Beaufort Short-Term Rental Regulation: A Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Beaufort, South Carolina and you're trying to figure out whether you can still put it on Airbnb or Vrbo in 2026? Well, the good news is that you can. Short-term rentals are legal here, sitting on top of a state that doesn't ban them and a city ordinance that regulates rather than forbids them. The catch is timing: Beaufort recently came out of a nine-month fight over exactly how many rentals the city will allow, and the number that landed on April 28, 2026 is a lot tighter than what most of the city's own web pages still say.

That's the part worth sitting with before anything else. The new ordinance caps short-term rentals at 4% of the parcels in any given neighborhood citywide, dropping to 3% inside the historic district, where The Point (long banned outright) is now folded into that same 3% instead of being shut out entirely. Existing licensed rentals keep operating even where a neighborhood is already over its new limit, but a fresh application in one of those neighborhoods goes on a waitlist rather than getting approved.

This guide walks through what the ordinance requires: the permit process, the paperwork, the tax layers stacked underneath it, how seriously the city is enforcing all of it, and who to call when a question doesn't fit neatly on a web page. Every figure below is checked against Beaufort's own ordinance, its application packet, and local reporting as of July 2026, and I've flagged the one spot where the city's own paperwork hasn't caught up with its own new law yet. If you're weighing a Beaufort property against a market where the caps aren't this tight, run both through BNBCalc first.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Beaufort

That mismatch between the new ordinance and the city's own paperwork is exactly where a new host can get tripped up, so start with the plain question underneath it: is a short-term rental even legal on your specific property? Short-term rentals in the City of Beaufort are permitted as a conditional use, not a right that comes automatically with owning a house, and that distinction is exactly why the city can cap the number allowed. Beaufort saw a 42% jump in short-term rentals since 2022, and that surge is what pushed council to act this spring. Roughly 255 licensed short-term rentals operate citywide today, and 91 of them sit inside the 304-acre National Historic Landmark District alone.

Keep in mind that "Beaufort" here means the City of Beaufort specifically, not all of Beaufort County. Hilton Head Island, about forty minutes south, runs an entirely separate set of short-term rental rules, and unincorporated Beaufort County runs a third system again, permitting rentals as special uses in specific form-based zoning districts through the county's own Planning & Zoning office rather than the city's Business License Division. If your address sits outside the city limits, none of this guide's permit process applies to you, so confirm which jurisdiction you're in before you fill out anything.

Where a rental is legal at all still comes down to zoning. Beaufort's short-term rental rules live in Section 3.6.2.C.2 of the Beaufort Code, originally adopted in 2017 and substantially rewritten this spring, and they apply neighborhood by neighborhood across the city's residential zoning districts rather than citywide by right. Beaufort isn't the only Lowcountry town that's pulled back the reins recently, either. Mount Pleasant, outside Charleston, went through a similar fight over its own rules, and the Mount Pleasant guide is worth a look if you're weighing a purchase between the two markets. Assuming your address clears zoning, licensing is where the real cost and paperwork sit.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Beaufort

Licensing starts with a Conditional Use Permit, and the city's real gatekeeper is the density cap council rewrote on April 28, 2026. Short-term rentals are capped at 4% of the parcels in each residential neighborhood citywide, dropping to 3% inside the historic district, where those 91 existing rentals already sit well above the roughly 30 units the new 3% figure allows. Once a neighborhood hits its cap, new applications go on a waitlist instead of getting denied outright, and existing licensed rentals keep operating even in a neighborhood that's already over the new limit, though a spot opening up there isn't something you should count on soon. Mayor Phil Cromer told the Post and Courier that bringing the historic district down to its new cap "could take years."

Here's the wrinkle worth knowing before you apply: the STR application packet the city still posts online cites the old rule, a flat 6% cap that excluded The Point outright. That's the pre-amendment version of Section 3.6.2.C.2, and the city hasn't republished the packet to match the April vote as of this writing. Do check directly with the Business License Division for your neighborhood's live number rather than trusting the PDF, because the underlying law has already moved past it.

On top of the percentage cap, no two short-term rentals can sit within 300 feet of each other unless both were already operating and have stayed in continuous use, and only one license is allowed per parcel, though a carriage house or accessory dwelling on the same lot still counts toward that limit. One narrow exception applies. Buy a property off the city's list of vacant and dilapidated structures between September 1, 2025 and May 12, 2026, and you can still get a short-term rental permit for it regardless of whether your neighborhood's cap is full, an incentive the mayor tied directly to the city's affordable-housing problem.

