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Hotel And Lodging Tax In Kentucky 2026: TOT Rates By City
Kentucky layers a flat 1% statewide transient room tax under separate city and county room taxes, so the total can range from about 4% in Pikeville to over 11% in Frankfort and Owensboro.
August 28, 2026
7
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TL;DR
- Kentucky charges a statewide 1% transient room tax under KRS 142.400, layered underneath a separate local transient room tax that most cities and counties set through their tourist and convention commission under KRS 91A.390.
- "Hotel tax," "lodging tax," "occupancy tax," "bed tax," and "transient room tax" all describe this same charge in Kentucky.
- Combined state and local transient room tax rates range from about 4% in Pikeville to roughly 11% in Frankfort and Owensboro/Daviess County, before Kentucky's separate 6% state sales tax is added.
- Stays of 30 consecutive days or more are excluded from both the state and local transient room tax.
- Standard tourist and convention commissions are capped at a 3% local room tax plus an optional 1% special tax for convention center operating expenses; consolidated local governments and urban-county governments like Louisville and Lexington draw on separate authority reaching 8.5% locally.
- Local room taxes are created by city or county ordinance, not by a public vote, and each commission sets its own filing schedule independently of the state.
- Since House Bill 8 took effect January 1, 2023, Airbnb, Vrbo, and similar platforms must collect and remit both the state 1% tax and the applicable local tax on total guest charges, closing a gap a 2011 Kentucky Court of Appeals ruling had left open.
- Kentucky has no statewide all-in hotel pricing disclosure law, so this page does not include a fee-transparency section.
How Kentucky's Hotel and Lodging Tax Works
Kentucky's hotel and lodging tax, officially the transient room tax, is a charge on the rent guests pay for hotel rooms, motels, cabins, campsites, and short-term rentals booked for fewer than 30 consecutive days. The state collects a flat 1% under KRS 142.400, and most cities and counties add their own separate local transient room tax on top of it.
The legal basis for this two-layer system sits in two different chapters of the Kentucky Revised Statutes. KRS 142.400 creates the statewide 1% transient room tax, administered by the Kentucky Department of Revenue and dedicated to the state's Tourism, Meeting and Convention Marketing Fund. KRS 91A.390 separately authorizes any city or county that has established a tourist and convention commission to levy its own transient room tax of up to 3%, plus an optional 1% special tax if the revenue funds a convention center's operating expenses. Consolidated local governments and urban-county governments, such as Louisville Metro and Lexington-Fayette, draw on additional authority under KRS 91A.392 that lets their combined local rate run well past that 4% ceiling. None of these local taxes require a public referendum: the city or county legislative body enacts them directly by ordinance.
The tax reaches hotels, motels, inns, tourist camps, cabins, campgrounds, and recreational vehicle parks, along with any short-term rental booked through a platform that brokers or arranges the stay. Kentucky's 2022 House Bill 8 rewrote the statutory definition of "rent" to include service fees charged by booking platforms, so the tax base for an Airbnb or Vrbo stay is the total guest charge, not just the nightly rate the host receives.
Tax Rates and Extra Fees
Because Kentucky pairs one statewide rate with dozens of independently set local rates, the total transient room tax due on a stay depends entirely on which city or county the property sits in. The table below shows the combined state and local transient room tax, meaning the 1% KRS 142.400 tax plus whatever the local tourist and convention commission, city, or county layers on top. Kentucky's general 6% sales tax applies in addition to every rate shown here, and in at least one region that sales tax is calculated on top of the local occupancy tax itself, adding a fraction of a percentage point beyond the two rates alone.
