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Hotel And Lodging Tax In Alabama 2026: TOT Rates By City
Alabama exempts long stays after 180 days, six times longer than most states, and every city's local rate exists only because the legislature passed a specific law for it. See 2026 rates by city.
August 28, 2026
6
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TL;DR
- Alabama calls its hotel tax the Lodgings Tax, combining a state rate with a county and city rate, each individually authorized rather than levied under a general local power.
- "Hotel tax," "lodging tax," "occupancy tax," "bed tax," and "lodgings tax" all describe the same charge, but the exact stack differs by city.
- The state rate isn't flat: it's 5% in 16 counties that make up the "Alabama Mountain Lakes" region and 4% everywhere else.
- Alabama's long-stay exemption is 180 consecutive days, six times longer than the 30-day rule common in many other states.
- No county or city can levy a lodging tax under general home-rule power; each one exists only because the state legislature passed a specific local act for that jurisdiction.
- No Alabama-specific fee-transparency law was found; only the federal FTC rule requiring total-price disclosure currently applies.
- Filing cadence and the administering agency both vary by city, some are self-administered, others handled directly by the state or a third-party administrator.
How Alabama's Hotel and Lodging Tax Works
Alabama calls its hotel tax the Lodgings Tax, and no county or city has the general legal power to levy one on its own. Each local lodging tax exists only because the Alabama Legislature passed a specific local act authorizing that county or city, which is why they're codified one by one in the state code rather than under a single statute every locality can invoke.
There's no statewide voter-approval requirement, but the mechanism can amount to something similar in specific cases: some local acts are written to require a referendum as a condition of the bill itself. Winston County is a live 2026 example, voters there approved an 8% lodging tax plus a $5 nightly fire-protection fee after the enabling legislation required a countywide vote.
The state rate itself isn't flat. It's 5% in the 16 counties that make up the "Alabama Mountain Lakes" region and 4% in the other 51 counties, so a property in Huntsville or Guntersville starts from a higher state base than one in Birmingham or Mobile.
Tax Rates and Extra Fees
Because the state rate, county rate, and each city's individually authorized rate combine differently, the total varies significantly by location. Here's where the major Alabama markets stand as of 2026.
| City / county | Combined rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Birmingham | 17.5%, plus a flat $3/room/night city fee | 4% state, 7% Jefferson County, 6.5% city; the flat fee is earmarked for sports and entertainment recruitment, tourism, and infrastructure |
| Orange Beach | 16% | 4% state, 2% Baldwin County, 10% city |
| Gulf Shores | 16% in city limits, 11% in the extended police jurisdiction | The police-jurisdiction rate is exactly half the corporate-limits rate |
| Huntsville | 15%, plus a flat $2/room/night city fee | 5% state (Mountain Lakes region), 1% Madison County, 9% city; rising to 16% plus the same fee effective October 2026 |
| Montgomery | 15%, plus a flat $2.25/room/night county fee | 4% state and 11% city combine to 15%; the county charges a per-night fee instead of a percentage rate |
| Tuscaloosa | 15% | 4% state, 11% city |
| Mobile | 14% in city limits, 5% in the extended jurisdiction | City rate rose from 8% to 10% in June 2025 to fund tourism promotion, the airport, and arena debt service |
| Dothan | 13% | 4% state, 9% city |
| Guntersville | 11% | 5% state (Mountain Lakes region), 6% city |
| Auburn | 11% | 4% state, 7% city, self-administered by the city |
| Fairhope | 10% | 4% state, 2% Baldwin County, 6% city |
| Gadsden | 9% | 4% state, 5% city, administered directly by the state rather than the city |
Rates change after a new local act or ordinance, so treat this table as a starting point and confirm the current published rate with the specific city before filing.
Added tourism charges are common in Alabama's larger destinations, but the mechanism differs by city. Mobile created Alabama's first Tourism Improvement District in 2020, run by the Mobile Area Lodging Corporation, applying to properties with 40 or more rooms at a 1% to 2% assessment. Birmingham and Huntsville instead stack flat per-room-per-night city fees, $3 and $2 respectively, on top of their percentage tax rather than using a separate district body.
