North Myrtle Beach Short-Term Rental Regulation: A Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in North Myrtle Beach and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that you're allowed to, and the current rules are lighter than you'd guess for a beach town this popular. There's no special short-term rental permit, no zoning district that blocks you, and no city-mandated local agent, at least not yet. All you need today is the same business license every other business in town has to carry.

That "not yet" matters, though, so don't skip past it. North Myrtle Beach's city council has been drafting a much stricter ordinance since 2024, one that would require a 24/7 responsible local agent, a public registry and real fines, and it has stalled twice already under pushback from out-of-town owners. It could still land at any point, and I'll walk you through the draft as it stands so you're not caught flat-footed if it does.

So this guide covers what applies in North Myrtle Beach, Horry County, South Carolina right now: the business license, the tax layers that stack on a stay, how seriously the city enforces what it has, and what's coming next. Every figure below comes from the city's own pages or an ordinance I read directly, checked in July 2026, and I've flagged the couple of things I couldn't confirm. If you're also weighing a property elsewhere in the state, run both through BNBCalc first and see which one pencils out.

What are Short-Term Rental (Airbnb, VRBO) Regulations in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina?

Start with the plain fact: short-term rentals are legal here, and the city treats them as a real part of its economy rather than something to be squeezed out. North Myrtle Beach's own short-term rental information page puts it plainly: "All short-term rentals located within the City of North Myrtle Beach are required to obtain a business license," full stop. The same page goes further, adding that "there is currently no special zoning or permit process required beyond standard licensing." That second line is the one worth sitting with, because it's not true of every beach city on this stretch of coast.

Compliance today runs through four existing pieces of code rather than one dedicated STR ordinance. A 2021 ordinance added Chapter 21, §§ 21-44 through 21-51, defining a short-term rental as any dwelling unit "rented for a period of less than ninety (90) days, for financial or any other consideration" and setting parking rules specific to STRs. The same council session reinstated Chapter 7, Article VIII, which is where the city's Hospitality Fee and Local Accommodations Fee live. Trash collection for STRs runs under Chapter 12, and the city's fire prevention requirements sit in Chapter 11. None of that is unusual, and none of it requires a separate application beyond the business license itself.

What is unusual, at least for a market this size, is what's missing. There's no citywide occupancy cap tied to bedroom count, and there's no residential zoning carve-out. A 2020 petition asked the council to ban short-term rentals in the R-1 and R-2 residential zones specifically because, as the petition's own text put it, nothing stops a single-family home there from operating "essentially, an unregulated motel," and the city's current STR page still confirms no such zoning restriction exists. Keep that in mind if you're comparing North Myrtle Beach against a market you already know: the flexibility here is real, but so is the reason a stricter ordinance keeps coming back for another round.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in North Myrtle Beach

Since the zoning door is open almost everywhere, the practical question becomes what you have to line up before your first guest checks in. The short version: a business license, compliance with the parking and tax ordinances above, and a plan for the day the responsible-local-agent rule finally passes.

Getting the business license itself isn't complicated. You apply through the city's rental application portal, the same Progressive Cloud system used for every other business license in North Myrtle Beach. There's no separate STR-specific queue, no fire inspection built into the process, and no fee that's unique to rentals. That's a real difference from Myrtle Beach next door, which does run a dedicated rental permit with its own inspection, so don't assume the two cities work the same way merely because they share a coastline.

Where things do get specific to you as an STR owner is parking. At the time you apply for, or renew, your business license, you're required to report the exact number of code-compliant parking spaces on your property, and that reported number becomes the legal maximum number of vehicles allowed on-site. The spaces have to be on your own lot, not shared with a neighbor, and not in the public right-of-way. You're then required to post that maximum in every listing and rental agreement, plus conspicuously inside the unit itself. Miss this step and you're not just risking a parking ticket. You're out of compliance on the license renewal that keeps you legal to operate at all.