The application itself costs $100, or $1,000 if the unit was already operating as a short-term rental before you applied, plus a separate $50 fee once you're ready for the safety inspection. Getting past the cap is only step one, though. Once your neighborhood has room, the paperwork is where things slow down.

Required Documents for Beaufort Short-Term Rentals

Every one of these needs to be in the folder before Business License staff will even start reviewing your application, and missing one is the single most common reason a file stalls:

• The Conditional Use Permit application itself, along with the $100 fee (or $1,000 if the unit was already operating before you applied).
• A site plan or survey showing the dwelling and a clearly marked parking area to the side or rear of the house, never the front yard.
• A copy of the rental agreement you'll actually use, spelling out the terms the ordinance requires: a two-night minimum stay, an adult-guest cap tied to bedroom count, a vehicle cap tied to bedroom count, where guests may and may not park, that the city's noise ordinance runs from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m., a ban on weddings and other large gatherings unless the city separately approves one, and a rule that pets can't be left outside unattended.
• A property management plan naming a manager, plus a backup unless the owner certifies the unit won't be rented while they're away, with contact information the city can reach inside the one-hour complaint window.
• A monitored fire alarm contract, one system per floor, installed after your conditional use permit is approved and documented with an invoice or a coverage certificate.
• Written confirmation from the homeowners' association, if one exists with covenants, that short-term rentals aren't prohibited in that neighborhood.
• A notarized letter from the property owner, if you're applying as an agent rather than the owner yourself.

Once staff approves the paper application, a $50 safety inspection follows before you're allowed to operate. It covers smoke alarms in every bedroom and on every level, carbon monoxide detectors, a serviced fire extinguisher, a legal egress window or door in every sleeping room, house numbers at least three inches tall and visible from the street, and a general look at the structure, electrical, plumbing and gas systems. Remember that this happens after any Certificate of Occupancy for a construction project already underway, so build that timeline in if you're renovating first.

Only after the inspection passes does the actual business license get issued, and that's the last step in the whole process. The unit legally can't be advertised or booked until that license exists, so make sure you have it in hand before your first listing goes live. That business license is also where the city hooks you into its ongoing tax obligations, which start the moment you have a paying guest.

Beaufort Short-Term Rental Taxes

Three separate layers of tax attach to a Beaufort short-term stay, and only one of them gets collected for you automatically.

Tax	Rate	Collected by
State accommodations tax	7% (5% sales + 2% accommodations)	Airbnb and Vrbo, automatically, as marketplace facilitators
Beaufort County local sales tax add-on	0% (no add-on as of May 2026)	Not applicable
City of Beaufort local accommodations tax	3%	The host, remitted directly to the city, monthly

The 7% state layer comes from S.C. Code § 12-36-920, which taxes gross proceeds from renting rooms or lodgings to transients at a combined 5% sales plus 2% accommodations rate. Airbnb and Vrbo collect and remit that automatically under South Carolina's marketplace facilitator statute, so you generally don't touch it yourself. Beaufort County adds nothing extra on top. The South Carolina Department of Revenue's (SCDOR) own local tax designation chart, effective May 1, 2026, shows Beaufort County with no local option, capital projects, or school district sales tax, so the general combined rate there sits at 6% with no county add-on stacking onto the 7% accommodations figure.

The 3% local accommodations tax is the one that lands on you directly. The city caps its own local accommodations tax at the state-law maximum under S.C. Code §§ 6-1-500 through 540, and Beaufort's Business License page confirms it's charged on every customer's nightly stay and collected by the business, meaning you, not the platform, in most cases. It gets remitted to the city monthly rather than folded into what Airbnb or Vrbo already collects for the state. Watch out for the city's own hospitality tax too, a separate 2% charge, but that one applies to prepared food and beverage sales rather than lodging, so it shouldn't touch a straightforward room-night booking.

One thing worth checking directly rather than guessing: the state's own retail-license page says a host who books exclusively through a marketplace like Airbnb or Vrbo doesn't need a separate SCDOR retail license, since the platform holds it and remits on your behalf. Beaufort's own short-term rental summary sheet still tells every applicant to open a state accommodations tax account regardless, so if you're not sure which applies to you, that's a call to SCDOR worth making before your first booking rather than a guess. That local-versus-state split is a preview of the bigger picture: Beaufort's rules sit on top of a state framework that shapes what the city is and isn't allowed to do.

