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

Do you own a place in Lehigh Township, Pennsylvania, out on the western edge of Northampton County, and are you weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that short-term rentals are legal here. The catch, and it's a real one, is where. Lehigh Township's zoning ordinance only allows a short-term rental in the Neighborhood Commercial or Resort Commercial district, and even there it needs a special exception from the Zoning Hearing Board before you can apply for anything else. Most of the township is zoned residential or agricultural, and if your property sits in one of those zones, the use itself isn't permitted at all. No license fixes that.

That restriction came from Ordinance No. 2020-3, which the Board of Supervisors enacted on November 10, 2020, adding "Short Term Rental" as a defined, regulated use inside the township's existing 2002 zoning ordinance. It set the zoning limit, created a license, and wrote out a genuinely detailed list of what a compliant rental has to look like: how many people can sleep there, how many can visit for the day, where the cars go, and what safety gear has to be on the wall. None of that has been rewritten since, and the township's own current application still cites the same code sections the ordinance created.

So let's work through what applies here in 2026: whether your property even qualifies, what the license costs and requires, the paperwork you'll assemble before you file, every layer of tax that lands on a booking, and who at the township and the state enforces all of it. Every fact below comes from the ordinance itself, the township's current application form, or Pennsylvania's own tax pages, checked in July 2026. Where I couldn't confirm something from an official source, I've said so rather than guessing. And if you're sizing up Lehigh Township against a market where the zoning isn't this tight, run the numbers through BNBCalc first.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Lehigh Township

Since the zoning line comes before the license line, that's where to start, not with the application form. Lehigh Township's ordinance permits a short-term rental only in the Neighborhood Commercial (NC) and Resort Commercial (RC) districts, and only as a special exception use under §§ 180-19C and 180-18C of the zoning code. A special exception isn't automatic, even where the zoning allows it in principle. You'd still bring your case to the Zoning Hearing Board, which weighs it against the general special-exception standards in the code before granting it. Unfortunately, if your address isn't already zoned NC or RC, this whole guide is mostly academic for you, because rezoning a single parcel is a slow, uncertain process and the township gives no indication it's inclined to grant it for STR purposes.

For the properties that do qualify, the ordinance defines a "Short Term Rental" plainly: any dwelling unit, owned or managed by a person or entity, rented to a "Transient Visitor" for fewer than 30 days. It draws a clean line around what counts as family rather than a guest, too. Anyone related to the owner as a spouse, parent, child, grandparent, grandchild or sibling doesn't count as a Transient Visitor even if they're staying under 30 days, so a relative crashing at the house isn't triggering the ordinance. And the definition explicitly excludes "bed and breakfast" and "hotel," which the township regulates under their own separate sections, so don't assume the short-term rental rules below cover a B&B-style operation with the owner living on site. They don't, and mixing the two up is an easy way to file under the wrong section.

One more thing worth knowing before you go further: the license, once you're eligible for it, attaches to the property and to the owner, not to a management company. If you're planning to buy in Lehigh Township so you can run a short-term rental at scale, confirm the parcel's zoning designation with the township before you make an offer, since that single fact decides whether anything past this point is relevant to you.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Lehigh Township

Assuming your property clears the zoning hurdle, there's still a license to get through. It lives at § 180-46.1 of the Lehigh Township Code, and the current application confirms an annual registration fee of $500, as of July 2026. A Short-Term Rental License only goes to the property's owner, never to a tenant or a management company on its own, and you'll need a separate license for every dwelling unit you're renting, so a duplex being run as two short-term rentals needs two applications.

A license runs for up to one year from the date it's issued and has to be renewed annually, or sooner if anything the ordinance regulates changes about the property. Renewal isn't a formality either: it requires the same inspections that apply to a new application, and the renewal form has to disclose anything that's changed since the last one you filed. By applying for or accepting a license, you're also granting the township the right to inspect under the terms set out in the standards section, which is worth remembering before your first renewal comes due.

Here's the part that gives the township real teeth. Under § 180-46.1(C), if an owner racks up two violation notices tied to the short-term rental standards, the Zoning Officer can revoke an existing license or deny a new one outright, unless you appeal the violation and win. That's not a dollar fine escalating over time, it's a two-strikes rule that can end your ability to operate at all. I couldn't find a separate published civil-penalty schedule specific to short-term rentals in anything I was able to open, so treat the license itself, not a fine, as what's on the line here. Do check with the Township office directly if you want the current penalty language spelled out in full, since the code section governing it wasn't fully reachable through the sources available to me.

