STR Tax by Address: The Lodging Tax Airbnb Stops Collecting When You Book Direct

Does Airbnb collect all my short-term rental taxes?

Usually not. Most states have marketplace-facilitator laws, which make the platform (the "marketplace facilitator") collect tax from the guest at checkout and send it to the taxing authority. Your name is on none of that paperwork. The catch is that each platform only collects the specific taxes it has registered for or signed an agreement to collect, and it publishes that list jurisdiction by jurisdiction.

Florida shows the gap clearly. Airbnb's Florida help page lists three things it collects statewide: the 6% state transient rental tax, the county discretionary sales surtax (0.5% to 1.5% depending on the county), and tourist development tax in the counties where the state administers it. Bay County, home of Panama City Beach, runs its own tourist development tax, and the Bay County Clerk says it plainly: "There is no agreement between Bay County and any online platform (Airbnb, VRBO, Homeaway, etc) to receive payment of taxes on behalf of the property owner." So a Bay County host owes that 5% on every Airbnb booking, even though the payout statement shows tax being collected.

Ohio goes further. Airbnb's Ohio page names exactly three places where it collects: Cuyahoga County, Cincinnati and Cleveland. Everywhere else in the state, any local lodging tax that applies is the host's job on every booking.

The only way to know is to read your platform's page for your state, then compare it against every layer that actually applies to your address. Airbnb keeps an index of those pages in its Help Center.

What is the lodging tax stack for a short-term rental?

A rental sits in several taxing jurisdictions at once, and each one can set its own rate, registration and return. The stack usually has three floors, and one of them is sometimes empty.

The empty floor surprises people. Ohio charges its 5.75% state sales tax on lodging only at a "hotel," which Ohio Revised Code 5739.01(M) defines as a place with five or more rooms used for guests. A three-bedroom house rented whole is not a hotel under that definition, so there is no state layer at all. What can exist is a local one: since March 27, 2020, ORC 5739.091 has let a county, township or city pull places with fewer than five rooms into its lodging tax. Many have. Many have not. The only way to know is to ask your county auditor.

What taxes do I owe on a direct booking?

All of them. When a guest books through your own site, texts you to rebook, or pays you by invoice, there is no marketplace facilitator in the deal. Every layer in the stack is yours to charge the guest, register for, report and remit, including the state layer Airbnb had been handling. Nobody adds the tax at checkout unless you build it into your booking engine or invoice, and the jurisdictions expect the money on the same schedule either way.

In Panama City Beach, that is the difference between owing 6% and 13% of the booking. On a $1,000 stay, about $60 on an Airbnb booking and about $130 on a direct one, before you count the separate returns. The tax bases can differ slightly (what counts as taxable rent, whether a cleaning fee is in it), so treat those as round numbers and let each agency's rules settle the pennies.

The first direct booking is when to register, not the first letter. In Florida that means a sales tax certificate from the Department of Revenue for the 6% and the surtax, on top of the county and city accounts you already had. Once the tax is in your account, it is money you are holding for someone else. It belongs in a liability account, not in rent, which is the whole argument of the occupancy tax passthrough post, and it stays off Schedule E Line 3.

What does the stack look like at three real addresses?

These three are real jurisdictions with rates as published in September 2026. They show three different shapes. They are not a substitute for checking your own address, since rates change and can differ between towns in the same county.

Panama City Beach, Florida

Four layers, two collectors. Airbnb collects the 6% state tax and Bay County's 1% discretionary surtax. The 5% tourist development tax goes to Bay County directly, because the county has no platform agreement. The City of Panama City Beach adds a 1% business tax on gross receipts and says that hosts using Vrbo or Airbnb are responsible for reporting and paying it to the city themselves. One detail matters this fall. The Clerk's page says administration of the tourist development tax moves to the Bay County Tax Collector's Office on October 1, 2026, so check which portal takes the September return due October 20.

Elgin, Oklahoma

Elgin voters approved a 7% lodging tax, and the Oklahoma Tax Commission listed it effective April 2026. According to local coverage of the ballot measure, the Tax Commission collects it and sends the money to the city. That matters because Airbnb's Oklahoma page says it collects "state-administered local lodging tax" along with the 4.5% state sales tax and local sales tax. So on an Airbnb booking in Elgin, the 7% is most likely covered. An earlier version of this post said the host files it with the city; that was wrong, and we corrected it on September 24. On a direct booking, all of it is yours, reported to the Tax Commission rather than to city hall. Check that Elgin's lodging tax shows up as a line on your Airbnb earnings report before you rely on it, because a brand-new local tax is exactly where a platform's setup can lag.

A whole house in rural Ohio

No state lodging tax (the five-room rule above), and Airbnb collects nothing unless the house is in Cuyahoga County, Cincinnati or Cleveland. Whether you owe anything depends entirely on whether your county, township or city has used ORC 5739.091 to reach rentals under five rooms. If it has, you register and file with that local office on every booking, platform or direct. If it has not, the stack is empty. This is the rare case where booking direct changes nothing, because there was never a platform-collected layer to lose.

