Port Aransas, TX short-term rental registration

What Port Aransas asks of you

• Registration records the operator's name, address, email and telephone number, and the name, address, email and twenty-four-hour telephone number of a designated local contact person.^[3]

• That local contact must be available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and able to respond in person within one hour. That covers complaints about the condition or operation of the property or the conduct of its occupants.^[3]

• The registration also states the property's mailing and physical address and the number of sleeping rooms with the occupancy limit that applies.^[3]

• The registration expires on December 31 each year and the fee is not prorated, so a December registration costs the same as a January one.^[3]

• You also register with the finance department for the hotel and motel tax, which the city treats as part of the same process.^[3]

What Texas asks wherever you host

These rules apply at this address whatever the city decides.

• Texas issues no state short-term rental license. What the state does impose is its hotel occupancy tax. The Comptroller applies it to houses, condominiums and apartments, not only to hotels.^[1]

• A room priced at $15 or more a day owes the state 6 percent. Local hotel taxes start lower, at $2 a day for a sleeping room. The local taxing authority collects those itself.^[1]

• After thirty consecutive days without interruption, a guest becomes a permanent resident, exempt from the tax. A guest who announces that plan in writing is exempt from the date of the notice. Any interruption voids it.^[2]