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

Do you own a place in Smithfield Township, Pennsylvania, in the Poconos of Monroe County, and are you weighing whether to list it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that the township actually got friendlier to hosts in 2024, at least if you're planning to live there yourself. A bed and breakfast, meaning you or a designee stays on the property while guests do, is now a permitted use in every zoning district in the township, which wasn't true before that May.

The catch is what happens if you want to rent out a whole house while you're somewhere else. That version of short-term rental, the kind most people picture when they think of Airbnb, is confined to the township's Resort (R-E) zoning district, which is really just the land around Shawnee Mountain Ski Resort and the former Shawnee Village property. Everywhere else, including the R-1, R-C and R-2 residential districts, an unhosted nightly rental isn't a permitted use at all, and the township's own zoning hearing board has said so on the record.

So this guide walks through both paths: what it takes to run a legal bed and breakfast anywhere in the township, what's left of the resort-zone rental market now that Shawnee Village's operator has shut down, the taxes that stack on top either way, and who at the township and county actually handles this. I went through Smithfield Township's own ordinances and Monroe County's tax rules directly, checked in July 2026, and where a fee or figure isn't published anywhere official, I've said so rather than guessed. If you're deciding between a Poconos property and a market where the whole house can legally go on Airbnb, run the property through BNBCalc first.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Smithfield Township

Before you run any numbers at all, sort out which kind of short-term rental you're actually allowed to run, because the two paths in Smithfield Township look nothing alike in practice.

If your property sits in the R-E Resort District, you're in the smaller and more flexible category. That's the zoning classification built around Shawnee Mountain Ski Resort and the adjoining land that once made up Shawnee Village, a large timeshare and vacation-rental condo development. Unfortunately for anyone counting on that inventory, the operator running Shawnee Village announced in 2025 that it was shutting the business down, so the pool of legally rentable whole-unit condos in that zone has been shrinking rather than growing. Make sure you check with the township's Zoning, Codes & Sewage Department before assuming a specific unit still qualifies, because a parcel's history matters just as much as its zoning map designation.

Everywhere else in the township, meaning the R-1, R-C and R-2 residential districts that cover most of where people actually live, an unhosted whole-home rental isn't a permitted use. That's not a guess. During a January 29, 2024 hearing before the Smithfield Township Zoning Hearing Board, a witness testifying about a former resort property confirmed under oath that short-term rentals aren't permitted in the R-1 district, tying the answer directly to the zoning ordinance's definition of resort use. What is allowed, and what changed for the better in 2024, is running a bed and breakfast: you or someone you designate lives at the property, or on a directly adjoining one, whenever guests are staying there, and you can rent out up to six bedrooms. An ordinance the Board of Supervisors adopted on May 30, 2024 repealed the old prohibition on bed and breakfasts and made the use permitted township-wide instead of banned outright.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Smithfield Township

Since the 2024 ordinance made bed and breakfasts legal almost everywhere in the township, it's worth knowing exactly what running one actually requires before you commit to it, because you can't just start hosting once your zoning district clears. The ordinance says plainly that a permit has to come from the Township before a bed and breakfast opens for guests, and the fee for that permit is set by resolution of the Board of Supervisors rather than written into the zoning code itself. That means you should call the Zoning, Codes & Sewage Department directly for the current number rather than trust a figure published anywhere else.

Beyond the permit itself, the standards attached to it are specific enough that they're worth reading before you renovate. Facilities are capped at six guest rooms or bedrooms per structure, and every principal and accessory building has to meet the yard setback, height and lot-coverage rules in the township's Schedule of District Regulations, aside from structures that were already legally nonconforming, while off-street parking needs a six-inch crushed stone or shale base topped with a hard, all-weather surface and any exterior lighting has to point away from neighboring properties and roads so it doesn't create glare. Drainage still has to comply with the township's stormwater and earth-disturbance rules under Chapter 26, and potable water and sanitary facilities need to satisfy whatever the township and state require for the property.

