Stonecrest, GA Short-Term Rentals: Taxes & Fees (2026)

The City of Stonecrest's short-term vacation rental (STVR) article, adopted by Ordinance No. 2018-06-01 and codified at City Code § 15.18.4, sets the fee schedule owners must follow to keep a rental legal. The initial 2018 rental application fee was $100 per rental unit, and the annual renewal fee remains $100 per unit every year after. The city requires payment by January 1, and an owner who misses that date has only 90 days before the account is treated as delinquent under the occupation-tax and business-license penalty provisions of Chapter 15, Article II.

Each STVR property gets its own business tax certificate under § 15.18.4(b), and that certificate is not transferable: if ownership changes, the new owner must file a fresh application and pay the fee again from scratch. Swapping the required STVR management company (the local contact who fields code-enforcement issues) triggers a separate $25 administrative fee under § 15.18.4(e), lighter than a full reapplication. Owners who never file at all face a $100 fine for every month the unit keeps operating without a valid certificate, per § 15.18.4(c); Planning and Zoning tracks each property in a database that logs citations against it, per § 15.18.3(c).

Every advertisement for the unit, on any platform, must display the business tax certificate number under § 15.18.4(f), giving code enforcement an easy way to flag unlisted rentals. On top of the STVR-specific fee, § 15.18.6 requires every STVR to remit Stonecrest's hotel and motel tax, so the $100 registration fee is a floor, not the whole cost of running a legal short-term rental in the city.