Required Documents for Lehigh Township Short-Term Rentals

Because that $500 doesn't come back if the application gets denied, it's worth getting the paperwork right before you submit it rather than after. Section 180-46.1 and the township's current application form line up closely, and together they ask for:

• A copy of the current recorded deed, establishing that you own the property.
• Floor plans showing habitable floor space and the total number of bedrooms, since that number drives your occupancy cap.
• A site plan showing on-site parking spaces, laid out to the ordinance's dimensions.
• Septic system details, if the property isn't on public sewer: location, approximate age, capacity, a professional evaluation, and proof the tank was pumped within the last 12 months. New applicants have to pump the system at the time they apply and document it.
• A copy of the current Northampton County Hotel Room Excise Tax Certificate.
• A copy of the current Pennsylvania Sales and Use Tax Permit.
• A signed trespass waiver, authorizing township agents, employees and officials to enter the property to inspect for compliance.
• The owner's and, where applicable, the managing agent's signatures, both certifying they've read and will comply with the standards in Chapter 180, Article III.

That managing-agent piece matters more than it might look. The application form requires one if the property owner isn't a local resident, so an out-of-area investor can't run a Lehigh Township short-term rental without naming someone local who can be reached around the clock. Make sure whoever you name actually answers, because that contact number is also required on the notice posted inside the unit, which the next section covers.

Lehigh Township Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you clear the zoning, the license and the document checklist, there's still tax sitting on top of every booking. Two of the documents in that last section exist specifically because two different governments tax a Lehigh Township short-term rental, and neither one is optional.

Tax	Rate	Who collects it
Pennsylvania State Hotel Occupancy Tax	6% of rent	The host, unless a booking platform remits it on your behalf
Northampton County Hotel Room Excise Tax	Reported at 4% by secondary sources; I couldn't confirm the current rate from an official county page	Northampton County

The state layer is the more straightforward one, since Pennsylvania's 61 Pa. Code Chapter 38 imposes a 6% excise tax on hotel occupancy, and the Department of Revenue applies that broadly enough to reach single-family and condo short-term rentals booked through Airbnb, Vrbo, or directly. Under Act 109 of 2018, a major booking platform has to collect and remit that tax for you, so if every booking runs through a platform that confirms it's collecting, you're generally covered there. Book directly, or through a smaller platform that doesn't collect, and you'll need to register yourself through myPATH for a Sales, Use and Hotel Occupancy Tax License, at no cost to apply.

The county layer is where I have to be honest about a gap. Lehigh Township's own application requires a current Northampton County Hotel Room Excise Tax Certificate before it'll even accept your license paperwork, so the county tax is real and it's a precondition, not an afterthought. What I couldn't do, despite trying several routes, is confirm the current rate directly from Northampton County's own site. A widely repeated figure puts it at 4%, tied to a 2005 county resolution under the state's second-class-A county authorization, but I never confirmed that number on a page I could open myself, so don't treat it as confirmed. Keep in mind that whatever the rate turns out to be, you'll need the certificate itself before the township will process your application, so it's worth calling Northampton County directly early in the process rather than discovering the requirement at the last step.

One thing that doesn't stack on top of those two: Pennsylvania's hotel occupancy tax functions as the sales-tax equivalent for lodging, so a Lehigh Township host isn't also collecting the general 6% state sales tax separately on the same room charge. And since Northampton County isn't Allegheny or Philadelphia, none of the state-collected local sales-tax add-ons that apply in those two counties apply here either.

Possible Write-Offs or Deductions

Once the tax layers are accounted for, the deduction side is where a lot of that gets clawed back, and it's worth spending real time on rather than treating it as an afterthought. Short-term rental income is ordinary taxable income at the federal level, reported on Schedule E in most cases, and the IRS's guidance on renting residential property lays out what's deductible against it.

The obvious ones apply here the same as anywhere else: mortgage interest, property taxes, homeowners insurance, and depreciation on the structure itself. Beyond that, a Lehigh Township host can typically deduct cleaning and turnover costs, platform service fees, property management fees if you're using a local agent as your ordinance requires, repairs and maintenance, and utilities. The safety equipment the township mandates outright counts too, so treat your smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors and fire extinguishers as a deductible expense, on top of being a code requirement. Septic pumping, required annually under the ordinance, is a maintenance expense you can generally claim as well.