Two conditions matter more than the rest for anyone thinking about this as a real business rather than a weekend hobby. First, don't forget that you or your designee actually has to live at the bed and breakfast, or on a contiguous property, whenever overnight guests are there: this isn't a rental you can run remotely. Second, a free breakfast is mandatory, whether you serve it onsite or arrange it at a nearby restaurant, and if it's the second option you're required to say so plainly in your advertising and reservations. Skip that disclosure and you're out of compliance even if every other box is checked.

Required Documents for Smithfield Township Short-Term Rentals

Getting all of that right on paper connects directly to the ordinance's last requirement, the one that ties your zoning permit to your tax status: a bed and breakfast has to maintain compliance with the Hotel Excise Tax and keep a current Hotel Tax Registration with Monroe County. In practice, the paperwork you assemble for the township and the paperwork you file with the county aren't separate errands, they're one package.

Start with the township side. You'll want your zoning permit application, evidence of who owns the property, and a site plan or description showing the guest rooms, parking layout and any accessory structures, since the zoning officer needs to confirm the six-room cap and the setback and lot-coverage numbers before signing off. If you're not the sole owner or you're operating through an entity, expect to document who the responsible party is, because someone specific has to be named as living onsite when guests are present.

On the county side, Monroe County's own registration form for the Hotel Room Rental Excise Tax asks you to identify your business type directly, and "Short Term Rental" is one of the listed categories alongside Bed & Breakfast, with separate checkboxes for whether you list on Airbnb, VRBO or another platform. Fill that in accurately, since it determines which mailing address and which responsible party the county treasurer's office has on file when a quarterly return comes due. Keep copies of everything: the ordinance and the county's own tax rules both build in seven-year recordkeeping requirements, so a folder you can produce on short notice saves you a genuinely bad afternoon later.

Smithfield Township Short-Term Rental Taxes

Since recordkeeping is already part of the deal, you might as well understand exactly what you're still keeping those records for. Two tax layers apply to a Smithfield Township short-term rental, and they come from different governments entirely, which is exactly why people mix them up.

Monroe County levies its own charge, the Hotel Room Rental Excise Tax, at 3% of the consideration received for renting a room to a transient guest, under an ordinance the county first adopted in 2017 and restated in 2019. The tax applies to hotels, motels, guesthouses, cabins, and, by name, bed and breakfasts and homesteads, so a Smithfield Township B&B isn't exempt just because it's small. The booking agent or operator collects it from the guest and pays it to the county treasurer, with returns due by the 25th of the month following each calendar quarter, and watch out for the deadline: miss it and interest accrues at 18% a year, or 1.5% a month, on whatever's still unpaid.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
Monroe County Hotel Room Rental Excise Tax	3%	Monroe County Treasurer
Pennsylvania Hotel Occupancy Tax	6%	PA Department of Revenue

On top of the county's 3%, Pennsylvania's own Hotel Occupancy Tax runs statewide at 6%, and the two rates are separate and both apply, since Act 109 took effect in January 2019 and made a booking agent like Airbnb or Vrbo legally required to collect and remit the state's share on both the rent and its own accommodation fee. So if all your bookings run through a major platform, you're likely covered on the state side without filing anything yourself.

Whether Airbnb or Vrbo also collects and forwards Monroe County's 3% the same way it handles Pennsylvania's 6% isn't something the county publishes an official answer to, so don't assume it. Call the Monroe County Treasurer's office and confirm your account is registered before you take a booking, and keep proof either way. If you ever take a direct booking outside any platform, you become the one responsible for remitting both layers yourself.

Pennsylvania Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

Confirming who collects what only makes sense once you see the bigger picture, and Pennsylvania's short-term rental framework is genuinely thin at the state level compared to what a lot of hosts expect. There's no statewide preemption law here, and no state agency issues a short-term rental license the way some states do. The Pennsylvania General Assembly's own Joint State Government Commission put it plainly in a March 2025 staff study: regulation in this state is "a patchwork of primarily county and municipal zoning ordinances and regulations," and even the definition of a short-term rental changes from one municipality to the next. Smithfield Township's own resort-zone-only approach is a direct example of that patchwork rather than an exception to it.

