Must an owner collect Georgia's $5-per-night hotel-motel fee when three condominiums are separate buildings rented only as whole units?

Plain-English summary

The owner did not have to collect Georgia's state hotel-motel fee on the condominium rentals. The fee applied to rooms in a hotel, and a hotel required one building with at least five hotel rooms under common ownership.

Here, the property consisted of three separate condominium buildings. Each entire condominium was rented as one accommodation, so its individual bedrooms were not separate hotel rooms. The three-building property was not one qualifying hotel building, and no condominium building contained five or more hotel rooms.

Common questions

Q: Why were the bedrooms not counted separately?

A: Guests rented the entire condominium and had access to all its rooms; the bedrooms were not offered as separate accommodations.

Q: Did common ownership of three buildings make the property one hotel?

A: No. The cited definition required a building with five or more hotel rooms, and the property consisted of three separate buildings.

Citations and references

• O.C.G.A. § 48-13-50.3(b) -- state hotel-motel fee
• Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 560-13-2-.30-.01(2)(b) -- hotel definition
• Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 560-13-2-.30-.01(2)(c) -- hotel-room definition

Source

• Landing page: Georgia Sales & Use Tax Letter Rulings
• Original PDF: LR SUT-2016-07

Original ruling text

Date Issued: March 4, 2016
Georgia Letter Ruling: LR SUT-2016-07
Topic: Hotel/Motel Fee
This letter is in response to your request for guidance on the application of the Georgia hotel-motel fee to a particular
rental property.
Facts Presented by Taxpayer
[Redacted] (“Taxpayer”) owns rental properties. One such property (the “Property”) contains three condominiums.
Each condominium is a separate building, and each is rented as a single accommodation on a weekly or monthly basis.
The bedrooms in the condominiums are not individually rented as single accommodations (i.e., the guest renting the
condominium unit has access to all of the rooms within the unit). Taxpayer pays property tax and homeowner
association fees for each condominium unit individually.
Issue
Is Taxpayer required to collect the hotel-motel fee on rentals of units at the Property?
Analysis
Georgia law imposes a $5.00 per night fee for each calendar night that a hotel room is rented, until the rental becomes
an extended stay rental.1 “Hotel room” means “a room (or suite of conjoined rooms offered as a single accommodation)
(i) in a hotel (ii) that is used to provide private sleeping accommodations to paying customers and (iii) that typically
includes linen or housekeeping service.” 2 “Hotel” means “a building that has 5 or more hotel rooms under common
ownership, regardless of the name of the facility and regardless of how the facility classifies itself.”3
Based on the facts provided, the Property is not a hotel because it is not a single building with five or more hotel rooms
but is instead three separate buildings. Furthermore, the bedrooms in the condominiums are not separate hotel rooms
because the rooms together make up one single accommodation, and the guest renting the condominium unit has
access to all of the rooms within the unit. Thus, because the bedrooms in the condominium units are not separate hotel
rooms, the condominium units are not themselves hotels because they do not have five or more hotel rooms.
Ruling
Taxpayer is not required to collect the hotel-motel fee on its rentals of units at the Property because neither the
Property, nor the condominium buildings are hotels for purposes of O.C.G.A. § 48-13-50.3.
The opinions expressed in this ruling are based upon the information contained in your request and are limited to the
specific transactions, facts, circumstances, and taxpayer in question. Should the circumstances regarding the
transactions change or differ materially from those represented, this ruling may become invalid. Subsequent statutory
or administrative rule changes or judicial interpretations of the statutes or rules upon which this advice is based may
subject similar future transactions to a different tax treatment than that expressed in this ruling.

1

O.C.G.A. § 48-13-50.3(b).
Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 560-13-2-.30-.01(2)(c).
3
Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 560-13-2-.30-.01(2)(b).
2