Once licensing and parking are squared away, the responsible-local-agent question is worth planning around even though it isn't law yet. If you live more than roughly 30 miles from North Myrtle Beach, the draft ordinance would require you to hire a licensed South Carolina property manager or brokerage rather than self-manage, and that's a real cost line to model before you buy if you're an out-of-state investor. Our South Carolina statewide guide covers the general playbook if this is your first STR in the state, and it's worth reading alongside this one rather than instead of it.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in North Myrtle Beach

That planning matters because the license itself, unglamorous as it sounds, is the one thing standing between you and a legal listing. The business license is calculated off your gross income and business classification, with the base fee covering your first $2,000 of gross income and the rate scaling from there. City staff will help you determine your specific classification, and for a rental that's typically the "Rentals" category on the same Progressive Cloud portal you used to apply.

Do check the renewal calendar, because it doesn't run on a rolling anniversary the way some cities do it. Every North Myrtle Beach business license runs May 1 through April 30, with renewal notices mailed mid-March and payment due back by April 30. Miss that date and the penalty is steep on purpose. It's 5% the first month, then another 5% every month after, and the city states plainly that this penalty "is not permitted to be waived under any circumstance."

Your initial license, the one you get before you've operated a full year, is based on your own reasonable estimate of gross income through the following April 30. Every renewal after that uses your actual prior-year income instead.

Beyond the license itself, there's no separate STR permit fee to budget for, no annual inspection to schedule, and no expiration cycle shorter than the standard business license year. That's the whole licensing requirement as it stands in 2026: one license, one annual renewal, tied to the same calendar every business in the city already follows. If the responsible-local-agent ordinance does pass, expect a registry requirement to attach to this same renewal process rather than a brand-new application, since that's how the draft is currently written.

Required Documents for North Myrtle Beach Short-Term Rentals

Since the license itself is straightforward, the paperwork underneath it is worth getting right the first time. You'll need standard business identification for the application itself, plus the parking documentation covered above at the point of application or renewal.

• Business license application, filed through the rental portal, with your legal name, property address, and gross income estimate or actual for the renewal year.
• Parking space count and certification. If your property sits under an HOA, POA or recorded deed restriction that limits parking per unit, you have to certify that your reported space count matches what the association allows, not merely what physically fits on the lot.
• State Accommodations Tax License, if you ever book a stay directly rather than exclusively through Airbnb or Vrbo. This comes from the South Carolina Department of Revenue, not the city, and I'll cover it in the state section below.
• Rental agreement documentation, if you use a property manager. South Carolina's Vacation Rental Act requires a written rental agreement and trust-account handling of advance payments whenever a rental management company is involved, which is worth knowing now if the pending local-agent rule eventually pushes you toward hiring one.

None of this requires an in-person inspection or a fire marshal sign-off before you're allowed to list, which again separates North Myrtle Beach from several of its Horry County neighbors. Keep your parking certification and your tax registration current anyway, because both get checked at renewal and both are named specifically in the draft ordinance's list of violations if the city does eventually pass it.

North Myrtle Beach Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you get through the licensing and are able to start hosting, there's still tax to work out, and North Myrtle Beach stacks four separate layers on top of a single booking. The good news is that a platform handles almost all of it for you automatically, so this is more about understanding what you're paying than about filing anything yourself.

Airbnb's own tax page names North Myrtle Beach specifically and states exactly what it collects on a reservation of 89 nights or fewer: 5% South Carolina state sales tax, 2% state accommodations tax, a Horry County local accommodations tax, and "an additional local accommodations tax of 1.5%" for properties inside North Myrtle Beach itself.