The only state-level registration that can apply to you is the general Sales, Use and Hotel Occupancy Tax License through the Department of Revenue's myPATH system, and even that's only required if you don't book exclusively through a platform that already collects and remits the state's 6% on your behalf, and there's no fee to apply. Still, if your booking platform confirms in writing that it collects the tax for you, you don't need to register separately at all.

A few bills moving through Harrisburg would change this considerably. House Bill 2303 would add a whole new "Transient Lodging" chapter to state law, creating operator tiers and a countywide registry system, while House Bill 1256 and Senate Bill 1105 each touch different pieces of the same problem. None of them has passed as of my last check, so don't plan around a statewide registry or a set of state-defined operator categories that don't exist yet. If you own property elsewhere in Pennsylvania and want the broader legislative picture, our Pennsylvania short-term rental guide covers the statewide landscape in more depth, and the Bucks County guide and Lehigh County guide are useful comparisons if you're weighing Smithfield Township against a market that runs a real countywide licensing system.

Does Smithfield Township Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

None of that Harrisburg uncertainty changes what happens if you get this wrong on the ground in Smithfield Township right now, and the honest answer is that enforcement here looks different from what you'd see in a big city with a dedicated compliance office. There's no team of inspectors sweeping Airbnb listings and no published fine schedule specific to short-term rentals. Instead, enforcement runs through the same process as any other zoning dispute: a complaint or an officer's own observation triggers an enforcement notice from the Zoning, Codes & Sewage Department, and if the property owner disagrees, the case goes to the Smithfield Township Zoning Hearing Board, which meets the first Tuesday of every month.

That process is real, not theoretical, because in January 2024 the board heard an appeal from the owner of the former Mountain Manor Inn and Golf Club property over a zoning enforcement notice, and testimony in that hearing turned in part on whether short-term and long-term rentals were permitted on parcels tied to that resort property. The witness's own answer, that short-term rentals aren't permitted in the R-1 district, now sits in the township's public record, so read that as a sign the zoning line between residential and resort districts still gets tested and defended, not ignored.

Independent industry sources back that up too. A 2026 scorecard of Poconos municipalities from a local vacation-property brokerage rates Smithfield Township among the more restrictive townships in Monroe County for short-term rentals, specifically because of the R-E-only zoning limit, while noting that the bed and breakfasts that do operate here comply by keeping an owner's representative on site. Don't mistake the absence of a large enforcement bureaucracy for tolerance of an unpermitted whole-home rental in a residential district. The mechanism is slower than a big-city compliance office, but the zoning line still holds.

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

Since the line holds, the smartest order of operations starts with confirming which side of it your property sits on, before you spend a dollar on furniture or photography.

1. Check your zoning district first. Call or email the Zoning, Codes & Sewage Department and confirm in writing whether your parcel sits in the R-E Resort District or one of the township's residential districts. This single answer decides almost everything else.
2. Decide which legal model fits. If you're in a residential district, your only realistic path is a bed and breakfast where you or a designee lives onsite. If you're in the resort district, ask specifically whether your unit is still an active rentable parcel now that Shawnee Village's operator has shut down.
3. Apply for the township permit. Submit your permit application to the Township, and budget time and money for the fee, which is set by Board of Supervisors resolution rather than published in the zoning code.
4. Design the property to the standards, not around them. Six-room maximum, correct setbacks and lot coverage, a compliant parking surface, lighting that doesn't spill onto neighbors, and a stormwater plan that satisfies Chapter 26.
5. Register with Monroe County for the Hotel Room Rental Excise Tax. Use the county's own registration form, check the box that matches your business type, and note whether you're listing on Airbnb, VRBO or elsewhere.
6. Check your state tax exposure. If a major platform handles all your bookings, confirm in writing that it's collecting Pennsylvania's 6% Hotel Occupancy Tax on your behalf; if you ever book directly, register for the Sales, Use and Hotel Occupancy Tax License through myPATH.
7. Set up your breakfast service and say so in your listing. Decide whether you're serving it onsite or arranging it nearby, and disclose whichever it is in your advertising before your first guest ever books.
8. Keep records from day one. Both the township ordinance and the county's tax rules assume you can produce documentation on request, so build that habit before your first reservation rather than after an inquiry.

