Montgomery County, Maryland Short-Term Rental Regulations: A 2026 Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Montgomery County, Maryland and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that you can, and you've been able to since the County Council set up the license back in 2017. The catch, and there's no polite way around this one, is that the county only lets you rent out the home you live in yourself, so the property has to be your primary residence before a single other rule in this guide matters.

That one requirement decides almost everything else. Since your own home is the only eligible property, an investor buying a Bethesda condo just to run it at nightly rates has nowhere to go here, whereas somebody letting a spare bedroom, or handing over the whole house while they're away for a couple of weeks, sits squarely inside the rules. Rent it out while you're gone and the county allows 120 days in a calendar year, though if you're home and occupying the place during the stay, there's no day limit on you at all.

So let's walk through what it actually takes to do this properly: which code chapters govern the use, what the $500 license buys and how the review works now that it's changed, the layers of tax that attach to a stay, how hard the county pushes on enforcement, and who to call when your situation doesn't fit the form. Every figure below comes from Montgomery County's or Maryland's own pages, checked in July 2026, and where something is still moving I've said so. Assuming you're weighing this county against somewhere less restrictive, run both through BNBCalc before you commit to either.

What are Short-Term Rental (Airbnb, VRBO) Regulations in Montgomery County, Maryland?

Two chapters of the county code carry that primary residence rule between them, and pulling them apart clears up most of the confusion hosts run into. Chapter 59 is the zoning ordinance, so it decides whether the use is allowed on your lot at all, while Chapter 54, Article III is the license, which decides whether you personally get to operate it.

Start with the zoning, because it's the one that can end the conversation early. Section 59-3.3.3.I defines a short-term residential rental as "the residential occupancy of a dwelling unit for a fee for less than 30 consecutive days", and it makes clear that this is not a bed and breakfast, which is a separate use with its own cheaper license. The Council's own hearing packet reproduces the current text of that section, and six standards come out of it:

• The dwelling has to be the primary residence of the property owner or an owner-authorized resident, regardless of what type of home it is. The Department of Permitting Services says the same thing in plainer words on its short-term rentals zoning page.
• 120 days a year when nobody's home. If the owner or authorized resident isn't present, the property can be used as a short-term rental for a maximum of 120 days in a calendar year. If they're physically present and occupying the residence during the stay, there's no limit on the number of days.
• Six adults, two per bedroom. Overnight guests aged 18 or older are capped at six, and overnight guests over 18 are capped at two per bedroom. Occupancy overall is still bounded by the housing code at Chapter 26, Section 5.
• One off-street parking space per rental contract, unless your online listing states that vehicle parking is prohibited.
• Some homes are excluded outright. A short-term residential rental isn't permitted in a Farm Tenant Dwelling, or on a site that includes an Accessory Dwelling Unit. DHCA puts the second one bluntly in its FAQ: an ADU "is not considered a short-term residential rental and cannot be operated as such".
• The use must be licensed under Chapter 54, which is where the rest of this guide spends its time.

Now, before you go any further, do check whether the county law even reaches your address, because eleven municipalities inside Montgomery County are carved out of it. DHCA lists them as Chevy Chase Village, the Town of Chevy Chase, the Town of Chevy Chase View, the City of Gaithersburg, the City of Rockville, the Town of Kensington, the Town of Laytonsville, the Town of Poolesville, the Town of Somerset, the Town of Washington Grove and the Town of Garrett Park. A property inside one of those answers to that municipality instead, and their rules differ from each other, so you'll want to call the town or city directly rather than assuming the county's 120 days apply to you. Everywhere else in the county, the eligible property types are broad enough: a room, an apartment, a detached single-family home, a townhouse or a condominium can all be licensed, provided it's where you live.

Nothing outside that list qualifies.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Montgomery County

Given that the zoning ties the use to your own front door, the honest answer about what kind of business is still available here is a narrow one. Unfortunately for anybody arriving with a spreadsheet full of acquisitions, there's no portfolio play in Montgomery County, because a primary residence is by definition a single address and the license certification asks you to swear that the unit is yours to live in. One home, one license, so the second property you were planning to buy has to earn its money as a long-term rental instead.

