Hamilton County, Tennessee Short-Term Rental Regulations: A 2026 Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Hamilton County, Tennessee and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that you're allowed to, and no city or county in Tennessee can take that away from you wholesale, because the state stripped local governments of the power to ban short-term rentals outright back in 2018. The less welcome news is that Hamilton County has spent every year since 2023 building rules of its own, and one of them settles the question before any of the others get a chance to matter. It's the size of your lot.

Since July 10, 2024, the county won't certify a short-term vacation rental on a residentially zoned lot smaller than one acre, and it applies a bigger floor again on agricultural land. That one line takes most ordinary subdivision housing out of the running, and it only governs the unincorporated county at that. Assuming your address sits inside Chattanooga, East Ridge, Collegedale or any of the other incorporated cities here, your rules come from city hall instead, and Chattanooga's are tighter still. So the first thing to pin down isn't the paperwork. It's whose paperwork you're filling in.

So let's walk through what it actually takes to do this properly in 2026: who the county rules reach, what the STVR certificate costs and how long it lasts, the inspections behind it, the layers of tax on a booking, how hard any of it gets enforced, and who to call when your situation doesn't fit the form. Everything below comes from Hamilton County's and Tennessee's own documents, read in July 2026, and where the county's paperwork contradicts itself I've said so rather than quietly picked a winner. Before you go near an application, though, run the property through BNBCalc and find out whether the numbers still work on an acre.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Hamilton County

Whose paperwork you're filling in gets decided by a map rather than a preference, so start there. Hamilton County's short-term vacation rental rules apply to the unincorporated county only, and STVR is the county's own abbreviation for them, the one you'll see on every form. Chattanooga runs its own certificate program, and so do the smaller municipalities. That's why the Hamilton County Trustee ends up collecting lodging tax for the county alongside Chattanooga, East Ridge, Collegedale and Red Bank.

So pull your parcel up on the assessor's records before you read another word, because if it sits inside a city limit, most of what follows doesn't apply to you.

The county came to this late. Resolution No. 423-27, adopted April 19, 2023, was the first STVR framework Hamilton County ever had, and it recites the reason plainly: the commission had been getting "numerous complaints from the many surrounding neighbors and communities" about renters. Before that resolution there were 31 certified STVRs here, a number the commission wrote into the resolution itself when it exempted those owners from the new fee. That's the base this market grew from, so calibrate your expectations accordingly.

Who the rules cover is narrower than you might assume, because the resolution speaks only to "the owner(s) of a single-family dwelling located within the unincorporated areas of Hamilton County," renting all or a portion of that dwelling for less than 30 continuous days. A single-family house, in other words, and one you own. There's no path drafted here for a duplex, a condo or a leaseholder, so if your plan involves any of those, call Development Services before you build a spreadsheet around it.

Then comes the rule that decides most cases. Resolution No. 724-11, passed July 10, 2024, prohibits an STVR on a residentially zoned lot of less than one acre, while on agricultural land it adds a 50-foot side-by-side buffer on top of a larger acreage minimum. The commission's reasoning, as the resolution states it, was that restricting certificates to bigger lots would eliminate "a majority of the problems voiced and experienced" by neighbors. Whatever you make of that logic, the effect is unambiguous: a quarter-acre lot in a subdivision cannot be certified, no matter how well you'd run it.

There's a wrinkle in the agricultural half of that rule, though, and it's the county's own doing. The resolution as the county publishes it reads "two and a half (2 1/2) acres." Yet the minutes of that same meeting record Commissioner Highlander's motion to require 2.5 acres failing on a roll call of five ayes to three nays with one abstention. County Attorney Rheubin Taylor confirmed to the chair that it had failed, after which the two-acre version passed six to three. Then the passed agenda splits the difference with a typo, printing "less than two (2 1/2) acres." Three county documents, three readings. So if your agricultural parcel falls anywhere between two and two and a half acres, don't assume the friendlier number, and get an answer in writing from Development Services before money moves.

Zoning otherwise stays out of the way, which surprises people. Development Services states on its own department page that "this is not a zoning issue. STVR's are allowed in all zones except M zones," M being the county's manufacturing districts, so the gate here isn't your district at all. It's your acreage and your inspection.