| City / county | Rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Owensboro (Daviess County) | 11% | 1% state plus 6% Daviess County plus 4% City of Owensboro; the local layers fund a new fieldhouse and convention center debt separately. |
| Frankfort (Franklin County) | 11% | 1% state plus 4% City of Frankfort plus 4% Franklin County plus a 2% Fine Arts Tax; local portions are filed quarterly, not monthly. |
| Louisville / Jefferson County | 9.5% | 1% state plus 8.5% Louisville Metro local tax; funds Kentucky International Convention Center expansion and tourism marketing. |
| Lexington / Fayette County | 9.5% | 1% state plus 8.5% local tax split between Lexington's tourism bureau and Central Bank Center debt service. |
| Northern Kentucky (Covington, Boone, Kenton, Campbell counties) | 6% | 1% state plus 5% meetNKY regional tax; the state's 6% sales tax applies on top, pushing the guest-facing total to 12.36%. |
| Bowling Green / Warren County | 5% | 1% state plus 3% local room tax plus a 1% special tax for convention center operations. |
| Pikeville | 4% | 1% state plus 3% city local transient room tax. |
In Kentucky's larger markets, the local transient room tax often isn't a single flat rate but a bundle of stacked levies dedicated to specific projects. Louisville's 8.5% local rate and Lexington's 8.5% local rate both fund debt service tied to their respective convention facilities, the Kentucky International Convention Center's expansion and Lexington's Central Bank Center, alongside general tourism marketing. Owensboro and Frankfort go further by layering a separate city tax, a separate county tax, and in Frankfort's case a 2% Fine Arts Tax, each administered and filed independently rather than as one merged line item.
These add-on levies are legally distinct from the base transient room tax, so a hotel that tracks "the local room tax" as a single number risks under-collecting the moment a bond-funded surcharge or arts tax applies on top. Northern Kentucky's three-county region shows a related wrinkle: the region's own published rate sheet applies the state's 6% sales tax after the room tax has already been added to the bill, producing a combined guest-facing rate of 12.36% rather than a round number, because the sales tax itself picks up an extra 0.36% by taxing the occupancy tax.
Collection and Remittance
The guest pays the transient room tax as part of the total charge for their stay. The property operator, whether that's a hotel, a bed-and-breakfast, or an individual short-term rental host, is legally responsible for collecting it and remitting it to the correct authority. The state's 1% portion goes to the Kentucky Department of Revenue, due on or before the 20th day of the month following the rental. The local portion goes to whichever city or county tourist and convention commission, or in Louisville's case the Louisville Metro Revenue Commission, administers that jurisdiction's tax, and filing frequency is set locally: most commissions collect monthly, but Frankfort's local room taxes are filed quarterly, so an operator with properties in more than one Kentucky jurisdiction can face two different filing calendars for the same type of stay.
Airbnb and Vrbo remit Kentucky's 6% sales tax and 1% state transient room tax on behalf of hosts who book exclusively through those platforms, and since January 1, 2023 they're also required to collect and remit the local transient room tax on total guest charges. That platform remittance doesn't automatically cover every local jurisdiction's registration or reporting requirement, so operators should confirm directly with their local commission rather than assume the platform's tax line item satisfies every local rule.
Exemptions From Kentucky's Hotel Tax
Kentucky excludes any rental with a continuous stay of 30 days or more from both the state and local transient room tax, a threshold set in KRS 142.400 and mirrored in local ordinances in Louisville, Bowling Green, Paducah, and elsewhere. The exemption applies to the length of the stay itself, not to a guest's intent when booking, so a reservation that starts as a short stay typically only becomes exempt once the 30-day threshold is actually reached. Operators should keep the folio or lease documentation showing the continuous 30-day period on hand to support the exemption if the Department of Revenue or a local commission asks for it.
Government employees traveling on official business are generally exempt from Kentucky's 6% sales tax when they pay with a state or federal purchase card and present the appropriate documentation, but published guidance on whether that same exemption extends to the transient room tax itself is limited. Hotels should confirm the specific paperwork a government traveler needs before waiving either tax at the front desk rather than assuming one exemption automatically covers both.
Common Mistakes Hotels Make With TOT Compliance
- Treating the local rate as one flat number. Louisville, Lexington, Owensboro, and Frankfort all stack a base local room tax with a separate bond, arts, or convention center component, so billing software configured for a single local rate under-collects the moment one of those add-ons applies.
- Assuming the 30-day exemption applies from the day of booking. KRS 142.400's exemption covers a continuous stay that actually reaches 30 days, so applying it early, or failing to keep the folio showing the continuous stay, can leave an operator owing tax it never collected.