What's left is still a real business, mind you, and it's the shape most owner-occupiers actually want. You can rent a bedroom while you're in the house, and there's no annual day limit on that at all. That suits anyone near the NIH campus in Bethesda, the FDA in White Oak, or the Metro stops that carry people into Washington. Or you can hand over the whole house while you're traveling and use up to 120 of those unhosted days, which is a genuinely useful amount if your work takes you away in blocks. Since the day counter only runs when you're not there, the two modes mix happily in the same year.

Three things routinely stop people before the county ever does, though, so be aware of them early:

• Your HOA, condominium documents or your own lease can veto the whole plan. One of the license certifications is that the application isn't prohibited by any homeowners association or condominium document, or by a rental lease, and a lot of buildings around Silver Spring and Rockville do prohibit it. Read those documents first.
• Your neighbors find out, by law. The application requires written notice to abutting and confronting neighbors, or in a multi-unit building to the neighbors across the hall and those sharing a ceiling, floor or walls with you, plus the municipality, any HOA, condominium or housing cooperative, and the owner or the owner's rental agent if you're renting.
• They can formally object. Anyone owning or living within 300 feet, the municipality, or the association can file a challenge with the Director within 30 days of your application, which pauses the clean approval track and sends your file into an investigation.

Renters aren't shut out, which surprises people who read the 2023 proposals. The Council did consider limiting applications to owners only, yet that change was struck out by amendment before the bill passed, so the code still allows "the owner or owner-authorized agent of the facility" to apply. Get your landlord's written blessing first, because they get notified anyway.

If the primary residence test rules you out entirely, neighboring jurisdictions run on different logic and are worth a look before you give up on the region. Our Prince George's County guide covers the other half of the DC suburbs, and the Baltimore County guide covers the market up the parkway.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Montgomery County

Assuming your home clears the zoning and nothing in your lease or bylaws blocks you, the license is then the next gate, and it's administered by the Department of Housing and Community Affairs under Chapter 54, Article III. DHCA's short-term rental program page is the front door, and applications go through the county's online licensing portal.

As of July 2026 the annual license fee is $500 for a short-term residential rental, against $150 for a bed and breakfast, and DHCA describes it as non-refundable and "established annually by the County Executive". Since a license only runs for one year before it has to be renewed on re-application, payment and continued compliance, treat that $500 as a recurring cost rather than a one-off. Keep in mind that the money doesn't come back if you're denied either, so the eligibility questions above are worth settling before you pay rather than after.

The review behind that fee is the single biggest difference from any guide written before mid-2024. Bill 22-23 was enacted on November 7, 2023 and took effect on July 1, 2024, and it did two things at once. It moved the whole program from the Department of Health and Human Services over to DHCA, so any older guide's contact details are dead. It also replaced self-certification with a real review, since under Section 54-45 the Director "must review the application, including supporting documents provided by the applicant, for conformance with this Chapter and all other applicable laws and regulations", and "may inspect the property".

The timetable moved with it.

Where the old law gave the Director 15 working days, the current one requires a decision no earlier than 30 and no later than 60 days after a completed application and all fees arrive, unless somebody files a challenge under Section 54-46, in which case the Director gets another 60 days to notify you, take your response, investigate the disputed facts and then decide. When a license is approved, written notice of the issuance and of the appeal procedure goes out to that same list of neighbors and associations.

One provision in there is unexpectedly kind, and worth knowing if you've been operating quietly. The Director "must not deny a license for the sole reason that an applicant was operating without a license, if it is the applicant's first time receiving such a violation", so coming in from the cold doesn't automatically cost you the license. In a county where most listings are unlicensed, that's a real amnesty.

Losing a license works through Section 54-47. The Director may suspend or revoke if you've violated Chapter 54 or any other applicable law, or if you're convicted of one of the criminal offenses listed in Section 54-20 while operating. The third ground is the one neighbors trigger, since a license also goes if you've "repeatedly operated in a manner that is dangerous to the health and safety of the community or is a nuisance because of noise or other activity, as verified by the Department". You can be made to appear and show cause first, and any decision by the Director, whether it's a denial, a suspension or a revocation, can be appealed to the Board of Appeals within 30 days.