South Carolina Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

South Carolina has no statewide law preempting local short-term rental regulation as of this writing, which is exactly why Beaufort's council was free to rewrite its own caps this spring. Cities and counties across the state set their own zoning, permitting and licensing rules, and nothing in state law stops one from capping density the way Beaufort just did. The South Carolina Vacation Rental Act covers landlord-tenant mechanics instead: written rental agreements, trust-account handling of advance payments by management companies, evacuation-order compliance, and disclosure requirements on sale, none of which limits a city's regulatory reach.

Booking directly outside a marketplace, or renting more than one week per calendar quarter, generally requires your own Retail License from the South Carolina Department of Revenue, applied for on MyDORWAY for a $50 fee that doesn't expire on a fixed cycle. The rules differ meaningfully from one South Carolina city to the next, too. Our statewide South Carolina guide maps that overall picture, and if you're comparing coastal markets, the North Charleston guide shows how a city just up the coast approaches the same questions differently.

Two competing bills sit in committee right now and pull in opposite directions. H. 3861 would bar any city or county from prohibiting short-term rentals at all and strip state funding from ones that try, while S. 442 would do the opposite, affirming local control while setting a statewide baseline (registration, liability insurance, inspection standards) underneath it. A third bill, H. 3876, is actually moving: it passed the House 66-38 in 2025 and was reported favorably by Senate Finance in May 2026, and it would formally define platforms as "accommodations intermediaries" required to collect and remit local taxes too. None of those bills change what's already true today, though, which is that Beaufort enforces its own ordinance, and it's worth understanding how seriously.

Does Beaufort Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Yes, and 2026 is the year that became unmistakable. The city now runs tracking software that cross-references active business licenses against listings advertised online, and an unlicensed operator caught that way faces a flat $1,000 fine. Licensed hosts who break the operating rules face a three-strike system instead: a written warning on the first violation, a $500 fine on the second, and suspension, revocation, or non-renewal of the business license on the third. Property owners or their managers also have to respond to a complaint within one hour of being notified, and adjoining property owners now get notified once a new application is approved, so a neighbor finds out you're operating before you take your first booking rather than after.

A real example from the same reporting shows how this plays out on the ground. Beaufort County Council chairwoman Alice Howard described a house in her own River Acres neighborhood that turned out to be an unlicensed short-term rental, discovered only after she noticed a constantly changing string of visitors next door. Neither she nor her neighbors knew anything about it until she did some digging herself; the owners hadn't registered, and they hadn't been paying the higher property tax rate that comes with rental use either. Once discovered, the property could still be grandfathered in under the new cap if the neighborhood hasn't hit capacity, which is a real gap in how quickly the crackdown bites.

One older penalty from the code is still standing and worth knowing regardless of the new rules: if the city catches your unit operating without a permit and you don't submit an application within 60 days of being notified, you're barred from applying for a short-term rental permit at all for two years. Be aware of that clock if you ever get a notice, because it runs whether or not you agree with it.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Beaufort

Assuming you're ready to do this, the order below matters, since the early steps determine whether the later ones are worth bothering with at all.

1. Confirm you're inside Beaufort city limits, and if you are, check your neighborhood's current cap status directly with the Business License Division rather than trusting the packet's older 6% figure.
2. Read your neighborhood's covenants, if any exist, since you'll need written confirmation from the homeowners' association that short-term rentals are allowed there.
3. Design the rental around the ordinance's mandatory terms before you draft a rental agreement: the two-night minimum, the bedroom-based guest and vehicle caps, and the parking plan.
4. Line up a property manager who can respond to a complaint within one hour, plus a backup for when they're unavailable.
5. Arrange a monitored fire alarm system, one per floor, ready to install once your conditional use permit is approved.
6. Submit the Conditional Use Permit application with the $100 fee, your site plan, the rental agreement, and the management plan.
7. Schedule and pass the $50 safety inspection once staff approves the paper application.
8. Apply for the City of Beaufort business license, the final step before you can legally advertise or accept a booking.
9. Set up your tax accounts: confirm whether the marketplace-only exemption applies to you at the state level, and start collecting the 3% local accommodations tax you'll remit to the city monthly.
10. Diarize your renewal date. Business licenses renew annually by April 30, and a citation under the three-strike system can jeopardize that renewal, on top of whatever fine you already paid.

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

Whichever step you get stuck on, three city offices and one state agency handle almost everything between them.

Applications, fees, and the permit itself

The City of Beaufort Business License Division administers Conditional Use Permits for short-term rentals, the safety inspection, and the business license that comes at the end.

