Canton, OH Short-Term Rentals: Taxes & Fees (2026)

Canton Codified Ordinances Chapter 185 does not carve out a separate short-term rental tax; instead it reaches short-term lodging through its broad definition of Hotel in section 185.03(c), covering every establishment kept, used, maintained, advertised or held out to the public as offering sleeping accommodations regardless of use of keyed entry, whether the rooms are in one or several structures, language broad enough to catch a single Airbnb-style unit booked online. Where an owner lists through an online platform, that platform is a Booking Agent under section 185.03(b): any person or entity that facilitates reservations or collects payment for hotel accommodations on behalf of a vendor, though merely running an ad does not make a site a booking agent.

Section 185.17 imposes direct compliance duties on these booking agents: on the Administrator's request they must supply a list of every vendor whose Canton listing they carry, and under section 185.17(c) they must notify each vendor of its Canton tax and license obligations the first time it lists a property and again every year as a reminder, in language the City Treasurer, acting as Administrator, provides or approves. A booking agent that itself collects the 3% transient lodging tax on a host's behalf may remit directly to the City, relieving the host of collection duty for that transaction; if the agent does not collect for every listing, section 185.17(b) requires it to send the City a quarterly list of the Canton properties it did not collect and remit for.

The underlying 3% rate, the thirty-day transient guest threshold, and the quarterly filing and three-year recordkeeping rules in sections 185.06 and 185.07 apply to booking-agent-collected stays exactly as they do to a traditional hotel.