As for money penalties, a violation of Article III is a Class A civil violation. The bill originally proposed lifting the maximum to $1,000, yet the Council struck that increase by amendment, so the standing Class A figures still govern: Planning Board staff put them at $500 for an initial civil violation and $750 for a repeat. DHCA's own enforcement page confirms it issues notices of violation for unlicensed properties, and civil citations where housing code problems go unresolved.

Required Documents for Montgomery County Short-Term Rentals

Since a real person now reads that application instead of rubber-stamping your own word for it, the paperwork behind it matters even more than it used to. DHCA sets out the order of operations, and two registrations have to exist before the license application will go through at all.

First, get a Maryland Central Registration Number from the Comptroller, which is the eight-digit sales and use tax ID you'll be filing under. Section 54-43 requires the application to carry that State Sales Tax and Use Registration number, so there's no way to skip it. Second, open a Room Rental-Transient Tax account with the county's Department of Finance, and don't forget this one just because a platform collects the tax on your behalf, since the county's guidance is explicit that using a broker like Airbnb or Vrbo doesn't move the liability off you.

With those in hand, the application itself is then a signed set of certifications. Section 54-43 asks you to certify that:

• The building complies with all applicable zoning standards under Chapter 59.
• Overnight guests 18 or older are limited to six, and guests over 18 to two per bedroom.
• Only habitable rooms will be used by guests.
• Smoke detectors in all units, and carbon monoxide detectors in all units using natural gas, operate as designed.
• Sanitation facilities operate as designed.
• All local taxes and required fees are paid in full.
• The dwelling unit is your primary residence.
• You're the owner or the owner-authorized agent.
• Rules and regulations are posted inside the rental, including contact details for a representative designated for emergencies.
• You haven't been found guilty of a Chapter 54 violation in the past 36 months.
• That designated representative lives within 15 miles of the unit and will be reachable for the entirety of any booking where the primary resident isn't there.
• A record of all overnight visitors will be kept and made readily available for inspection.
• The required notices went to neighbors, the municipality, any association and the owner where you're not the owner.
• Nothing in an HOA document, condominium document or lease prohibits it.
• Common ownership community fees are no more than 30 days past due.
• Only registered guests, plus people visiting you personally, will be on the property.
• Every online listing carries your short-term residential rental license number.

That last one deserves a second read, because it's the certification most hosts break without noticing. Your license number belongs in the listing text on every platform you advertise on, not only the one you applied with. All of them.

Montgomery County Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you get through all that and are able to start taking bookings, there's still tax to sort out, and it stacks in two layers today with a third change arriving in 2027. The rates themselves are stable, so treat these as firm.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
Maryland sales and use tax on the stay	6%	Comptroller of Maryland (Airbnb collects on platform bookings)
Maryland sales tax on Airbnb's service fee	3%	Airbnb
Montgomery County room rental transient tax	7%	Montgomery County Department of Finance

The county piece runs on Section 52-16 of the county code, and the Department of Finance page sets it at 7% of the total room rental for any stay of 30 consecutive days or fewer. The county's own information sheet dates that rate to July 1, 1996, so it isn't a number that's about to move on you. Returns are due on or before the last day of each month covering the previous month, and a return is due even in a month when you took nothing. So file it anyway. Quarterly filing exists too, though only on written application with the Director of Finance's consent, in which case returns land at the end of April, July, October and January.

Late filing is expensive enough to be worth a calendar reminder, because the county charges a penalty of 5% of the tax per month or part of a month, capped at 25%, plus interest of 1% per month or fraction of a month. Records supporting your returns have to be kept for at least three years as well, and they stay open to inspection by the Director of Finance.

A few exemptions exist, though most of them won't help you. Foreign government officials holding a valid US State Department exemption card are exempt, as are room rentals paid to a hospital, medical clinic, nursing home, rest home, convalescent home or home for the aged, while there's no exemption at all for federal, state, county or municipal officials, and none for guests traveling on non-profit business.