• Address: 1911 Boundary Street, Beaufort, SC 29902
• Phone: (843) 525-7025, or (843) 525-6526 for Justin Rose, Business License Inspector
• Email: [email protected], or [email protected] directly
• Inspection scheduling: (843) 525-7041

Zoning questions

The Planning Division handles questions about which zoning district your property sits in and whether a use is allowed there at all.

• Address: 1911 Boundary Street, Beaufort, SC 29902
• Phone: (843) 525-7070, or (843) 525-7011
• Email: [email protected]

Complaints about an existing rental

Code Enforcement, run by Codes Enforcement Officer Ken Meola, is who a neighbor calls, and who you'll hear from if a complaint gets filed against your unit.

• Address: 1911 Boundary Street, Beaufort, SC 29902
• Phone: (843) 322-7965
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., with phone and email coverage until 5 p.m.
• Online: complaints can also be filed through SeeClickFix

State tax registration

The South Carolina Department of Revenue handles the Retail/Accommodations Tax License and the marketplace-facilitator exemption question.

• Phone: (803) 896-1350
• Email: [email protected]
• Mailing address: PO Box 125, Columbia, SC 29214-0850
• Register online: through MyDORWAY

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

I wasn't able to read Reddit directly for this one, since it blocks the kind of automated access this research relies on, so nothing here claims to speak for what's said there. What follows is my read of a couple of real BiggerPockets threads instead, not a survey.

On a thread called "STR Opportunity Analysis in Beaufort, SC," one poster, Sam Hall, says he confirmed directly with the city that a specific house could be used as a short-term rental, contingent on getting the business license, before moving ahead with a purchase. That matches what I found doing the research myself: legality here is address-specific, so calling the city before you buy is a normal step, not overcaution. Another poster in the same thread, Ken Boone, points to demand drivers that don't show up in most market data. Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island holds graduation ceremonies roughly every three weeks, and rates spike hard around each one, on top of steadier draws like Hunting Island State Park and the local fishing scene.

A second thread, "Bluffton vs. Beaufort?", stayed thinner on Beaufort's own rules specifically, though it's a reminder that investors routinely compare Beaufort against its Lowcountry neighbors rather than evaluating it in isolation. If the new caps make Beaufort feel tight for your plans, the Hilton Head Island market runs under an entirely different set of rules, and its numbers are worth a look before you write the area off.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Beaufort, South Carolina in 2026?

Yes, but it takes a Conditional Use Permit, not just a business license. The city caps short-term rentals at 4% of parcels per neighborhood citywide and 3% inside the historic district, and once a neighborhood hits that cap, new applications go on a waitlist. Existing licensed rentals keep operating regardless. Confirm your neighborhood's current status with the city's Business License Division before assuming a spot is open, since the caps changed in April 2026 and not every city page reflects it yet.

How much does a Beaufort short-term rental permit cost?

The Conditional Use Permit application costs $100, or $1,000 if the unit was already operating before you applied. A separate $50 fee covers the mandatory safety inspection, and the business license that comes at the end has its own income-based fee under the city's rate schedule. None of these are refundable if your neighborhood is already at its cap, so confirm availability before you pay anything.

What taxes does a Beaufort Airbnb host pay?

Three layers apply. A 7% state accommodations tax (5% sales plus 2% accommodations) gets collected and remitted automatically by Airbnb and Vrbo, while a 3% City of Beaufort local accommodations tax gets billed and remitted directly to the city by the host every month. Beaufort County adds no additional local sales tax on top as of May 2026. A separate 2% city hospitality tax exists too, but it applies to prepared food and drink, not to a room-night booking.

What happens if you run a short-term rental in Beaufort without a permit?

The city's tracking software checks business licenses against online listings, and an unlicensed rental caught that way faces a flat $1,000 fine. If you don't submit an application within 60 days of being notified of the violation, you're barred from applying for a permit at all for two years. Licensed hosts who break operating rules face a separate three-strike system: a warning, then a $500 fine, then possible suspension or revocation of the license.

Is The Point neighborhood in Beaufort still off-limits to short-term rentals?

Not anymore. The Point was banned outright starting in 2018, with six existing properties grandfathered in, but the April 28, 2026 ordinance removed that standalone ban. The Point now falls under the same 3% cap that applies to the rest of the National Historic Landmark District rather than being excluded entirely, after several council members argued the separate ban amounted to unfair "spot zoning."

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