One more physical limit is worth knowing early, since it lands on exactly the houses that earn best. A one- or two-family structure rented as an STVR can't exceed 5,000 gross square feet unless it's sprinklered, a rule the county wrote in after the State Fire Marshal told it the original resolution conflicted with state regulation. Most houses clear that comfortably, but the large lodge-style properties that pull the strongest nightly rates in this corner of Tennessee sometimes don't.

And inside Chattanooga the shape of the question changes entirely. The city splits certificates into a Homestay and an Absentee category: a homestay is your primary residence, where you live at least 183 days a year, and costs $250 a year, while an absentee rental is any property that isn't your home, costs $500 a year, and is permitted only in commercial zones that already allow a hotel or motel use. Multi-family buildings carry a 25% saturation cap the Board of Zoning Appeals can't waive. Non-owner-occupied investing in Chattanooga's residential neighborhoods, in other words, is closed.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Hamilton County

Assuming your lot clears the acreage floor and your house is under the sprinkler threshold, the certificate is what still stands between you and a legal booking. There's no way around it and no grace period either. Hamilton County requires one for any rental of a single-family dwelling for less than 30 continuous days, and it's issued by Development Services, which took the job over from the old Building Inspection Department in the same July 2024 resolution that set the acreage rule.

Applications go through the county's OpenGov permitting portal, and the fee schedule Development Services publishes reads like this:

• $500 initial application fee for a new STVR
• $250 initial application fee if the rental was already pre-existing with the Regional Planning Agency
• $250 annual renewal fee
• $250 building re-inspection fee, charged for every inspection after a failed one
• $205 one-time septic inspection, where the house is on a septic system

The county's own footnote puts the all-in cost of a new application at $750 as of July 2026, covering the application plus the first annual permit. Be aware that the 2023 resolution still sitting on the county's website sets the annual renewal at $750 rather than $250, so the two documents disagree by five hundred dollars a year. The published fee schedule is the more recent surface of the two, though it's worth confirming your renewal figure with Development Services directly rather than budgeting off either page.

Three inspections sit behind the certificate, since the county's building inspector and the Hamilton County Fire Marshal both have to sign off, and where the residence runs on a septic system the Groundwater Department inspects as well. You'll book the building inspection through the portal, and the county asks for at least 48 hours between the request and your preferred slot without promising you'll get it that fast. Once an inspector approves the property, the checklist says your use and occupancy permit issues within 48 hours. Fail, though, and each re-inspection costs another $250 and has to be paid before anyone comes back out.

Occupancy is set by a formula rather than a flat cap. Under Resolution No. 423-39, adopted April 26, 2023, a certified home "shall sleep no more than two (2) times the number of approved bedrooms to said home (as per the certification), plus two (2) additional persons." A three-bedroom sleeps eight, a four-bedroom sleeps ten, a five-bedroom sleeps twelve. That amendment exists because the State Fire Marshal notified the county that state regulation caps an STVR at twelve people rather than the fourteen the original resolution allowed, so twelve is the practical ceiling however many bedrooms you have. Note the phrase "approved bedrooms," too, since a finished basement room you've been calling a bedroom counts only if the inspection says it does.

Parking is stricter than most owners expect, because every space has to be off-street at the residence, at one space per two persons of your approved occupancy, with street and right-of-way parking not allowed at all. So a five-bedroom sleeping twelve needs six off-street spaces, which is a real constraint on an older house with a single driveway. Your certificate states the maximum occupants and the parking count on its face, which makes both trivially checkable by anyone who reads it.

The certificate itself runs for one year and is not transferable, and it has to be displayed in a prominent place inside the residence. There's an exterior obligation as well, though, and it's the one that makes county STVRs visible from the road. So a copy of the permit goes on the front of the dwelling at 8 by 11 inches or larger, readable from the street, naming a contact who can get to the property within two hours of being called about an incident. Hamilton County reserves the right to revoke a certificate purely for not posting that sign properly, so don't treat it as decorative.

Two operating rules travel with the certificate, and both came straight out of neighbor complaints. There's to be no loud music or noise between 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m., and every renter's pet has to stay leashed outside the dwelling, or contained by suitable fencing. Write both into your house rules, because the county wrote them into the resolution.

Renewal is not automatic, which is the part that catches people in year two. From January 2024 onward every certificate renews only after a fresh re-inspection, and the county may refuse where the past year's operation "has caused a disturbance and/or nuisance to the neighbors," where law enforcement has responded to multiple incidents, or where the rental has otherwise been run objectionably. Get told no and you can appear before the designated appeals board, then appeal to any court of competent jurisdiction in Hamilton County.

