Ankeny, IA Short-Term Rentals: Taxes & Fees (2026)

Ankeny Code of Ordinances Chapter 10, the Hotel/Motel Tax chapter, defines "lodging" broadly at § 10.01 to include rooms, apartments or sleeping quarters in a hotel, motel, inn, public lodging house, rooming house, manufactured or mobile home, tourist court, or "any place where sleeping accommodations are furnished to transient guests for rent, whether with or without meals," language that reaches short-term rental listings and not just traditional hotels. Section 10.02 imposes a 7% local tax on the sales price from renting that lodging within the City, layered on top of the state sales tax the same Iowa Code chapter authorizes.

Section 10.03 then draws the short-term/long-term line for tax purposes: subsection 1 exempts the sales price once the same renter occupies the unit for more than 31 consecutive days, while subsection 2 extends a further exemption to hotel, motel, inn, public lodging house or rooming house stays once the same guest passes 90 consecutive days. Other carve-outs cover religious-retreat lodging on property exempt under Iowa Code § 427.1(8), university and college dormitory or memorial union rooms located in the City, and nonprofit lodging supplied to a hospital patient's family during a medical need.

Section 10.04 requires the tax to be remitted by the person or company liable for it directly to the State Director of Revenue, in the manner State law requires, rather than to Ankeny City Hall, and § 10.05 sends at least 50 percent of what the City receives to recreation, convention, cultural or entertainment facilities, or debt issued for them, with the remainder available for any authorized City operation.