Albany, OR Hotels & Lodging: Transient Occupancy Tax (2026)

The tax comes from Albany Municipal Code § 3.14.040, part of Chapter 3.14, the Transient Room Tax Ordinance. For the privilege of occupancy in any lodging facility, each transient pays nine percent of the rent charged by the lodging tax collector. The section was last amended by Ord. 6061 in 2025, and the nine percent rate has applied on and after July 1, 1999. The tax is a debt owed by the transient to the City, extinguished only by payment to the lodging tax collector or to the City.

The definitions in § 3.14.020 decide who is covered. A lodging facility is a structure occupied or intended for transient occupancy for 30 days or less, and the list includes hotels, inns, motels, bed and breakfasts, rooming houses, apartment houses, vacation rentals, clubs, and space in mobile home or trailer parks. A transient is an individual who has occupancy for 30 consecutive calendar days or less, counting portions of days as full days. The checkout day is not counted if the collector does not charge rent for it. Someone who pays monthly is not a transient. The small-establishment exemption formerly in § 3.14.025 is repealed.

The transient pays the tax to the hotel or other lodging tax collector at the time the rent is paid. A collector on the cash accounting basis enters the tax when rent is collected, and one on the accrual basis enters it when earned. If rent is paid in installments, a proportionate share of the tax is paid with each installment. The taxable rent excludes the sale of goods, services and commodities other than the furnishing of rooms, accommodations, and parking space in mobile home parks or trailer parks. Where a rent package plan charges one rate for food and rent, the amount applied to rent is the same charge made for rent when it is not part of a package.

Section 3.14.050 lists what the tax is not imposed on: an occupant for more than 30 successive calendar days, a hospital room or rent paid to a medical clinic, convalescent home or home for aged people, a federal employee traveling on federal business, and an occupant whose rent is paid by the Red Cross or another relief organization for temporary emergency housing. The Finance Director, or the delegate the City names, serves as Tax Administrator, and that role can include the Oregon Department of Revenue.