Required Documents for Hamilton County Short-Term Rentals

Since a failed inspection costs $250 every time an inspector comes back, it pays to have the file and the house both ready before you book the first visit. The paperwork half is short. Resolution 423-27 asks for the application on the county's required form, identification of the residence, a deed proving ownership, the number of approved bedrooms, and proof of liability insurance. Development Services adds that the permittee must hold a county business license, which comes from the Hamilton County Clerk rather than from Development Services.

The house half is longer, and the county publishes the whole inspection checklist so nobody has to guess. Make sure these are in place before the inspector arrives:

• Address numbers on the front of the building, Arabic numerals or letters at least 4 inches high with a half-inch stroke, contrasting with their background and readable from the road, per International Fire Code section 505.
• Interconnected UL 217 smoke alarms in every sleeping area, in every room along the egress path out of them, and on every story including basements and garages, sited at least 3 feet from any vent, fan or air diffuser. Interconnected means all of them sound when one does, so the old battery-only units won't pass.
• A 2A:10BC fire extinguisher on every level, with a sticker marking its location if it isn't in plain sight.
• Rescue windows in every sleeping room: a clear opening of 5.7 square feet, at least 20 inches wide and 24 inches high, with the sill no more than 44 inches above the finished floor. Ground-floor rooms drop to 5 square feet, and a room with its own exterior door is exempt.
• Fire separation from the garage and from large storage rooms, meaning gypsum board on the shared walls and ceilings, plus thresholds and self-closing hinges on any door into living space.
• Handrails at 34 to 38 inches on any stair with more than four risers, guardrails at 36 inches or more wherever a walking surface sits over 30 inches above the ground, and decks permanently attached to the house rather than free-standing.
• A closed electrical panel, with switches or plugs filling every void so no live wiring is reachable.
• Off-street parking at one space per two approved occupants, with nothing relying on the street or the right-of-way.

Keep in mind that this is a fire-and-life-safety inspection wearing a rental-permit label. Older houses out here tend to fail on egress windows and interconnected alarms, and both are fixable, just not on the morning of the inspection. On the license, Tennessee's rules put you in one of two boxes: over $3,000 and under $100,000 in gross receipts and you need a minimal activity license, which costs $15 from the county clerk and carries no business tax filing; at $100,000 or more you need a standard business license and you file.

Hamilton County Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you get through the inspections and are able to start taking bookings, there's still tax to sort out, and it arrives in four separate pieces from two different governments. The good news is that a platform booking handles most of it for you. A direct booking does not, and that difference is where hosts get into trouble.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
Tennessee state sales tax	7%	Tennessee Dept. of Revenue, via the platform on marketplace bookings
Local option sales tax	set locally, capped at 2.75%	Tennessee Dept. of Revenue, via the platform on marketplace bookings
Hamilton County hotel/motel occupancy privilege tax	4%	Hamilton County Trustee, or the state where a platform collects
City occupancy tax (Chattanooga, East Ridge, Collegedale)	4%	Hamilton County Trustee, or the state where a platform collects

The sales tax layer is statewide and mechanical, since Tennessee charges 7% on rentals of under 90 continuous days, on the full price including cleaning, pet and booking fees, and a local rate rides on top of that. The Department of Revenue's local sales tax page confirms a local rate "may not be higher than 2.75% and must be a multiple of .25". I'm not going to print Hamilton County's own local percentage here, because the Department's rate table wouldn't open for me on any route I tried in July 2026 and I won't quote a tax rate I haven't read on a state page. Do look yours up on the Department's Local Sales Tax Rates map before you quote a combined figure to anybody. Either way, Airbnb's Tennessee tax page confirms the platform collects both the 7% and the local rate on reservations of 89 nights and shorter.

The occupancy tax is the local layer, and it's the one worth reading carefully. Hamilton County levies 4% under the Private Acts of 1980, Chapter 905, as amended, while Chattanooga, East Ridge and Collegedale each levy their own 4% under T.C.A. 67-4-1401 and their own ordinances, Chattanooga's being Ordinance No. 11303. A stay inside Chattanooga city limits therefore carries 8% of occupancy tax before any sales tax at all. Watch out for the mismatched definitions of a transient, too, because the county and the cities don't use the same one. It's fewer than 90 days for county purposes and fewer than 30 for city purposes, which means a six-week booking escapes the city tax and still owes the county's.

