Bucks County, PA Hotels & Lodging: Transient Occupancy Tax (2026)

Ordinance No. 158 raised the county's lodging room rental tax to 5% of the consideration each hotel operator receives for renting a room to travelers, visitors or short-term guests, effective January 22, 2019, superseding the 3% rate the Commissioners had set by resolution in 2002 and the 1%/2% rate from 1992. The tax reaches hotels, motels, inns, guesthouses, rooming houses, bed and breakfasts and similar lodging, but Section A carves out charitable institutions, permanent-resident housing, occupied college dormitories, registered children's camps, hospitals, nursing homes and non-cabin campground sites.

Under Section C, the operator collects the tax from the paying guest and remits it to the Bucks County Treasurer, who deposits the revenue into a special fund dedicated to travel and tourism promotion and advertising. Section D directs the County to retain a 4% administrative fee off the top, then splits the remaining net collections: 80% goes to the Bucks County Conference and Visitors Bureau (aside from a $25,000 annual set-aside the Commissioners may direct to a county tourism project), and the remaining 20% is divided between the Visitors Bureau and a nonprofit-tourism grant program, after a $50,000 annual allotment to the County.

Section E limits how that money can be spent: marketing Bucks County as a leisure and convention destination, advertising and trade-show participation, and grants requiring at least a 25% local match. Section G preserves enforcement of any pending or future suit under prior resolutions that this ordinance rescinds.