Collection and Remittance
The guest pays the tax, and the property remits it, but the administering agency and cadence both vary by jurisdiction. The state's own baseline is monthly filing, due the 20th of the following month, with less frequent filing available based on prior-year liability, down to annual for very small operators. Locally, Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, Birmingham, Montgomery, Huntsville, Mobile, and Tuscaloosa are all self-administered by the city, while other jurisdictions are handled directly by the state or by a third-party administrator, Avenu Insights & Analytics. A property operating across several Alabama cities may end up filing with two or three different administrators, not one.
Exemptions From Alabama's Hotel Tax
Alabama's exemption threshold is 180 consecutive days, not the 30-day rule common in many other states, a meaningful difference for any long-stay guest calculation. A separate, shorter 90-consecutive-day exemption applies specifically to marine slips and RV or camping spaces, a narrower carve-out distinct from the general 180-day rule for traditional lodging.
Common Mistakes Hotels Make With TOT Compliance
- Assuming a 30-day exemption threshold. Alabama's actual threshold is 180 consecutive days, a property using the more common national rule is taxing guests who should already be exempt.
- Using the standard 4% state rate everywhere. Sixteen Mountain Lakes counties, including Madison and Marshall, use a 5% state rate instead.
- Filing with the wrong administrator. A city's lodging tax might be self-administered, state-administered, or handled by a third party, sending a return to the wrong one causes real filing delays.
- Assuming every city's added tourism charge works the same way. Mobile uses a percentage-based district assessment; Birmingham and Huntsville use flat per-night fees instead, applying one city's structure to another gets the number wrong.
- Not watching for a scheduled rate increase. Huntsville's rate is set to rise in October 2026, a property should update its configuration ahead of the effective date, not after.
- Not retraining front desk staff after a rate change. When a city ordinance or local act changes the rate, as Mobile's did in 2025, staff quoting the old number to walk-in guests creates disputes at checkout.
Where A PMS Fits Into TOT Compliance
None of the above is about software. It's about an Alabama property tracking a state rate that depends on which of 16 counties it's in, a 180-day exemption window instead of the more common 30 days, and which of several possible administrators actually collects its local tax. Where a PMS actually helps is in keeping the state, county, and city components configured as distinct tax codes, and pulling revenue reports by date range for whichever filing cadence each administrator requires. roommaster lets properties configure tax codes per rate, so a new local act or a scheduled increase like Huntsville's is a configuration update once, not a manual recalculation on every folio.
See how roommaster simplifies multi-property tax reporting.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Does Alabama have a statewide hotel tax rate?
Alabama's state lodgings tax is 4% in most counties but 5% in the 16 Mountain Lakes counties, and cities and counties each add their own rate on top, so the combined total varies significantly.
2. What is Alabama's hotel tax?
Alabama's hotel tax is officially called the Lodgings Tax, a state rate combined with a county and city rate, each of which exists only because the state legislature specifically authorized it.
3. What is Alabama's lodging tax?
Lodging tax is the same charge as Alabama's Lodgings Tax, this is actually the state's own official name for it, not just an informal term.
4. How long can a guest stay in Alabama before the hotel tax stops applying?
180 consecutive days, considerably longer than the 30-day rule used in many other states. A separate 90-day rule applies specifically to marine slips and RV or camping spaces.
5. Do Alabama cities need voter approval to add a lodging tax?
Not generally, but it happens: each local lodging tax needs its own act passed by the state legislature, and some of those acts are written to require a local referendum, as Winston County's 2026 tax did.
6. Does Alabama require hotels to disclose the total price before booking?
No Alabama-specific law requiring this was found. Only the federal FTC rule, which applies nationwide, currently requires total-price disclosure for Alabama hotels.
7. Who is responsible for collecting and remitting Alabama's hotel tax?
The property collects the tax from the guest and remits it to whichever agency administers that jurisdiction's tax, which could be the city itself, the state, or a third-party administrator, depending on location.
