Hawaii County Rental Registration: The Dec. 31 Deadline

Hawaii County opened its transient vacation rental registration system on September 1, 2026. Every hosted and unhosted rental on the Big Island now has to be in the county's registry, and after the County Council passed Bill 175, the window stays open through year end before violation penalties begin.

The coverage so far has been thin and in places wrong. The bill numbers get merged together, the fees are missing, and two things that decide what a Big Island host should do this fall have gone unwritten. Hawaii defines a transient rental as anything under 180 consecutive days, so the 30 day lease that mainland hosts use to step outside short term rental rules does not work here. And registration is gated on tax compliance, which turns a form into a disclosure decision for anyone renting without a general excise tax license.

Key facts

• Hawaii County's transient vacation rental registration system opened September 1, 2026, covering hosted and unhosted rentals (Hawaii Tribune-Herald).
• A transient vacation rental is any dwelling or room rented for less than 180 consecutive days, per Ordinance No. 25-50.
• Registration costs $250 hosted and $500 unhosted, with renewals of $100 and $250, per the county's TVR information sheet.
• Operating unregistered draws a civil fine of $1,000 to $10,000, plus daily penalties of up to twice the highest daily rate you advertised in the preceding 12 months.
• The Big Island tax stack as of September 2026 is 11% state transient accommodations tax, 3% county transient accommodations tax, and 4.5% general excise tax, or 18.5% of gross rental proceeds.

What changed on September 1

Before September 1, the county regulated rentals through permits, and there was no single roster of who was operating. Now every transient vacation rental has to be in the county's system, whether or not it holds an older permit. Applications run through an online portal linked from the Planning Department's transient vacation rentals page.

Existing permit holders get a break. Rentals registered as short term vacation rentals, holding nonconforming use certificates, or permitted as bed and breakfasts before September 1 are deemed registered and should get instructions by email. Everyone else applies.

One warning: the Planning Department still maintains an older short term vacation rentals page describing only the 2018 framework. A host who lands there will conclude nothing has changed.

Which law does what

Ordinance 25-50 is the registration law, adopted in June 2025 as Bill 47. Its start date moved twice: December 20, 2025 was pushed to July 1, 2026, and registration actually opened September 1, 2026. It sets the definition, fees, application contents, and penalties, and it does not change zoning or cap the number of rentals.

Bill 175 keeps the registration period open through the end of 2026. It matters beyond the calendar: the county's own information sheet, written before the Council acted, still calls the September 1 to December 31 window proposed rather than adopted. The September 8 reporting confirms Bill 175 passed, so the official FAQ is behind the law on the question hosts care most about.

Bill 147 is the zoning and operating rewrite, and it has not passed. It would sort rentals into bed and breakfasts and short term vacation rentals, widen the districts where rentals are allowed, and add management standards, fines, and an enforcement fund. The Policy Committee deferred it to the September 15, 2026 meeting.

Bill 173 would have created a separate property tax classification for bed and breakfasts. It failed at the full Council meeting.

Why a 90 day lease is still a short term rental here

In most US markets, when short term rental rules tighten, the standard move is to switch to 30 or 31 day furnished stays that fall outside the local definition. Beverly Hills is the known exception, where a 12 month floor eliminated the mid term fallback entirely.

Hawaii County sits closer to Beverly Hills than most hosts expect. Ordinance 25-50 covers any unit rented to a transient for less than 180 consecutive days, so 30, 90, and 120 day stays are all in. Traveling nurse contracts, snowbird winters, and crew housing all require registration.

The only exit is a lease of 180 consecutive days or longer, a different business: two tenants a year at long term rents instead of forty guests at nightly rates. Real for some owners, but not the light adjustment a 30 day pivot is elsewhere.

What registration costs and what it asks for

A $90 late fee applies if you miss a renewal by more than 90 days after notice, and a registration expires 90 days after a change in ownership, so a buyer re-registers rather than inheriting the number.

The fees are not the hard part. On an unhosted rental booking 100 nights at $300, the $500 initial fee is 1.7% of $30,000 in gross rental proceeds and the $250 renewal is 0.8%. That cash price sits in the same range our compliance-cost audit found across U.S. jurisdictions: hundreds of dollars, with structural rules binding more than the fee.

The application is the hard part. Alongside the address, tax map key, bedroom count, site and floor drawings, contact details, and building, electrical, and plumbing permit numbers, Ordinance 25-50 requires a certificate of tax clearance showing no delinquent county real property or transient accommodations tax, plus copies of the general excise tax license issued under Hawaii Revised Statutes section 237-9 and the transient accommodations tax certificate of registration under section 237D-4 or 237D-4.5.

You cannot register unless you are already square with the tax system. For an owner renting quietly without a general excise tax license, registration is a disclosure, not paperwork. Councilmember Heather Kimball has put the county's uncollected transient accommodations tax at roughly $12 million a year, which is why the gate exists, and she plans to introduce an amnesty bill in October for operators who have not been in compliance. Anyone in that position should sequence it with a Hawaii tax professional.

