Does Georgia's hotel-motel fee apply when commonly owned rental units are spread among separate buildings with fewer than five units each?

Plain-English summary

The property manager did not have to collect Georgia's state hotel-motel fee. The fee required hotel rooms in a building with at least five hotel rooms under common ownership.

Although the property's separate buildings were connected by an open stairwell and flat roof addition, the Department did not treat them as one building. Each building had fewer than five rooms, so neither the property as a whole nor any individual building was a hotel for the fee.

Common questions

Q: Did common ownership combine the rooms across buildings?

A: No. The hotel definition focused on a building with five or more hotel rooms, and the property consisted of separate buildings.

Q: Did the stairwell and roof connection make one building?

A: No. The ruling expressly found that those connections did not merge the buildings for this fee.

Citations and references

• O.C.G.A. § 48-13-50.3(b) -- state hotel-motel fee
• Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 560-13-2-.30-.01(2)(b)-(c) -- hotel and hotel-room definitions

Source

• Landing page: Georgia Sales & Use Tax Letter Rulings
• Original PDF: LR SUT-2015-07

Original ruling text

Date Issued:
September 16, 2015
Georgia Letter Ruling: LR SUT-2015-07
Topic: Hotel-Motel Fee
This letter is in response to your request for guidance on the application of the Georgia hotel-motel fee to a
particular rental property.
Facts as provided by the Taxpayer
Taxpayer manages rental properties. One such property consists of multiple buildings with less than five units each,
all owned by the same entity (the “Property”). The units are rented to individuals on a weekly or monthly basis. A
breezeway runs between each building, and each unit has its own exterior door access off the breezeway. An open
stairwell and flat roof addition connect the buildings. Otherwise, the buildings are separate from one another.
Issue
Is Taxpayer required to collect the hotel-motel fee on rentals of units at the Property?
Analysis
Georgia law imposes a $5.00 per night fee for each calendar night that a hotel room is rented, until the rental
becomes an extended stay rental.1 “Hotel room” means “a room (or suite of conjoined rooms offered as a single
accommodation) (i) in a hotel (ii) that is used to provide private sleeping accommodations to paying customers and
(iii) that typically includes linen or housekeeping service.”2 “Hotel” means “a building that has 5 or more hotel
rooms under common ownership, regardless of the name of the facility and regardless of how the facility classifies
itself.”3
Based on the facts provided, the Property is not a hotel because it is not a single building with five or more hotel
rooms but is instead separate buildings. Although the buildings are connected by a stairwell and roof addition, this
does not make them a single building. In addition, because the separate buildings themselves do not have five or
more hotel rooms, each building is not a hotel for purposes of the hotel-motel fee.
Ruling
Taxpayer is not required to collect the hotel-motel fee on its rentals of units at the Property because neither the
Property nor the buildings are hotels for purposes of O.C.G.A. § 48-13-50.3.
The opinions expressed in this ruling are based upon the information contained in your request and are limited to the
specific transactions, facts, circumstances, and taxpayer in question. Should the circumstances regarding the
transactions change or differ materially from those represented, this ruling may become invalid. Subsequent
statutory or administrative rule changes or judicial interpretations of the statutes or rules upon which this advice is
based may subject similar future transactions to a different tax treatment than that expressed in this ruling.

1

O.C.G.A. § 48-13-50.3(b).
Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 560-13-2-.30-.01(2)(c).
3
Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 560-13-2-.30-.01(2)(b).
2