- Relying on Airbnb or Vrbo to cover every local filing. Platform remittance under House Bill 8 covers the state's 1% tax and the local transient room tax on total charges since January 1, 2023, but it doesn't necessarily satisfy a city's separate registration or reporting requirement for the property itself.
- Missing that Frankfort and similar commissions file quarterly, not monthly. A hotel group running one monthly remittance calendar across its Kentucky properties can miss a quarterly local deadline that runs on a different clock than the state's 20th-of-the-month filing.
- Forgetting the sales tax applies on top of the occupancy tax. Northern Kentucky's own rate sheet shows the state's 6% sales tax calculated after the local and state room tax are added to the bill, which is why the region's combined rate lands at 12.36% instead of a round 12%.
- Not updating point-of-sale tax codes after a local ordinance change. Because Kentucky's local room taxes are set by city or county ordinance rather than a statewide schedule, a rate increase can take effect with little outside notice, and a front desk still charging last year's local rate under-collects on every booking until someone catches it.
Where A PMS Fits Into TOT Compliance
None of this is about software, but Kentucky's two-layer tax structure is exactly the kind of thing a property management system should make easier to get right, not harder to track in a spreadsheet. A PMS that lets a property configure the state's 1% transient room tax and its own local rate, including any separate arts, bond, or convention center component, as distinct tax codes means front desk staff apply the correct combined rate automatically instead of remembering which stacked levy applies this year. Revenue reports that break totals out by tax code rather than one blended number make it far easier to reconcile what's owed to the Kentucky Department of Revenue against what's owed to the local tourist and convention commission, especially for an operator managing properties across more than one Kentucky jurisdiction with different filing calendars. A booking engine that shows the full nightly rate plus applicable taxes before checkout also gives guests the same clarity Kentucky's own local commissions expect operators to build into their billing, even without a statewide law requiring it.
See how roommaster simplifies multi-property tax reporting.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Does Kentucky have a statewide hotel tax rate?
Yes. Kentucky charges a statewide transient room tax of 1% under KRS 142.400 on hotels, motels, cabins, campgrounds, and short-term rentals, and this applies in every Kentucky city and county in addition to whatever local transient room tax that jurisdiction levies.
2. What is Kentucky's hotel tax?
Kentucky's hotel tax, formally called the transient room tax, is a 1% statewide charge on the rent for stays under 30 consecutive days, layered underneath a separate local transient room tax that most cities and counties set through their tourist and convention commission, typically ranging from 3% up to 8.5% depending on the jurisdiction.
3. What is Kentucky's lodging tax?
"Lodging tax" is another name people search for the same transient room tax described above. Kentucky doesn't operate a separate tax under that name, so the state 1% rate and whatever local rate applies in that city or county make up the full lodging tax bill.
4. How long does a guest have to stay in Kentucky before the hotel tax no longer applies?
A stay becomes exempt from Kentucky's state and local transient room tax once it reaches a continuous period of 30 days or more. A reservation that starts as a short stay is not automatically exempt from day one, only once that 30-day threshold is actually met.
5. Does Kentucky require hotels to disclose all fees upfront?
Kentucky doesn't have its own state law requiring all-in, upfront fee disclosure the way some states do. Only the federal FTC junk fees rule currently applies to Kentucky hotels, which is why this page doesn't include a state-specific fee-transparency section.
6. Who is responsible for filing Kentucky's transient room tax?
The property operator, whether a hotel, bed-and-breakfast, or short-term rental host, is legally responsible for collecting the tax from guests and remitting it. The state's 1% portion is due monthly to the Kentucky Department of Revenue, and the local portion is due to that city or county's tourist and convention commission on whatever schedule that commission sets, which can be monthly or quarterly depending on the jurisdiction.
7. Why do Airbnb and Vrbo bookings in Kentucky sometimes get taxed differently than they used to?
Kentucky's House Bill 8, effective January 1, 2023, closed a gap that a 2011 Kentucky Court of Appeals ruling had created by exempting online travel company bookings from the transient room tax. Platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo are now required to collect and remit both the state and local transient room tax on the total amount a guest pays, including service fees.