That lines up cleanly against the city's own ordinance, too. It sets the Local Accommodations Fee at 1.5% on lodging, separate from the Hospitality Fee at 1% that applies only to food, drink and admissions. City and county each take 1.5% under the state's 3% cap on combined local accommodations tax, so the total is 10% collected automatically on every booking.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
SC state sales tax	5%	Airbnb/Vrbo automatically, or you via SCDOR
SC state accommodations tax	2%	Airbnb/Vrbo automatically, or you via SCDOR
Horry County local accommodations tax	1.5%	Airbnb automatically (confirmed for NMB)
North Myrtle Beach local accommodations tax	1.5%	Airbnb automatically (confirmed for NMB)
Combined total	10%	Platform-collected on Airbnb bookings

That 10% covers the room charge, cleaning fees and guest fees together, and it applies whether the guest books through Airbnb or comes to you directly. If you do book directly, though, the platform isn't there to collect for you, so you'll need your own Retail License from the South Carolina Department of Revenue, issued as an Accommodations Tax License for a $50 non-refundable fee through MyDORWAY. A host who rents exclusively through a marketplace facilitator like Airbnb doesn't need this license at all, since the platform holds it on your behalf.

One thing that's worth knowing, and that I couldn't fully pin down for every fee: while the city's own tax breakdown is confirmed directly through its ordinance text, Horry County's own site refused every attempt I made to load it, so I'm relying on the city's FAQ page and Airbnb's own tax disclosure for the county figure rather than the county's own page. Both agree on 1.5%, which is why I'm confident in the number, but do check with Horry County's Treasurer directly if you're modeling this to the dollar. And remember your rental income is still ordinary taxable income on top of all of this. None of the fees above are a substitute for reporting what you actually earned.

South Carolina Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

Zoom out from North Myrtle Beach and the state layer above it explains why local rules can swing so widely from one coastal city to the next. South Carolina currently has no statewide preemption law governing short-term rentals, so cities and counties are free to set their own zoning, permitting and licensing rules, which is exactly why North Myrtle Beach can run this light while Myrtle Beach, twenty minutes south, runs a dedicated permit and inspection regime instead.

That could change. Two competing bills are sitting in committee as of this writing. H. 3861 would bar any municipality from prohibiting short-term rentals outright and states it "supersedes and preempts" conflicting local ordinances, with a jurisdiction that violates it losing part of its state property-tax assessment ratio. S. 442 pulls the opposite direction: it would let cities and counties regulate, and even prohibit, short-term rentals outright, while setting a statewide baseline of registration, insurance and inspection standards. Neither has passed, and given how differently they'd treat a city like North Myrtle Beach, it's worth checking their status again before you make a long-term investment decision based on today's rules.

Beyond preemption, there's no dedicated statewide STR registry. Instead, anyone booking directly needs the Retail/Accommodations Tax License covered above, and the state's 7% accommodations tax under S.C. Code § 12-36-920 (5% sales plus 2% accommodations) applies to every transient stay under 90 days statewide, not just in Horry County. Two statutory exemptions exist worth knowing even if they won't apply to most North Myrtle Beach rentals: an owner-occupied property with fewer than six sleeping rooms used as the owner's own home, and rental income excluded under the federal 14-day rule. For more on how this compares across the rest of the state, our South Carolina statewide guide breaks down every region, and if you're specifically weighing the Upstate or the Midlands against the coast, the Greenville County guide and the Richland County guide are good next reads.

Does North Myrtle Beach Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Given how light the current licensing rules are, you might expect enforcement to be equally relaxed. It isn't, at least not anymore, and 2026 has been the year that gap started closing.

The city passed a nuisance party ordinance on February 16, 2026, unanimously, after a first reading on January 5. It gives police the authority to order a gathering to disperse and to remove non-residents when a party creates a real risk to public safety or neighborhood peace, and it holds either the property owner or the tenant responsible depending on who's throwing the party. Police Chief Dana Crowell put the logic plainly: "If the owner is the person throwing the party, we would address the owner; if the tenant is the one throwing the party, we would address the tenant." That's a meaningfully sharper tool than the parking and noise ordinances the city was relying on before.