Keep in mind that if you rent the whole property short-term rather than a portion of a home you also live in, you generally don't have to apportion expenses the way an owner-occupied host does, which simplifies the math considerably. Run the actual numbers, deductions included, through BNBCalc before you commit to a property here, since the license fee, the safety-equipment buildout and the annual septic requirement all eat into year-one cash flow in ways a simple revenue estimate won't show you. A CPA familiar with Pennsylvania rental property is worth the fee too, particularly around depreciation schedules and whether your level of involvement in the property pushes it toward active or passive treatment.

Pennsylvania-Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

Lehigh Township's zoning restriction sits on top of a state framework that, by contrast, barely constrains anything, since Pennsylvania has no statewide preemption law for short-term rentals and nothing in state law caps or standardizes what a township like Lehigh may do with its own zoning. The Commonwealth's own Joint State Government Commission confirmed as much in a March 2025 staff study, describing the regulatory landscape as "a patchwork of primarily county and municipal zoning ordinances and regulations." Lehigh Township's ordinance is a textbook example of that patchwork rather than an exception to it.

There's no statewide short-term rental registry either, and the state doesn't hand out an STR-specific license the way the township does. The only state-level registration that applies is the general Sales, Use and Hotel Occupancy Tax License covered in the taxes section above, and you only need it if you're not booking exclusively through a platform that already collects and remits the tax for you.

Three bills are pending in the state legislature that would change parts of this, though none has passed as of my last check in July 2026. House Bill 2303 would add a "Transient Lodging" chapter to state law with tiered operator categories and a countywide registry. House Bill 1256, the "Short Term Rental Compliance Act," and Senate Bill 1105, addressing hotel tax reporting for counties outside Philadelphia and Allegheny, are both still sitting in committee. Don't plan around any of them; a bill in committee changes nothing about what Lehigh Township requires today. For the full statewide picture, our Pennsylvania short-term rental guide walks through all three layers in more depth than fits here, and if Lehigh Township's zoning turns out to rule your property out, our Bucks County guide covers a different corner of southeastern Pennsylvania worth comparing it against.

Does Lehigh Township Strictly Enforce STR Rules? Is Lehigh Township Airbnb Friendly?

Given how narrow the zoning window already is, it's fair to ask whether the township even bothers enforcing the rest once you're inside it. The honest answer is that Lehigh Township isn't Airbnb-friendly in the way that phrase usually gets used. Most townships this size either ignore short-term rentals or wave through a simple registration; Lehigh Township wrote a detailed ordinance, confined the use to two commercial zones, and built in real enforcement mechanics that go well beyond a fee.

The two-strikes revocation rule at § 180-46.1(C) is the clearest sign of that. It doesn't wait for a court process to bite; two violation notices are enough for the Zoning Officer to pull your license or deny a renewal outright. Inspections back that up. The Zoning Officer and the Building Code Official can both inspect a property to verify license and operating requirements, and if there's reason to suspect a violation, the Zoning Officer can enter with as little as 30 minutes' notice by phone, voicemail or email. That's a short window, and it means a host genuinely out of compliance on parking, occupancy or safety equipment doesn't get much runway to fix things before an inspector shows up.

I couldn't find published data on how many violations, revocations or special-exception applications Lehigh Township has processed since 2020, so I can't tell you how aggressively this gets enforced in practice versus on paper. What I can tell you is that the ordinance gives the township every tool it needs to enforce strictly if it chooses to, which is a meaningfully different starting point than a township whose code is silent on short-term rentals altogether. If you're weighing Lehigh Township against a market with a lighter touch, such as neighboring Lehigh County just across the county line, that's worth factoring in before you buy, not after. Once you've narrowed the zoning down to a specific property, it's worth checking Pennsylvania's short-term rental market data too, so you know what a compliant listing here could realistically earn before you commit to the license fee and the safety-equipment buildout.

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

Given everything above, the order these steps happen in matters, because the early ones determine whether the later ones are worth doing at all.

