Harford County, MD Hotels & Lodging: Transient Occupancy Tax (2026)

County Code Section 123-64 states the rule plainly: there is a hotel occupancy tax levied on the rent paid for use or occupancy of a room in a hotel in the County, the rate of the tax is 6% of the rent paid, and the tax is not levied on use or occupancy exceeding 30 consecutive days. Section 123-63 defines HOTEL broadly to include an inn, motel, cottage, hostelry, rooming house, guest house, bed-and-breakfast or tourist home, but then carves out any of those same lodging types when they have 3 or fewer separate sleeping rooms; a small owner-operated bed-and-breakfast under that threshold is not a hotel for tax purposes at all.

RENT is defined to include service charges and booking fees that are a condition of occupancy, but not optional add-on services billed separately on the guest's bill. Every hotel owner or operator subject to the tax must register with the County Treasurer under Section 123-66, give guests a bill that lists the tax as a separate line item, collect it, and remit it by the 25th of each month with a return under Section 123-67; the collected tax is held in trust for the County until it is paid over.

Half of the tax collected from a hotel inside Bel Air, Aberdeen or Havre de Grace goes back to that municipality; the County splits the remaining balance between Visit Harford, Incorporated and Council-district tourism funding under Section 123-68, with distributions made between the 15th and 30th of each month.