Hotel And Lodging Tax In Mississippi 2026: TOT Rates By City

How Mississippi's Hotel and Lodging Tax Works

Mississippi taxes hotel and motel room rentals at the same 7% rate as its general sales tax under Miss. Code Section 27-65-23, and unlike most states, has no separate statewide hotel tax and no general local-option law letting any city add its own rate without a specific act of the Legislature.

Mississippi has no unified system for local hotel taxes. Instead, cities and counties that want a tourism tax must ask a state legislator to introduce a "local and private" bill applying only to that jurisdiction, which the Legislature passes and then, in most cases, local voters ratify by referendum. Dozens of these individual laws are on the books today, from Jackson's Capital Convention Center Tax to the much smaller Eupora Tourism Tax, and each one is its own standalone statute rather than a section of a general code chapter.

Because each local tax is its own act, many carry an explicit repeal date that requires the Legislature to act again to keep the tax alive. Clinton's 1% tourism tax on hotel and motel rentals, for example, had its repeal date extended to July 1, 2028 by a 2023 bill. A property in a local-and-private-law city should track that expiration date the same way it tracks a rate, since a lapsed law would mean the local tax simply stops applying until renewed.

The tax applies to hotels, motels, tourist courts, camps, and trailer parks renting to transient guests. Charges for cleaning fees, pet fees, rollaway beds, extra-person fees, and similar mandatory add-ons are all part of the taxable gross income, not separate from it.

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Tax Rates and Extra Fees

Every taxable room in Mississippi starts at the 7% state rate. On top of that floor, individual cities and counties layer their own legislatively created tourism taxes, and in some markets both a county tax and a city tax apply to the same room night.

These local additions are not part of the state's 7% line item; they are separate levies created by separate statutes, collected alongside the state tax but earmarked by law for a specific purpose, typically a convention center, coliseum, or parks and recreation project in that city or county. Harrison County's 2% tax, for instance, funds the Mississippi Coast Coliseum and Convention Center and applies to every hotel and motel room in the county, including both Biloxi and Gulfport, on top of whatever city-level tax those cities add themselves.

Local rates in Mississippi also move through public political debate rather than an automatic voter-referendum cycle. In December 2025, Biloxi's city council dropped a proposal for an additional flat occupancy charge on top of the city's existing rate after public pushback, following an earlier 2024 proposal that would have made Biloxi's total the highest in the state. A property should watch its own city council's agenda, not just the Department of Revenue's published rate list, for pending local rate changes.

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Collection and Remittance

Guests pay the tax at checkout, and the property remains legally responsible for collecting and remitting it correctly. Both the 7% state sales tax and any local tourism tax created by a local-and-private law are reported to the Mississippi Department of Revenue on the same sales tax return, which the Department then distributes back to the applicable city or county; there is no separate filing with the local government itself the way some other states require. Most hotels file monthly, with returns and payment due by the 20th of the month following the reporting period, though smaller-volume filers may be assigned a quarterly schedule. Marketplace facilitators occupy a newly settled position in Mississippi: after the state Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that online travel companies were not "hotels" liable for the tax on their own markup, the 2025 Legislature passed Senate Bill 2805 to redefine "hotel" to include third-party entities that facilitate, arrange, or broker room rentals, closing that gap going forward. A property working with any booking platform should confirm the platform is now collecting and remitting under the updated definition rather than relying on the older court ruling.

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Exemptions From Mississippi's Hotel Tax

Mississippi exempts a guest's entire stay, not just the days beyond a cutoff, when that guest gives advance notice of an intent to occupy a room for 30 days or longer. A signed registration card, a written reservation, or a reservation confirmation stating a stay of 30 days or more is sufficient notice, and once that notice is on file, no tax is due for any part of the stay, including the first night. This is a meaningfully different rule from a state that only stops charging tax once day 31 arrives: in Mississippi, the correct advance paperwork can zero out the entire folio's tax line from day one. A hotel that assumes it must collect tax for the first 30 days regardless is over-collecting and may owe guests a refund once the required notice is produced. Government employees traveling on official federal or state business are not automatically exempt from Mississippi's hotel or local tourism taxes; any exemption depends on the specific local law and should be confirmed rather than assumed.