So the exemption that matters commercially is length of stay: money collected from anyone occupying for more than 30 consecutive days isn't subject to the tax.

Airbnb handles the county tax for you on its own bookings. Its Maryland tax page lists "Montgomery County Room Rental and Transient Tax: 7% of the listing price including any cleaning fee and guest fee for reservations 30 nights and shorter", alongside the 6% state sales tax and 3% on service fees. Vrbo's behavior here I couldn't confirm from a primary source, so if that's where your bookings come from, call the excise tax unit and ask before you assume it's handled. Either way you stay liable for the tax, and the county's short-term rental tax page says you may provide proof that the broker is remitting on your behalf.

One change is already on the books for the layer above. Chapter 638 of 2025 takes effect on July 1, 2027, and from that date any booking platform over a $100,000 or 200-transaction threshold has to collect the county hotel rental tax and pay it to the Comptroller for distribution, rather than to the county directly. The same law makes state tax rules win out over conflicting local ones on that tax. Nothing about your 7% changes, though who you send it to might.

Maryland Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

That 2027 handover is a good reminder that the state sits above all of this, though it sits there more lightly than in most places. Maryland has no statewide short-term rental license, permit or registry, and it doesn't broadly preempt what counties do about zoning or licensing either. The one genuinely statewide registration you need is the sales and use tax license, required of any retail vendor under Tax-General Section 11-702, and once granted it stays effective until you surrender it or the Comptroller revokes it, so there's no renewal cycle to diarize. You register and file through Maryland Tax Connect.

Platform collection of the state's 6% has been settled law since Chapter 704 of 2019 made a short-term rental platform a vendor and a booking through one a taxable sale, which means the platform collects on platform bookings while you collect on anything you take directly.

The real 2026 development is safety, though, and it applies to you whether or not the county ever inspects. The Jillian and Lindsay Wiener Short-Term Rental Safety Act, enacted as Chapter 9 of 2026 and signed on April 14, 2026, takes effect on October 1, 2026 for any unit offered for less than 30 consecutive days.

From that date every host has to post an evacuation diagram and emergency numbers, and provide a working fire extinguisher plus working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, interconnected where multiple smoke alarms are required and replaced if they're non-functioning, more than ten years old, or undated. Booking services have to notify hosts and collect their compliance documentation, so expect Airbnb and Vrbo to start asking. They'll want paperwork. Remember that this stacks on top of the county's own detector certification rather than replacing it.

The same law also tells counties to catch up. By July 1, 2028, each county and Baltimore City that allows short-term rentals must require an annual inspection of every unit against those fire-safety standards, may charge a fee for it, and may hand the work to a qualified third party. Montgomery County has nothing like that in place today, which makes it the change most likely to alter what a license costs and involves here over the next two years.

One more is worth knowing if you rent rather than own. HB 993 of 2026 would've barred local governments from banning short-term rentals run by lessees and sublessees, and it passed the House 102 to 31 in March 2026 before dying without a Senate third reading. It didn't become law, so don't plan around it. Our Maryland statewide guide tracks the state picture in more detail, and the Anne Arundel County guide shows how differently a neighboring county can read the same state framework.

Does Montgomery County Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

On paper the county is strict, and in practice it hasn't been, which is an uncomfortable combination to build a business on. The county's own Inspector General said so in blunt terms in Publication 25-04, released on October 11, 2024, which found that "more than 85% of STRRs operating in the County are not licensed". The same report put the cost of that at "a loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees and potential tax revenue", and it found that the county "is unable to reconcile tax payments received by short term rental brokers against what was collected". Three findings and seven recommendations came out of it.

Read that carefully rather than cheerfully, though, because an 85% non-compliance rate is a statement about the county's capacity, not a promise about your risk. Enforcement here is complaint-driven: DHCA says a housing code enforcement inspector will investigate short-term residential rental complaints and evaluate the property's safety and maintenance conditions. So the trigger isn't an algorithm sweeping listings, it's the neighbor who's tired of Friday arrivals, and the licensing process has already told that neighbor your name and given them a 300-foot standing to object. So it's worth staying on good terms.