1. Confirm your property's zoning district first. Call Lehigh Township and verify the parcel is zoned Neighborhood Commercial or Resort Commercial. If it isn't, stop here; nothing downstream changes that.
2. Apply for the special exception, if your zoning does qualify, through the Zoning Hearing Board, since a short-term rental use in NC or RC still requires that approval before you can run one.
3. Assemble your documents: the deed, floor plans, a site plan showing parking, septic details and pumping proof if applicable, and both tax certificates.
4. Get your county and state tax accounts in order. Obtain a Northampton County Hotel Room Excise Tax Certificate and, if you won't be booking exclusively through a platform that collects state tax for you, register through myPATH for the Sales, Use and Hotel Occupancy Tax License.
5. Line up a local managing agent if you don't live in the area, since the license won't go through without one.
6. Install the required safety equipment: hardwired smoke detectors throughout, GFI outlets near water, a metal dryer vent, carbon monoxide detectors where applicable, fire extinguishers by floor and by bedroom, and clear egress from every bedroom.
7. File the license application and pay the $500 fee, then prepare for the inspection that follows.
8. Post the required notice inside the unit on or near the front door, with the contact number, 911 address, occupancy and vehicle limits, trash schedule, and inspection notice all included.
9. Diarize your renewal date. The license is good for one year, renewal requires another inspection, and two violation notices anywhere in that year can cost you the license before renewal even comes up.

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

Whichever step you're stuck on, a small number of offices handle nearly all of it, so it's worth knowing which one owns your specific question before you start dialing.

Lehigh Township administration handles zoning determinations, special exception applications, and short-term rental licensing itself:

• Address: 1069 Municipal Road, Walnutport, PA 18088
• Phone: 610-767-6771
• Fax: 610-767-1452
• Ordinances and forms: the township's own ordinances and resolutions page and short-term rental application

Northampton County, for the Hotel Room Excise Tax Certificate required on every application. I wasn't able to verify a working direct phone line or the current rate from an official county page during this research, so confirm both directly with the county's Fiscal Affairs office before you rely on any third-party figure you've seen elsewhere, including the 4% figure some secondary sources cite.

Pennsylvania Department of Revenue, for the state Sales, Use and Hotel Occupancy Tax License and myPATH registration questions:

• Phone: 717-787-1064
• Online: myPATH

Be aware that none of these offices will tell you whether your specific parcel is zoned correctly over the phone with total certainty. Ask for that determination in writing, since a verbal answer from a front-desk line isn't what a Zoning Hearing Board will rely on if your application is ever challenged.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run a short-term rental in Lehigh Township, Pennsylvania in 2026?

Only if your property is zoned Neighborhood Commercial or Resort Commercial, which is a small share of the township's land. Ordinance No. 2020-3 permits short-term rentals in those two districts only, and only by special exception from the Zoning Hearing Board. If your property is zoned residential or agricultural, which covers most of Lehigh Township, short-term rentals aren't a permitted use there at all, regardless of licensing.

Where in Lehigh Township can a property operate as a short-term rental?

Only inside the Neighborhood Commercial (NC) or Resort Commercial (RC) zoning districts, per §§ 180-19C and 180-18C of the township's zoning code, and only after the property owner secures a special exception from the Zoning Hearing Board. Check your parcel's zoning designation with the township directly before assuming your property qualifies, since the township's own maps and records are the only reliable source for that.

How much does a Lehigh Township short-term rental license cost and how long does it last?

The current annual registration fee is $500, payable to the township with your application. A license is valid for up to one year from the date it's issued and must be renewed annually, with renewal requiring the same inspections as a new application. It also has to be renewed early if anything the ordinance regulates, like occupancy or parking, changes at the property.

What taxes apply to a Lehigh Township short-term rental?

Pennsylvania's state Hotel Occupancy Tax runs 6% of rent, generally collected by the platform if you book exclusively through one that remits it, or by you directly otherwise through a myPATH registration. Northampton County also levies its own Hotel Room Excise Tax, required as a certificate on your township application; I couldn't confirm the current county rate from an official source, so verify it directly with the county before you rely on any figure you've seen.

What happens if you operate a short-term rental without a license in Lehigh Township?

The ordinance's clearest enforcement tool is licensing itself: two violation notices tied to the short-term rental standards let the Zoning Officer revoke an existing license or deny a new application outright, unless you appeal and win. Operating in a zoning district that doesn't permit short-term rentals at all is a separate, more basic problem that no license can cure. I couldn't find a published dollar-figure civil penalty specific to short-term rentals, so confirm current penalty language directly with the township.

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