Who hands that money over depends entirely on how the guest found you. Since January 1, 2021, Tennessee has required a short-term rental unit marketplace to pay local occupancy tax straight to the state, and the Department of Revenue says so directly: hotels and vacation lodging services keep paying the local government, while the marketplaces report to Nashville. So an Airbnb or Vrbo booking is handled for you. Anything that came through your own site, a repeat guest or word of mouth is yours to deal with, though. You'll open an account with the Hamilton County Trustee and file the joint county and city return by the 20th of the month following collection, every month, even in a month with no rentals at all.

Three details on that return repay a careful read. Operators may deduct 2% of the city portion as an accounting fee for collecting it, though not the county portion, and the deduction disappears if you file or pay late. Late filing then costs 12% a year in interest plus 2% a month on the county tax and 1% a month on the city tax, which compounds into real money faster than people expect. And you have to keep every record needed to establish the tax for three years, with the Trustee entitled to inspect them at any reasonable time.

Two 2025 changes from the legislature are worth carrying into your 2026 planning. The first, Public Chapter 364, made the first 30 days of any stay subject to local occupancy tax regardless of how long the guest ends up staying, effective July 1, 2025, and that tax is no longer refundable if the booking later runs past 30 days. The second, Public Chapter 372, capped municipal occupancy tax at a 4% levy and an 8% cumulative rate from May 5, 2025, and since Chattanooga's 4% plus the county's 4% already sits at that ceiling, neither government can raise this on you without the legislature moving first. Small mercy, but a real one.

Tennessee Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

Behind everything Hamilton County does sits a state statute that both protects you and limits how much protection you get. The Short-Term Rental Unit Act, Public Chapter 972 of 2018, codified at Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 13-7-601 to 13-7-606 and effective May 17, 2018, defines a short-term rental unit as a residential dwelling rented in whole or part for less than 30 continuous days. It then bars a local government from effectively prohibiting that use once an owner has reasonably complied with local law.

The Act also grandfathers what was already running. A unit held out as a short-term rental before a new local ordinance took effect keeps what the statute calls legacy status, proved either by a local permit or by six or more months of paid tax in the prior twelve. It holds that status until the property sells or transfers, sits unused for 30 consecutive months, or picks up three or more violations. That's why the county carved its 31 existing STVRs out of the new application fee in 2023 instead of making them start over.

What the Act does not do is the part people misread. It leaves permitting, zoning, occupancy limits, noise rules, safety inspection and violation-based revocation entirely with the city or county, which is how Hamilton County can impose an acreage floor and Chattanooga can confine absentee rentals to commercial zones without either running afoul of state law. Preemption here blocks a retroactive ban. It doesn't buy you a permit. Remember too that section 13-7-605 leaves homeowners' associations and landlords free to prohibit short-term rentals by covenant or lease, and an HOA restriction will beat a county certificate every time.

There's no statewide operating license to chase, either. Tennessee registers you for tax through the Tennessee Taxpayer Access Point and nothing else, so every real permission you need in this state is local. That's also why the picture changes so sharply from one county line to the next. Our Tennessee statewide guide maps the overall framework, while the Knoxville guide and the Nashville guide cover the two markets Chattanooga investors most often compare themselves against.

Does Hamilton County Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Given how much of the state framework hands discretion back to the county, the enforcement question matters more here than the statute does. And the honest answer is that Hamilton County enforces steadily rather than aggressively, through a process that's complaint-led at the front and court-led at the back.

It starts with a neighbor. The county runs a short-term vacation rental complaints form through the same OpenGov portal used for applications, and the rules make reporting easy. Since a certified STVR posts a permit on the front of the house that's readable from the street, a house operating without one is conspicuous by the absence of the sign. Development Services describes the next step in plain terms on its own page. The county issues "a letter to the property owner stating they cannot operate an STVR without the certificate," and "if the owner doesn't comply with 30 days, this information is turned over to the County Attorney's office."

Revoking a certificate you already hold is deliberately harder, though, and that's a genuine protection. Where Development Services, the Fire Marshal or the Groundwater Department decide one should be pulled, the matter goes to the County Attorney's Office to seek a revocation order from a court of record rather than being cancelled at a desk. If a court grants it, the owner is barred from holding an STVR certificate on that property for a full year.