Two things are pushing the other way now. Bill 22-23 tightened the front door in July 2024 by making DHCA actually review applications and allowing inspections, which is a slower gate but a real one, and the Council's Audit Committee took the Inspector General's short-term rental report back up on June 25, 2026, with both DHCA and Finance answering for it. So the difference between what the platforms hand over and what the county can account for is now a live political question.

My own read, and this is a judgment rather than a sourced fact, is that an enforcement gap this wide tends to close suddenly rather than gradually. A county that already knows it's missing 85% of the market, has a licensing portal, and is being audited on the point will buy list-matching data at some stage. Watch out for the moment it starts reconciling platform data against its license roll, because the cheap window shuts on that day, and the unpaid transient tax has 25% in penalties sitting behind it. That bill grows monthly.

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

Knowing that the risk sits mostly in the paperwork rather than the market, the order you do things in still saves real money, since the early steps tell you whether the later ones are worth paying for.

1. Confirm the address is in county jurisdiction. If it sits inside Rockville, Gaithersburg, Kensington, Poolesville, Somerset, Laytonsville, Washington Grove, Garrett Park, Chevy Chase Village, the Town of Chevy Chase or Chevy Chase View, stop and call that municipality instead.
2. Confirm the home is your primary residence and that it isn't a Farm Tenant Dwelling or a site with an Accessory Dwelling Unit. No license gets around either point.
3. Read your HOA documents, condominium bylaws or lease. You'll be certifying that none of them prohibit this, and a prohibition here ends the plan before any fee is paid.
4. Decide which mode you're running. Hosted stays have no annual day cap, while unhosted stays are limited to 120 days a calendar year, so map that against how often you're away.
5. Register with the Comptroller for a Maryland sales and use tax account and get your eight-digit Central Registration Number.
6. Open a Room Rental-Transient Tax account with the Montgomery County Department of Finance, even if Airbnb will be collecting the 7% for you.
7. Send the required notices to abutting and confronting neighbors or their multi-unit equivalents, the municipality, any association, and your landlord where you're a tenant.
8. Line up the safety and operating items before you certify them: working smoke and CO detectors, a fire extinguisher, posted rules with an emergency contact, a designated representative living within 15 miles, one off-street parking space per contract, and a guest record you'll keep for inspection.
9. Apply and pay the $500 through the county portal, then expect a decision between 30 and 60 days later, or longer if somebody challenges it.
10. Put your license number in every listing the moment it's issued, then set a monthly reminder for the transient tax return and diarize the renewal a month before the one-year term runs out.

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

Most of the questions that come up during those ten steps belong to one of four offices, and knowing which one owns yours will save you a long transfer through the county switchboard. MC311 is the general front line for all of them on 311, or 240-777-0311 from outside the county, staffed 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on weekdays.

The license itself

The Department of Housing and Community Affairs, Licensing and Registration issues and renews the short-term rental license, handles challenges and suspensions, and runs code enforcement.

• Address: 1401 Rockville Pike, 4th Floor, Rockville, MD 20852
• Phone: 311 or 240-777-0311
• Licensing email: [email protected]
• Code enforcement email: [email protected]
• Hours: Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with walk-ins accepted until 4:30 p.m.
• Apply or renew: the county's short-term rental licensing portal

The 7% transient tax

The Department of Finance, Division of Treasury runs the Room Rental-Transient Tax, including account setup, monthly returns and questions about broker remittance.

• Address: 27 Courthouse Square, Suite 200, Rockville, MD 20850
• Phone: 240-777-0311
• Email: [email protected]
• Online: the Room Rental-Transient Tax page carries the application and the filing rules

Zoning questions

Whether the use is permitted on your particular lot is a Department of Permitting Services question rather than a DHCA one, and its zoning division maintains the short-term rental standards page.

