Short-term rental rules in Morehead City, NC

What Morehead City asks of you

• No section of the city code sets a permit, fee or register for renting a home short term.^[6]

• The development code in force dates from 2001. The city is rewriting it under a project called Advance Morehead City.^[8]

• A bed and breakfast inn, in the code's definition, is a house offering short-term lodging rooms with breakfast.^[7]

• Inns of that kind are allowed by right in the CD and DB downtown districts. In the O & P district they need a special use permit.^[7]

• A bed and breakfast needs one off-street parking space per rented room. One more is required for every two employees.^[7]

• During festivals and other events the council authorizes, the music limit starts at midnight instead.^[9]

• The owner, tenant or occupant rolls the cart to the curb, outside the traveled lane. The city does not collect from alleys.^[10]

What North Carolina asks wherever you host

These rules apply at this address whatever the city decides.

• Under G.S. 160D-1207(c), no North Carolina city can make registration a condition of renting your property. Demanding a housing-code permit before you rent is barred as well. The Court of Appeals applied that rule in Schroeder v. City of Wilmington.^[1]

• Zoning is what remains. In that case the court let a city keep whole-house lodging inside named districts. Parking rules survived too, as did limits on large events. So did insurance conditions and posted safety information.^[1]

• Renting out a private residence or cottage owes North Carolina's 4.75% sales tax. Local and transit rates come on top. So does any occupancy tax levied by the city or county. Sales tax stops once a single guest has stayed ninety days in a row.^[3]