly as written, since the early steps determine whether the later ones are worth bothering with.

1. Call the Zoning Officer first, before anything else. Confirm current permit-issuance status directly, since the reported pause could be temporary, could have lifted by the time you're reading this, or could have tightened further.
2. Verify your zoning district. Check the current zoning map against the MDR, VC and GC designations, and rule out LDR before you go any further.
3. Check any HOA or recorded covenant, knowing that a prohibition there won't block your township permit but will still be a real constraint on how you actually operate.
4. Line up $300,000 of general liability insurance and the executed indemnification agreement the township requires.
5. Schedule your inspection with a Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry certified inspector against the 2015 International Property Maintenance Code, and get the dated report in hand.
6. Submit your application and fee to the Code Official, including agent information if you live more than 30 air miles away.
7. Post your permit and put the number on every listing, on Airbnb, Vrbo, or anywhere else you advertise.
8. Build your lease template with the ordinance attached as an exhibit, and set up a simple system for storing signed copies for two years.
9. Register for Pennsylvania's Sales, Use and Hotel Occupancy Tax License through myPATH if you'll ever book directly, and separately confirm your Pike County tax obligation with the county treasurer.
10. Diarize your renewal date. It's now the anniversary of your first issuance, not a fixed date, so don't rely on remembering December 31 the way the old rule worked.

If the numbers still work once you've cleared all that, BNBCalc's Pennsylvania market data is worth running the Poconos region through before you commit, since a permit-constrained market like this one can behave very differently from a wide-open one on paper.

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

Whichever step you get stuck on, two offices realistically cover almost everything here, and neither one is complicated to find.

Permits, zoning and the Code Official

The Lehman Township Board of Supervisors office administers the short-term rental permit through its Code Official and Zoning Officer.

• Address: 193 Municipal Drive, Bushkill, PA 18324
• Phone: (570) 588-9365
• Fax: (570) 588-1864
• Email: [email protected]

The township's own site doesn't name an individual Zoning Officer or give a separate direct line, so the general number above is your starting point for anything from a permit-status check to an inspection question.

State and county tax

The Pennsylvania Department of Revenue handles the state's 6% Hotel Occupancy Tax and myPATH registration; its general phone line is 717-787-1064, and myPATH is where you'd register if you ever book outside a collecting platform.

For the county-level hotel tax, the Pike County Treasurer's Office is the office of record, though be aware that its own site returned an access error during this research pass, so I'd recommend calling ahead rather than relying on anything you find secondhand about the current county rate.

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

That gap between what the ordinance says and what gets repeated online shows up clearly once you go looking for host sentiment. On a BiggerPockets thread about which Poconos towns allow short-term rentals, one commenter lists Lehman Township, alongside Smithfield and several other municipalities, as a place that "explicitly [does] not allow STR under 30 days continuous period." That's not quite accurate, at least not as the ordinance itself reads. Lehman Township runs a real licensing system, not a ban, but the comment isn't crazy either: between the LDR zoning exclusion and the reported new-permit pause, "you basically can't get one" and "they're banned" end up sounding like the same thing to someone who tried and got turned away.

I wasn't able to reach Reddit directly during this research, so I'm not going to claim a survey of what's said there. What I can say, based on the one forum thread I did read and the market reporting cited earlier in this guide, is that the practical read among Poconos investors leans pessimistic on Lehman Township specifically, less because the rules are unusually harsh and more because the door to new entrants appears mostly shut. If you're weighing Lehman against a neighboring township, that's the question worth asking a local agent directly, rather than trusting a forum comment from a year or two back: is the permit pool actually closed right now, or was that true when the comment was written and not necessarily true today?

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Lehman Township in 2026?

Only if you already hold a permit, buy a property with one attached, or the township is currently accepting new applications, which market reporting says it wasn't doing as of early 2025. Existing permits operate legally under Ordinance No. 140, with insurance, inspection and record-keeping obligations attached. Call the Zoning Officer to confirm current permit availability before assuming either answer applies to your situation.

How much does a Lehman Township short-term rental permit cost?

The ordinance doesn't state a dollar figure. It sets the fee "by resolution of Board," and no published fee schedule turned up during this research. Call the township directly at (570) 588-9365 for the current amount, since it can change by resolution without the ordinance text itself being amended.

What taxes do you pay on a Lehman Township short-term rental?

Pennsylvania's state Hotel Occupancy Tax runs at 6%, and booking platforms like Airbnb generally collect and remit that automatically under Act 109. Pike County reportedly adds a hotel room rental tax of around 3% on top, though that figure comes from secondary sources rather than a confirmed county page, so verify the current rate and whether your platform collects it with the Pike County Treasurer's Office directly.

Is Lehman Township currently accepting new short-term rental permit applications?

As of this research in July 2026, multiple Poconos-market sources report that new applications have gone nowhere since around January 2025, with roughly 200 existing permits still operating as grandfathered. That's not stated anywhere in the ordinance itself, which describes an open process, so this is genuinely worth confirming with the Zoning Officer before you buy a property expecting to get a new permit.

What happens if you run a short-term rental in Lehman Township without a permit?

It's a summary offense: a fine of up to $1,000 plus prosecution costs, with up to 30 days' imprisonment if you default on payment, or a civil penalty of up to $600 plus court costs and attorney's fees as an alternative. Each day the violation continues counts as a separate offense, and each ordinance section you're out of compliance with adds another, so an unpermitted rental left running can rack up penalties fast.

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