What gets collected on a Vineyard booking
| Rate | What it is |
|---|---|
| 5.7% | State room occupancy excise. Applies everywhere in Massachusetts. |
| 6.0% | Local option excise. All six Martha’s Vineyard towns are at the full 6%. |
| 2.75% | Cape Cod and Islands Water Protection Fund excise. Oak Bluffs only, on stays from October 1, 2026. The money goes to water quality and wastewater projects. |
| 11.7% | Total in Edgartown, Tisbury (Vineyard Haven), West Tisbury, Chilmark and Aquinnah. |
| 14.45% | Total in Oak Bluffs from October 1, 2026. |
Oak Bluffs’ Select Board voted in July 2026 to join the Water Protection Fund, the first Vineyard town to do so. The excise was created in 2018 for Barnstable County towns, and other island towns can vote to join, so expect this list to grow. It is collected and filed through the same Department of Revenue room occupancy system. If you have a booking made before October 1 for a stay after it, check with the Department of Revenue which rate applies.
One more charge exists but does not apply to most Vineyard owners: a community impact fee of up to 3% that a town may adopt for professionally managed units, meaning an operator with two or more rental units in that same town. Rates change by town vote, so the Department of Revenue’s Municipal Databank is the place to confirm what applies to your address in any season.
Taxable rent is more than the weekly rate
Since July 2019, “rent” includes essentially everything the guest pays to stay: cleaning fees, linen fees, pet fees, booking and processing fees, and damage waivers or insurance products. Bona fide refundable security deposits are excluded. If the total rent is under $15 a day, no tax is due.
So on a $10,000 week with a $400 cleaning fee, the tax is figured on $10,400, not $10,000. The guest pays it on top of the rent; it is not taken out of your income, but someone has to collect it and send it in correctly.
Who actually files the returns
When an agency or platform collects the rent, it is the intermediary: it collects the tax, files and pays it, and within 30 days of filing must report to you what was collected and paid, so you have a record for your accountant. For every booking we handle, we do exactly that, and you do not file anything for that rent.
The exception is rent you collect directly from a guest without an intermediary. That rent is yours to report, on a monthly return due by the 30th day of the month after the stay.
Owners who take some bookings themselves and others through an agency end up with two sets of filings for the same property, and things get missed. Keeping every booking on one system avoids that split entirely.
The 14-day exemption
If you rent a property 14 days or fewer in a calendar year, you can claim an exemption and collect no tax, but you still have to register, and the exemption has to be renewed by January 15 each year. Go over 14 nights and you owe tax on the first 14 too. Details are in our registration guide.
Questions we hear
Is the tax paid by me or by the guest?
By the guest, on top of the rent. Your job, or your agent’s, is to collect it and pay it correctly.
Is the cleaning fee taxed?
Yes. Cleaning, linen, pet, booking and processing fees all count as rent. A refundable security deposit does not.
Does the Oak Bluffs 2.75% apply to my home?
If the home is in Oak Bluffs, yes, on stays from October 1, 2026. It is charged to the guest on top of the rent, like the rest of the occupancy tax. For homes we rent, we add it to every Oak Bluffs booking and file it for you.
Do monthly rentals pay occupancy tax?
Stays of more than 31 consecutive days are not short-term rentals and are not subject to the room occupancy excise.
Updated October 2026. General information, not tax or legal advice: rules and rates change, so confirm with the Department of Revenue, your town and your own advisor before acting.