The quieter lever is the annual renewal, and I'd argue it does more work than the complaints form. Every certificate expires after twelve months and renews only after a fresh inspection, so a property that's slipped, physically or behaviorally, comes back in front of the county every year. Multiple law enforcement responses during your permitted period are explicit grounds for refusing renewal, which means a summer of loud weekends doesn't cost you a fine so much as it costs you next year.

One more detail tells you how seriously the county treats these properties. The Sheriff's Office and Emergency Management are given written notice of every certificate granted, so responders know that a given address may hold more people than a house of that size normally would.

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

So the sequence matters more than the individual steps, mostly because the early checks are cheap and the later ones are not. Work through it in this order and you'll find out whether the project is dead before you've spent anything meaningful on it.

1. Confirm you're in the unincorporated county. Inside Chattanooga, East Ridge, Collegedale or another municipality, stop here and go to that city's program instead.
2. Measure the lot. Under one acre on residentially zoned land and the answer is no. On agricultural land, get Development Services to confirm in writing whether the floor is two acres or two and a half, and confirm the 50-foot buffer while you're at it.
3. Check the structure. Single-family dwelling that you own, under 5,000 gross square feet unless it's sprinklered, and not in an M zone.
4. Read your HOA covenants and any deed restrictions. State law lets them prohibit short-term rentals outright, and no county certificate overrides them.
5. Count your off-street parking. One space per two approved occupants, all of it on the property. This is the constraint that quietly kills otherwise good applications.
6. Gather the file: the application form, a deed, the approved bedroom count and proof of liability insurance.
7. Get the business license from the Hamilton County Clerk, at $15 for a minimal activity license under $100,000 of gross receipts.
8. Apply and pay through the OpenGov portal, budgeting $750 all-in for a new certificate plus $205 if the house is on septic.
9. Fix the house before you book the inspection, because every re-inspection is another $250: interconnected smoke alarms, extinguishers on every level, egress windows, handrails, garage separation, address numbers.
10. Post both copies of the permit once it's issued, inside the house and on the front exterior at 8 by 11 inches or larger, with a contact who can genuinely be there in two hours.
11. Open the tax accounts. A Trustee account for occupancy tax on direct bookings, and a state tax account for sales tax, with a monthly return due on the 20th whether or not you had a guest.
12. Diarize the renewal. Twelve months, a fresh inspection, and a year of neighbor complaints on the record if there have been any.

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

Most of those twelve steps run through one of five offices, and knowing which owns your question saves a morning of being transferred.

The certificate itself

Hamilton County Development Services issues the STVR certificate, runs the building inspection, and answers questions about the acreage rule and the fee schedule.

• Address: 1250 Market Street, Suite 3046, Chattanooga, TN 37402
• Phone: 423-209-7970
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
• Apply, renew or complain: the county's OpenGov permitting portal

Occupancy tax

The Hamilton County Trustee collects hotel/motel occupancy tax for the county and for Chattanooga, East Ridge, Collegedale and Red Bank, and this is where you open an account and file the monthly return on direct bookings.

• Address: 625 Georgia Avenue, Room 210, Chattanooga, TN 37402-1494
• Phone: 423-209-7270
• Fax: 423-209-7271
• Hours: 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., closed on designated holidays

The business license

The Hamilton County Clerk's Office issues the business license the certificate requires, and the county's STVR checklist points applicants there directly.

• Address: 625 Georgia Avenue, Room 111, Chattanooga, TN 37402
• Phone: 423-209-6500

Zoning and planning questions

The Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency handles zoning, rezoning and subdivision questions for both governments, so call it when the question is what your parcel is zoned rather than what the STVR rules say.

• Address: 1250 Market Street, Suite 2000, Development Resource Center, Chattanooga, TN 37402-2713
• Phone: (423) 643-5900
• Email: [email protected] for zoning and subdivisions, [email protected] generally
• Hours: Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Eastern

Inside Chattanooga city limits

The city's Land Development Office, Zoning Division runs the Homestay and Absentee certificates, on a process entirely separate from the county's.