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Common Mistakes Hotels Make With TOT Compliance

• Charging tax for the first 30 days of a long-term stay. Mississippi's exemption applies to the entire stay once a guest gives advance written notice of a 30-plus-day occupancy, not only to the days after the 30th; front desks that wait until day 31 to stop charging are over-collecting and creating a refund obligation.
• Missing a local tourism tax's repeal date. Because every Mississippi city or county tax is its own standalone law, some carry sunset dates that require legislative renewal, like Clinton's tax, extended to 2028; a property that doesn't track its city's specific statute risks continuing to collect a tax that has technically lapsed, or missing a rate change when it's renewed.
• Assuming a single local rate applies when both a county and city tax stack. Properties in places like Olive Branch owe both the county's Convention Tourist Promotion tax and the city's own tourism tax on the same room night, on top of the 7% state rate, and treating only one as applicable under-collects the total.
• Relying on outdated guidance that booking platforms aren't liable for the tax. The 2023 Mississippi Supreme Court ruling that online travel companies weren't "hotels" was legislatively overridden in 2025; a property still operating under the old assumption should confirm its platform's current collection practice.
• Treating mandatory add-on fees as non-taxable. Cleaning fees, pet fees, rollaway bed charges, and similar mandatory charges are part of a Mississippi hotel's taxable gross income, not a separate untaxed line item.
• Not watching city council agendas for pending local rate changes. Because Mississippi's local hotel taxes are political and legislative rather than automatic, a proposal like Biloxi's dropped December 2025 occupancy surcharge can resurface without warning; a multi-property operator should monitor local government agendas in each market, not just the Department of Revenue's published rate list.

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Where A PMS Fits Into TOT Compliance

None of this is really about software so much as it is about keeping track of dozens of individually enacted local statutes instead of one uniform rule. A property management system that lets a hotel configure a separate tax code for the state's 7% rate and for each local tourism tax that applies to it, including a county tax and a city tax stacked on the same room night, keeps front desk staff from having to manually total several line items on every folio. Revenue reports that break collections down by tax code and date range make it easier to reconcile what's owed on the single combined return the Mississippi Department of Revenue expects, and a booking engine that shows the full stacked rate upfront helps avoid the guest confusion that comes with Mississippi's patchwork of city-specific and county-specific add-ons.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Does Mississippi have a statewide hotel tax rate?

Mississippi's only statewide charge on hotel and motel rooms is the general 7% sales tax under Miss. Code Section 27-65-23; there is no separate state-level hotel or lodging tax. Cities and counties can add their own tourism tax on top, but only through an individual act of the state Legislature, so the total a guest pays varies significantly by location.

2. What is Mississippi's hotel tax?

Mississippi's hotel tax is the 7% state sales tax applied to gross income from hotel, motel, tourist court, and trailer park room rentals, plus whatever additional tourism tax a specific city or county has been granted by its own local-and-private law.

3. What is Mississippi's lodging tax?

Mississippi's lodging tax is the same charge as its hotel tax, occupancy tax, bed tax, room tax, and TOT. These terms all refer to the combined state sales tax and any applicable local tourism tax charged on a short-term room rental.

4. Which Mississippi cities have the highest hotel tax rates?

Biloxi currently has Mississippi's highest confirmed total at around 12%, combining the 7% state rate with Harrison County's 2% Coliseum tax and the city's own tourism tax. Jackson follows at 11% with its Capital Convention Center and Convention and Visitors Bureau taxes.

5. How does Mississippi's 30-day exemption work?

A guest who gives advance written notice, through a signed registration card or a reservation confirmation stating a stay of 30 days or longer, owes no Mississippi hotel tax for any part of that stay, including the first night. This differs from states that only exempt the days after a 30-day cutoff.

6. Do Airbnb and Vrbo collect Mississippi's hotel tax?

Following a 2025 law that redefined "hotel" to include third-party booking facilitators, platforms that arrange, advertise, or collect payment for room rentals are now expected to collect and remit Mississippi's state and local hotel taxes. This reversed a 2023 state Supreme Court ruling that had found online travel companies weren't liable for the tax.

7. Why do Mississippi's local hotel taxes vary so much between neighboring cities?

Mississippi has no general local-option statute for hotel taxes. Each city or county tax exists because a state legislator introduced, and the Legislature passed, an individual bill for that specific jurisdiction, usually followed by a local referendum. That means two neighboring cities can have very different rates, purposes, and even repeal dates for their local hotel taxes.