How do I find the lodging tax for my property address?

Work top down and write three things for each layer: the rate, whether you have to register, and the filing schedule.

1. State. Find the tax on accommodations on your department of revenue site. Check whether it applies to your kind of property at all (Ohio's five-room rule is the classic trap), and whether Airbnb and Vrbo are registered to collect it.
2. County. Search your county name with "tourist development tax," "lodging tax" or "transient occupancy tax." Many counties run their own portal, separate from the state. Note whether the county has a platform agreement. Bay County publishes that it does not.
3. City, town or township. Search the municipality with "lodging tax," "occupancy tax" or "short-term rental." This is the layer most likely to be new: Elgin's did not exist before April 2026.
4. Match each layer against the platform's page. For every layer, answer the question in Figure 2. The layers that come out "you" are the ones you register for.

If you own more than one property, do this per address, not per state. Two houses fifteen minutes apart can sit in different stacks, and if they are in different LLCs the registrations can differ too.

When are lodging tax returns due?

Monthly is the most common schedule, and the 20th of the following month is a very common due date. Bay County wants its return by the 20th. Florida's Department of Revenue treats sales tax as due on the 1st and late after the 20th. Oklahoma Tax Commission sales tax returns are due the 20th. Local offices set their own dates, and the city layer in particular can run on a different day and a different portal from the county.

File in the empty months too. Bay County's instructions say "A tax return must be prepared each month, even if there is no income to report," and late reports lose the collection allowance and draw interest plus a minimum $50 penalty. That is how an off-season month with no bookings turns into a bill. The Q4 checklist has October as the month to confirm every jurisdiction has a return on file for every month so far this year, $0 months included.

The other habit worth building is a monthly tie-out: tax collected (from the platform's reports and your direct invoices) against tax remitted (from the bank feed). If those numbers drift, the gap usually shows up in the same place as the Airbnb bank reconciliation gap, because the payout already had the platform-collected tax taken out.

Where this shows up in RentReel

RentReel's Schedule E page has a Tax Copilot card that reads each property's address and lists the state line and the local lodging line, each with who collects it, the filing schedule and the due day. Lines sourced to a tax authority are marked verified. Everything else is marked "confirm," which means we have not verified that jurisdiction yet and you fill it in once rather than trust a guess. Verified local rates cover a short list of places today, and that list grows one sourced jurisdiction at a time. The card computes local lodging tax on revenue from stays that have already happened, and the Occupancy Tax Passthrough Tracker below it compares tax collected against tax remitted for each property, counting remittances it can see in your bank feed.

RentReel keeps the books and your CPA files the returns. Tax Copilot is researched guidance, not tax advice, and it does not prepare or file lodging tax returns.

Related deep dives

• The occupancy tax passthrough: why collected lodging tax is a liability, not rent, and the partial-collection trap by platform.
• The gross rent trap in PMS exports: the column labeled "gross" that is not.
• Schedule E line by line: Line 3 and the tax that stays off it.
• The Airbnb bank reconciliation gap: where payouts, fees and collected tax stop matching.
• The Q4 STR tax checklist: the October lodging tax audit and the rest of the fall calendar.
• 1099s for STR cleaners and contractors: the other January filing that direct-booking operators pick up.
• Multi-LLC STR portfolios: when each entity carries its own registrations.

Sources

• Airbnb Help Center, Areas where tax collection and remittance by Airbnb is available, with the state pages for Florida, Oklahoma and Ohio. Read September 24, 2026.
• Bay County Clerk of Court and Comptroller, Tourist Development Tax: the 5% rate, the taxing district, no platform agreement, monthly returns by the 20th including $0 months, the $50 minimum penalty, and the October 1, 2026 move to the Tax Collector.
• City of Panama City Beach, Business Registration: the 1% business tax on gross receipts and host responsibility when using Airbnb or Vrbo.
• Florida Department of Revenue, DR-15DSS (2026): county discretionary sales surtax rates, including Bay County.
• Bloomberg Tax, "Oklahoma Tax Commission Updates Sales, Lodging Tax Rates for Elgin, Copan" (March 9, 2026) and Southwest Ledger, "Elgin to put lodging tax on ballot": the 7% rate, April 2026 start, and Tax Commission collection.
• Ohio Revised Code 5739.01(M) and (N) (the five-room hotel definition, the 30-day transient rule) and 5739.091 (local option for fewer than five rooms, effective March 27, 2020).

Disclaimer

Disclaimer

RentReel is bookkeeping software, not a tax advisor, and RentReel does not prepare or file tax returns. Marketplace-facilitator rules, state sales and transient taxes, county tourist-development taxes, and city lodging taxes all vary by location, interact with your specific facts, and change with the law. Every rate and example in this article, including Panama City Beach, Elgin and Ohio, reflects published sources as of September 24, 2026 and must be confirmed with the relevant county, city, or a licensed CPA before you rely on it. This is researched guidance, not tax advice. Consult a licensed CPA, ideally one who specializes in short-term rentals, for your situation.