• Phone: (423) 643-5891
• Email: [email protected]

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

Those two phone numbers, the county's and the city's, explain most of what hosts around here argue about. Before I get into it, one caveat on method. I read BiggerPockets threads directly for this, while Reddit blocks automated access and its platform terms don't permit the commercial use these guides would represent, so nothing below is me reporting what any Reddit thread says. What follows is my read of the public practitioner discussion, and you should weigh it as exactly that.

• Operators talk about Chattanooga and the county as one closed door, which overstates the county's actual position. In a July 2025 BiggerPockets thread on Chattanooga STR investing, a local property manager tells a prospective buyer flatly that "you can't get a new permit in residential zoning in Chattanooga or Hamilton County." For the city that's substantially right, whereas for the unincorporated county it isn't, since the county's own page still allows STVRs in every zone except M. What the acreage floor does is make it feel closed, because so few residential parcels clear an acre.
• Nobody trusts a permit that comes with the listing. That same manager describes examining a property marketed with a transferable permit that had in fact expired and couldn't be renewed under current zoning. Given that Hamilton County certificates are explicitly non-transferable and expire annually, do check a certificate's status with the issuing office yourself rather than taking a seller's or an agent's word for it.
• The workaround people describe is geographic, not procedural. Buyers who can't get certified locally talk about crossing into Georgia, to Lookout Mountain and Rising Fawn, where cabin properties need no permit at all. That's a real option and it's also a different market with different comps, so don't assume the Chattanooga demand curve follows you over the state line.
• The complaint you hear least is that the rules go unenforced. The argument here is about fairness rather than enforcement, and it was on the record at the commission table in 2024, where Commissioner Graham said the acreage resolution "discriminates against people who buy houses with less than an acre" while Commissioner Shipley called it a compromise that respects property rights on both sides.

Assuming you're weighing Hamilton County against somewhere else in the state before you commit to an acre, our data on the Tennessee market is the place to see what nightly rates and occupancy actually do across the state.

Regulation like this rarely reads as a yes or a no. It reads as a filter, and an acreage floor is a particularly blunt one, sorting properties by a number that has nothing to do with how well anybody hosts. That's worth sitting with before you fall for a house. Wherever the permission attaches to the parcel rather than to the operator, the first question isn't whether you'd run a good rental. It's whether the ground under it was ever going to let you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Hamilton County, Tennessee in 2026?

Yes, in the unincorporated county, provided the property qualifies. You need a short-term vacation rental certificate from Hamilton County Development Services, your house must be a single-family dwelling you own, and since July 2024 a residentially zoned lot smaller than one acre cannot be certified at all. Agricultural land carries a larger minimum plus a 50-foot side-by-side buffer. Inside Chattanooga and the other incorporated cities, the city's own rules apply instead.

How much does a Hamilton County short-term rental permit cost?

A new certificate totals $750, made up of a $500 application fee plus $250 for the first annual permit. Renewal is listed at $250 a year on the county's published fee schedule, though the 2023 resolution still says $750, so confirm the figure with Development Services. Add $205 once if the house is on septic, and $250 for every re-inspection after a failed one. Certificates run one year and are not transferable.

How many people can stay in a Hamilton County short-term vacation rental?

Twice the number of approved bedrooms, plus two more people. A three-bedroom sleeps eight, a four-bedroom ten, a five-bedroom twelve. Twelve is the effective ceiling because the State Fire Marshal advised the county that state regulation caps a short-term rental at twelve occupants. You also need one off-street parking space for every two approved occupants, all of it on the property, with no street or right-of-way parking allowed.

What taxes do you pay on a short-term rental in Hamilton County?

Four charges can apply. Tennessee sales tax of 7% plus a local rate capped at 2.75%, and a 4% Hamilton County hotel/motel occupancy tax, with another 4% on top inside Chattanooga, East Ridge or Collegedale. Airbnb and Vrbo collect and remit all of these on bookings made through them. On direct bookings you file the occupancy tax yourself with the Hamilton County Trustee, monthly, by the 20th, even when you had no guests.

Can a Hamilton County short-term rental permit be revoked?

It can, though not casually. Development Services, the Fire Marshal or the Groundwater Department must refer the matter to the County Attorney's Office, which asks a court of record for a revocation order. Once a court grants it, the owner cannot hold a certificate on that property for a year. Renewal is the easier lever for the county: it can refuse to renew where the rental has caused a nuisance or drawn repeated law enforcement responses.

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