Surfside Beach, TX short-term rental registration

What Surfside Beach asks of you

• Section 44-44 of the village code limits the definition to stays shorter than 30 consecutive days.^[4]

• The village's web page defines it instead as a unit rented for 30 days or less.^[3]

• You must hold the registration before listing the property on Airbnb, Vrbo or a similar platform.^[3]

• The local contact named on the form must be available 24 hours a day. Complaints get an in-person response within one hour, followed by remedial action.^[4]

• Each property gets a registration number and a placard posted where it can be seen from the street.^[4]

• The registration number must appear in any advertisement for the property.^[4]

• On the village's web page, the first fee depends on the signup date. It is $200 from January through June, $100 from July through September and $50 from October 1 to December 30.^[3]

• Renewal costs $200, and the same page says every registration expires on December 31.^[3]

• An older registration form, still posted by the village, lists a $50 hotel occupancy tax registration fee.^[5]

• Section 44-48 words validity differently. A registration counts from the day it is filed and paid, unless ownership of the rental changes.^[4]

• Section 44-45 sets the village hotel occupancy tax at 5% of rent. Section 44-46, in the same article, tells lodging providers to collect 4%.^[4]

• The village page also states 5%, for a total of 11% with the state's 6%.^[3]

• According to the village page, local returns are quarterly. Each is due on the 20th of the month after the quarter closes, even when no tax is owed.^[3]

• Section 44-54 calls for a monthly report, filed even for a month without rentals.^[4]

• Fines under the article reach $500, counted per offense or per day of a continuing violation.^[4]

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]