Hotel tax and long stays: what changes after 30 nights

The short version

• Texas: the state hotel tax does not apply to a guest who has the right to use a room for at least 30 consecutive days, as long as payment does not stop.
• Clark County, Nevada (Las Vegas area): the transient lodging tax stops from the 31st consecutive day of the same stay.
• The hotel collects the tax. It decides, with its own tax adviser, how the rule applies to your booking. Ask before you arrive.

Texas

The state hotel occupancy tax is 6 percent of the price paid for the room. Cities and counties can add their own hotel tax on top. The Comptroller says the combined state, county, city and venue taxes cannot go over 17 percent.

The state tax code says the hotel tax does not apply to a person who has the right to use or hold a room in a hotel for at least 30 consecutive days, as long as there is no break in payment for that period (Tax Code Sec. 156.101).

The Comptroller adds two practical points. If you tell the hotel in writing that you plan to stay 30 days or more, you are exempt from the date you tell them, as long as you stay 30 days after that. If you do not tell the hotel, you pay the tax for the first 30 days and are exempt after that. Any break in the stay voids the exemption.

The Comptroller also says the local hotel tax does not apply to a permanent resident, meaning someone who rents a room for 30 or more consecutive days.

Clark County, Nevada

Clark County Code defines a permanent resident as someone with the right to occupy a room at the same lodging place for 31 consecutive days or more. For that person, rent is exempt from the transient lodging tax on the 31st day and every day after, as long as they keep the right to occupy the room (Code 4.08.005).

The county code also has a separate exemption for licensed apartment houses with a written lease longer than 30 days (Code 4.08.050). That is about apartments, not hotel rooms.

What to ask the hotel

• Will you charge hotel tax on my stay, and from which night does it stop?
• Do I need to tell you in writing that I plan to stay a month or more?
• What happens if I check out early or move rooms? A break in the stay can cancel the exemption.
• Will the tax show as its own line on the bill?

Other states

Other states have their own rules and their own day counts. We add a state only after we check it against the official source. This is general information, not tax advice.