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

Building that habit is a lot easier once you know exactly which office to call for which question, and in Smithfield Township that list is mercifully short.

Zoning permits, districts and enforcement

The Zoning, Codes & Sewage Department, staffed through a contract with Bureau Veritas, handles zoning permits, district determinations and enforcement questions.

• Zoning Officer: Matthew Helbers
• Phone: (570) 223-5082, extension 2
• Email: [email protected]
• Address: 1155 Red Fox Road, East Stroudsburg, PA 18301
• General office hours: Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
• Zoning appointments: Thursdays, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Township permit fees and finance questions

The Finance Department can confirm current permit fee amounts set by Board of Supervisors resolution.

• Finance Director: Bonnie C. Winters
• Phone: (570) 223-5082, extension 5
• Email: [email protected]

Monroe County Hotel Room Rental Excise Tax

The Office of the Treasurer of Monroe County administers registration and quarterly filing for the county's 3% hotel tax.

• Address: One Quaker Plaza, Room 103, Stroudsburg, PA 18360
• Phone: 570-517-3180
• Fax: 570-517-3859
• Email: [email protected]

Pennsylvania state taxes

The Pennsylvania Department of Revenue handles the state's 6% Hotel Occupancy Tax and the Sales, Use and Hotel Occupancy Tax License.

• Register or file: myPATH
• General phone: 717-787-1064

Keep in mind that Smithfield Township is a small, contracted-staff municipality rather than a city with a dedicated short-term rental office, so a straightforward call to the zoning line, rather than an online portal, is usually the fastest way to get a real answer. And once you know your numbers work on the compliance side, it's worth checking whether they work financially too. The Pennsylvania market page on BNBCalc breaks down revenue and occupancy data across the state, so you can see how a compliant Smithfield Township bed and breakfast might actually perform against other Pennsylvania markets before you commit.

Frequently Asked Questions

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

Only in narrow circumstances. Unhosted whole-home rentals are limited to the township's R-E Resort District, essentially the Shawnee Mountain area, and that inventory has shrunk since Shawnee Village's vacation-rental operator shut down in 2025. Everywhere else in the township, including its R-1, R-C and R-2 residential districts, the only legal short-term rental is a bed and breakfast where you or a designee lives on the property while guests are staying, capped at six rooms, a use the township made legal in every district as of a May 2024 ordinance.

Does Smithfield Township require a permit for a bed and breakfast?

Yes. The township's zoning ordinance requires a permit from Smithfield Township before a bed and breakfast can commence operations, and the fee is set by resolution of the Board of Supervisors rather than published in the code itself. Contact the Zoning, Codes & Sewage Department for the current fee before you apply. The permit comes with standards covering guest-room limits, parking, lighting, drainage and an owner-occupancy requirement.

What taxes apply to a short-term rental in Smithfield Township?

Two layers apply. Monroe County's Hotel Room Rental Excise Tax runs 3% of what a guest pays, collected by the booking agent or operator and remitted to the county treasurer quarterly. Pennsylvania's statewide Hotel Occupancy Tax adds another 6%, which a platform like Airbnb or Vrbo is required to collect and remit under state law if it handles the booking. Direct bookings outside a platform make the host responsible for registering and remitting both.

Is renting out a whole house on Airbnb legal in Smithfield Township?

Generally, no, unless the property sits in the township's R-E Resort District. In the township's residential zoning districts, testimony before the Smithfield Township Zoning Hearing Board has confirmed that short-term rentals aren't a permitted use, tied to how the zoning ordinance defines resort-type uses. A property owner in those districts who wants to host short-term guests legally needs to operate as a bed and breakfast instead, with an owner or designee living onsite.

What happens if you operate an unpermitted short-term rental in Smithfield Township?

The township doesn't publish a specific fine schedule for short-term rentals, but zoning violations generally get handled through an enforcement notice from the Zoning, Codes & Sewage Department, and disputed cases go before the Smithfield Township Zoning Hearing Board. Given that a board hearing has already established that unhosted rentals aren't permitted outside the resort district, don't count on quiet tolerance. Treat an unpermitted whole-home rental in a residential district as a real compliance risk rather than a gray area.

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