• Address: 2425 Reedie Drive, 7th Floor, Wheaton, MD 20902
• Phone: 240-777-0311
• Hours: Monday to Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

State tax registration

Your sales and use tax license, the Central Registration Number and the 6% state return all belong to the Comptroller of Maryland rather than to the county, and both registration and filing run through Maryland Tax Connect.

Based on discussions in online forums, Montgomery County Airbnb hosts have mixed feelings about the local short-term rental regulations:

Talking to that many offices is exactly what hosts here grumble about, and the sentiment splits along a line you can predict from the rules themselves. What follows is my read of the recurring themes in public host discussion rather than any kind of survey, so do weigh it accordingly, though the hard numbers underneath each point are sourced.

• Owner-occupiers mostly find the deal fair. No day cap while you're in the house is generous by regional standards, and a $500 fee against Bethesda and Silver Spring nightly rates is a rounding error rather than a barrier. The complaints from this group are about the process, not the policy.
• Investors treat the county as closed, and they're right to. The primary residence test can't be structured around, so the recurring advice is to look at neighboring counties, or at long-term and mid-term leases instead.
• The neighbor notice is the most resented single requirement. Telling everyone who shares a wall with you that you've applied, and giving anyone within 300 feet a formal 30-day challenge window, feels to a lot of hosts like being asked to organize the opposition to their own application.
• Nobody quite trusts the enforcement picture. Long-standing hosts point out that most listings around them are unlicensed, which the Inspector General confirmed at more than 85%, while newer hosts who went through the post-2024 review describe it as slow and document-heavy. Both are describing the same county, just from opposite sides of the license.
• The 2026 safety act barely registers yet. From what I can tell, most hosts haven't noticed that the state's new alarm and extinguisher rules bite on October 1, 2026, and that platforms will be collecting compliance documentation from them.

That last point is the one I'd act on first. A ten-year-old smoke alarm is a cheap fix in September and an awkward conversation with a booking platform in November. So replace it now.

Where the numbers land is a separate question from where the rules land, of course. Nightly rates and occupancy across the Maryland market vary enormously between the DC commuter belt, Baltimore and the Eastern Shore, and a hosted spare room in Bethesda is a different investment from a whole house on the water, so it's worth checking what your own submarket clears before you decide the license is worth the trouble. Rules like these rarely make a market impossible on their own. What they do is decide which kind of owner the market belongs to, and here it belongs to the person already living in the house.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Montgomery County, Maryland in 2026?

Yes, provided the property is your primary residence. Montgomery County licenses short-term residential rentals through the Department of Housing and Community Affairs under Chapter 54, Article III, at $500 a year. You can host guests in your home with no annual day limit, or rent the whole place while you're away for up to 120 days in a calendar year. Investment properties you don't live in cannot be licensed.

How much does a Montgomery County short-term rental license cost?

The annual fee is $500 for a short-term residential rental, or $150 for a bed and breakfast, and DHCA describes it as non-refundable and set each year by the County Executive. A license runs for one year and renews for further one-year terms on re-application, payment and continued compliance. Expect a decision between 30 and 60 days after a complete application, or longer if a neighbor files a challenge.

What is the 120-day rule in Montgomery County?

It applies only when nobody's home. Under zoning section 59-3.3.3.I, a property can be used as a short-term residential rental for a maximum of 120 days in a calendar year if the owner or owner-authorized resident isn't present. When that person is physically present and occupying the residence during the stay, there's no limit on the number of days at all. The counter only runs on unhosted nights.

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

Three charges attach to a stay: Maryland's 6% sales and use tax on the accommodation, 3% on Airbnb's service fee, and Montgomery County's 7% room rental transient tax on any stay of 30 consecutive days or fewer. Airbnb collects all three on its own bookings. On direct bookings you file the county return by the last day of the following month, with a 5% monthly penalty capped at 25% for filing late.

Can a renter operate an Airbnb in Montgomery County?

Yes, if the landlord agrees. The county code allows "the owner or owner-authorized agent of the facility" to apply, and a 2023 proposal to restrict applications to owners was struck out before the bill passed. The unit still has to be your primary residence, no lease term may prohibit it, and the owner or the owner's rental agent gets formal notice of your application either way.

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