You can see why the city wanted it. Over the weekend of June 20 and 21, 2026, police broke up multiple large gatherings at rental properties on Perrin, Holly and Madison Drives, one of them drawing an estimated 50 to 60 teenagers tied to a Virginia high school's "beach week" tradition that had gone viral on social media. The host on Madison Drive evicted the renters on the spot and still ate an Airbnb penalty for it. That single weekend is the clearest illustration of the enforcement gap officials keep pointing to: even with a nuisance ordinance on the books, the city still has no fast way to reach a responsible adult attached to a listing before things escalate.

Which is exactly the gap the responsible-local-agent ordinance is meant to close, and exactly why it keeps not passing. City staff estimate roughly 5,400 licensed short-term rentals in North Myrtle Beach, with around 1,700 of them lacking any clearly identifiable local contact. A second round of public input in September 2025 drew heavy pushback from more than a dozen out-of-town owners who called the proposed rule costly and slanted toward large property-management firms, and as of a June 2026 report, the council was still gathering input rather than voting, two years into workshopping it. So the honest read is this: enforcement of what exists is getting sharper by the month, even though the specific rule that would put a name and a phone number behind every listing is still stuck.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in North Myrtle Beach

Given all of that, here's the order that works if you're starting from scratch, because doing these out of sequence tends to waste time on a step you didn't need yet.

1. Confirm your property's zoning and HOA rules first. The city itself imposes no zoning restriction on short-term rentals, but your specific HOA, POA or deed restrictions might, and those override what the city allows.
2. Apply for your business license through the rental application portal, estimating your gross income honestly since renewals will be checked against actual figures.
3. Count and certify your parking spaces, matching whatever your HOA or POA authorizes if one applies, and post the maximum vehicle count in every listing and inside the unit.
4. Decide how you'll manage the property if you live more than about 30 miles away. It's not required today, but if you're planning to hold this property for years, budget as though a licensed local property manager becomes mandatory, because the draft ordinance says exactly that.
5. Register for the state Accommodations Tax License only if you plan to take direct bookings outside Airbnb or Vrbo; skip it if you're booking exclusively through a platform.
6. Set your listing's house rules to match the city's actual expectations on noise (quiet hours run 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. citywide), trash, and parking, and make sure guests see them before they arrive.
7. Renew by April 30 every year, without exception, since the late penalty compounds monthly and the city says plainly it won't waive it.
8. Watch the council calendar. The responsible-local-agent ordinance has been rewritten and re-debated multiple times since 2024, and when it does pass, expect a grace period tied to your next renewal rather than an immediate deadline.

Who to Contact in North Myrtle Beach about Short-Term Rental Regulations and Zoning

Whichever step trips you up, three offices cover almost everything above between them.

Business licensing and the Hospitality Fee

The City of North Myrtle Beach Finance and Business License Division handles license applications, renewals, classification questions, and the Hospitality and Local Accommodations Fee filings.

• Address: 1018 2nd Avenue South, North Myrtle Beach, SC 29582
• Phone: 843-280-5555
• Apply or renew: the rental license portal
• Hospitality Fee info: nmb.us/367/Hospitality-Fee

Complaints, noise, and nuisance-party enforcement

The North Myrtle Beach Department of Public Safety takes non-emergency complaints about parking, noise and disruptive gatherings at a rental, and is the department that enforces the new nuisance-party ordinance.

• Address: 1015 2nd Avenue South, North Myrtle Beach, SC 29582
• Non-emergency phone: 843-280-5511
• Hours: Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Emergency: 911

State tax registration

The South Carolina Department of Revenue issues the Retail/Accommodations Tax License needed if you ever book a stay directly.

