Roanoke County, VA Short-Term Rentals: Taxes & Fees (2026)

Chapter 21, Article IX is Roanoke County's transient occupancy tax, and its definitions in Sec. 21-201 reach short-term rentals even though the article never uses that term. Sec. 21-201(c) defines 'hotel' to include not just conventional hotels and motels but any structure, or any portion of any structure, occupied or intended for occupancy by transients for dwelling, lodging or sleeping purposes, that offers lodging for five or more persons at a time for compensation, which sweeps in a short-term rental house or accessory apartment rented out short-term.

Sec. 21-201(k) then reaches the booking platforms themselves: an 'accommodations intermediary' is any person other than the operator who facilitates the sale of an accommodation, charges a room charge to the customer, and charges an accommodations fee to the customer, which fee it retains as compensation for facilitating the sale, covering brokering or arranging a stay through a payment processor. Sec. 21-202 sets the tax itself at seven percent of the total rent charged to the transient, payable at the time rent is paid, with the operator or accommodations intermediary responsible for collecting it.

Sec. 21-205 requires whoever collects the tax, whether the property owner or the booking platform, to file a quarterly report with the commissioner of the revenue and remit the tax to the treasurer by the last day of October, January, April and July, covering the preceding three months.