The tax stack, and the pass-on math most hosts get wrong

Three taxes apply to Big Island rental income as of September 2026.

State transient accommodations tax: 11%. Act 96, the green fee law, raised the rate by 0.75 percentage points to 11% effective January 1, 2026. Older guides still quote 10.25%, so check the date on anything you read.

County transient accommodations tax: 3%. A valid state transient accommodations tax number makes you deemed registered for the county tax, and state filings count as filed with the county. One return, not two, due by the 20th of the month following the filing period.

General excise tax: 4.5%. The 4% state rate plus Hawaii County's 0.5% surcharge, which runs through December 31, 2030.

Now the part that trips people up. Under state guidance, transient accommodations tax visibly passed on to the guest is exempt from general excise tax, but general excise tax visibly passed on is included in income subject to general excise tax. You owe general excise tax on the general excise tax you collect.

So adding 4.5% does not leave you with 4.5%. You divide rather than subtract, the same arithmetic as covering a platform fee:

0.045 / (1 - 0.045) = 0.047120, or 4.7120%

That is exactly the maximum pass-on rate the Hawaii Department of Taxation publishes for Hawaii County, effective January 1, 2020 through December 31, 2030. Deriving it confirms the mechanic.

Worked example, unhosted rental, 100 nights at $300, so $30,000 in gross rental proceeds:

• State transient accommodations tax at 11%: $3,300
• County transient accommodations tax at 3%: $900
• General excise tax at 4.5%: $1,350
• Total: $5,550, or 18.5% of gross rental proceeds

One more point before you hand this to a manager. Under the same guidance you are the operator and remain liable including interest and penalties, and having an agent file on your behalf does not relieve you of it.

What happens if you do not register

Ordinance 25-50 sets a civil fine of $1,000 to $10,000 for operating unregistered. The second penalty has gone unreported: daily penalties of up to twice the highest daily rate you advertised in the preceding 12 months.

Run that against the example above. A listing that advertised $300 a night at its peak faces up to $600 per day, so ten days unregistered is up to $6,000, twelve times the $500 registration fee. Unpaid fines can become a lien after a year, and for hosted rentals the owner and host are jointly and severally liable.

Detection is not a coin flip either. Hosting platforms must register, pay $1,000, and file monthly reports within 14 days of month end listing every rental with its tax map key and registration numbers. The county gets a list every month and matches it against the registry. This is the platform accountability model we covered when Clark County moved to block bookings for unlicensed rentals: enforcement stops depending on a neighbor complaint.

What to do before December 31

1. Confirm your tax licenses first. A missing general excise tax license or transient accommodations tax certificate is the blocking item, not the registration form. New registrations go through Form BB-1 with the state Department of Taxation.
2. Clear any delinquent county tax, since the application requires a tax clearance.
3. Assemble the file: tax map key, bedroom count, site and floor drawings, contact details, and building, electrical, and plumbing permit numbers.
4. Register through the county portal and record your registration number where your listings and your bookkeeping can both reach it.
5. Check your rate math. If you pass general excise tax through, use 4.7120%, not 4.5%.
6. Then decide about channels. Registration is a fact about your property, not about where you advertise.

On that last point: once registration and tax filing are handled at the property level, the channel question becomes straight economics. Haven builds branded direct booking websites for short term rental hosts on their own domain, with no booking commission, so hosts keep the guest relationship and the guest data (bookwithhaven.com).

What to watch next

September 15, 2026: Bill 147 returns to the Council. It would change where rentals may operate, so a host in a district that currently prohibits them has more riding on it than on the registration form.

October 2026: Kimball's amnesty bill. If you are behind on general excise or transient accommodations tax, its terms may change the order in which you should do things.

December 31, 2026: the window closes. Nothing in the current record suggests a second extension, so plan for the date as written.

If you track rules in more than one market, our state by state guide to what changed in 2026 covers the wider picture, and the federal side is in our post on quarterly estimated taxes for hosts.

FAQ

Do I have to register my Big Island vacation rental, and what is the deadline? Yes, if you rent it for less than 180 consecutive days. Registration opened September 1, 2026 and the window created by Bill 175 runs through December 31, 2026. Rentals holding valid county permits, nonconforming use certificates, or bed and breakfast permits before September 1 are deemed registered.

How much does it cost to register a transient vacation rental in Hawaii County? $250 for a hosted rental, where the owner's principal home is on the property, and $500 for an unhosted rental. Annual renewals are $100 and $250. Hosting platforms pay $1,000.

Does a 60 day rental in Hawaii County count as a short term rental? Yes. Ordinance 25-50 covers any rental of less than 180 consecutive days, so 30, 60, 90, and 120 day stays are included. Only a lease of 180 consecutive days or more falls outside it.

What taxes do I owe on a Big Island rental? As of September 2026, 11% state transient accommodations tax, 3% county transient accommodations tax, and 4.5% general excise tax, or 18.5% of gross rental proceeds. The transient accommodations tax is filed once with the state and counts as filed with the county.