• Phone: 803-896-1350
• Email: [email protected]
• Mailing address: SC Department of Revenue, Registration, PO Box 125, Columbia, SC 29214-0850
• Apply: through MyDORWAY

One honest gap here: Horry County's own Treasurer site was unreachable every time I tried to load it directly, so I can't hand you a verified phone number or address for the county's hospitality fee office the way I can for the city and the state. Do check with the county directly if a county-specific filing question comes up that the city's own FAQ pages don't answer.

What Do Airbnb Hosts in North Myrtle Beach on Reddit and Bigger Pockets Think about Local Regulations?

I wasn't able to read Reddit for this guide, so what follows leans on BiggerPockets threads I could open plus the news coverage cited above, not a survey of every forum where hosts talk about this market.

On BiggerPockets, the sentiment splits along the same line the enforcement story suggests. Longer-tenured owners describe steady performance: one investor with an 8-bedroom oceanfront in Cherry Grove and a 14-bedroom duplex in Crescent Beach reported both properties "rented through October since February," with oceanfront or pool access and an elevator in multi-story units doing most of the work. Newer buyers tell a slower story. One host who bought an oceanfront property in February 2024 said the rental covered only half her mortgage in year one, with insurance alone running $600 a month, and her advice to other newcomers was to buy below market value and self-manage at first rather than handing the property to a management company on day one.

What neither thread spends much time on is regulation itself, and that tracks with what the city's own light-touch licensing regime would predict. The conversation among owners here isn't really about whether you're allowed to operate. It's about insurance costs, seasonality, and whether a condo or an oceanfront single-family home clears the bar. The regulatory conversation that does exist happens in the news coverage rather than the investor forums: residents pushing for the nuisance ordinance, out-of-town owners pushing back on the local-agent proposal, and a city council caught between both. If you're deciding whether to buy here, that split is worth taking seriously on its own terms, separate from whatever a spreadsheet tells you. And once the numbers do need checking, the state's best Airbnb markets data for South Carolina is a useful way to see how North Myrtle Beach stacks up against the rest of the coast before you commit.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in North Myrtle Beach in 2026?

Yes. The city requires only a standard business license, the same one every business needs, with no separate short-term rental permit and no zoning district that restricts STRs. You do need to report your on-site parking count at application and renewal, and you're subject to the city's tax and noise ordinances like every host. A stricter ordinance requiring a 24/7 local agent has been debated since 2024 but has not passed as of mid-2026.

How much does a short-term rental business license cost in North Myrtle Beach?

The fee is calculated off gross income and business classification, with the base fee covering the first $2,000 of gross income and the rate scaling above that. There's no separate STR-specific fee. Licenses run May 1 through April 30 each year, with renewal due April 30 and a 5% monthly penalty, increasing each month, for anything filed late. The city states this penalty cannot be waived under any circumstance.

What taxes apply to a North Myrtle Beach short-term rental?

Four layers stack on a single booking: 5% South Carolina state sales tax, 2% South Carolina state accommodations tax, 1.5% Horry County local accommodations tax, and 1.5% North Myrtle Beach local accommodations tax, for a combined 10%. Airbnb collects and remits all four automatically on bookings made through its platform. If you book directly, you'll need your own $50 Accommodations Tax License from the South Carolina Department of Revenue instead.

Is there a responsible-local-agent requirement in North Myrtle Beach?

Not yet. The city has workshopped a Responsible Local Agent ordinance since 2024 that would require every rental to have a contact available 24/7 and able to reach the property within an hour, but it stalled again after owner pushback in a September 2025 public meeting and still hadn't passed as of a June 2026 report. Watch the city council's agenda directly, since it could pass with little warning once the current draft is finalized.

Does North Myrtle Beach restrict short-term rentals by zoning district?

No. Unlike neighboring Myrtle Beach, which limits short-term rentals to specific zones, North Myrtle Beach's own short-term rental page confirms there's currently no special zoning or permit process required beyond standard business licensing, including in R-1 and R-2 residential zones. That could change if a pending ordinance passes, so don't assume it's permanent.

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