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Hotel And Lodging Tax In Savannah 2026: TOT Rate And Rules
Savannah's hotel/motel excise tax jumped from 6% to 8% in 2023 under a special state law, and every stay also carries a separate flat $5-per-night state fee.
August 28, 2026
7
min. read
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TL;DR
- Savannah hotels and short-term rentals collect a combined 15% percentage rate: 4% Georgia state sales tax, 3% Chatham County local sales tax (LOST, SPLOST, and TSPLOST), and 8% Savannah hotel/motel excise tax, plus a separate flat $5-per-night state hotel-motel fee.
- "Hotel tax," "lodging tax," "occupancy tax," and "bed tax" all describe the same excise tax on a Savannah stay.
- Savannah raised its hotel/motel excise tax from 6% to 8% effective September 1, 2023, its first increase in roughly three decades, requiring special authorization from the Georgia General Assembly.
- The 8% rate came with a state-mandated revenue split: 37.5% to the city, 33.8% to Visit Savannah, 14% to the Convention Center, and 14.7% to a new Tourism Product Development fund.
- Stays over 30 consecutive days are exempt from the excise tax, and the flat $5-per-night state fee also stops after night 30.
- Savannah caps non-owner-occupied short-term rental certificates at 20% of parcels per ward in the Downtown and Victorian Historic Districts, a rule that has applied since 2017.
- The Tourism Product Development fund is earmarked for specific projects, including the River Street redevelopment and the Tide to Town trail network.
How Savannah's Hotel and Lodging Tax Works
Savannah taxes hotel and short-term rental stays through a state sales tax, a Chatham County local sales tax, and its own hotel/motel excise tax, raised from 6% to 8% in 2023, plus a flat $5 per night state fee that applies on top of the percentage rate.
Georgia's hotel/motel excise tax is authorized under O.C.G.A. Title 48, Chapter 13, Article 3. Most Georgia cities and counties can adopt a rate of up to 5% on their own authority, but reaching the 6 to 8% tier requires a separate legislative authorization, and in some cases a specific act of the Georgia General Assembly. Savannah's move to 8% took exactly that route: state lawmakers passed enabling legislation in the 2023 session before City Council could vote the local rate increase into effect.
The combined tax applies to hotels, motels, inns, and short-term vacation rentals booked for fewer than 30 consecutive days. Georgia also layers on a separate, flat $5-per-night state hotel-motel fee that is not a percentage of the room rate and is collected independently of the excise tax.
Tax Rates and Extra Fees
A stay in Savannah carries three percentage-based components plus one flat nightly fee. The city's own excise tax jumped two full points in a single year, so any rate card still showing 6% is two years out of date.
| Tax component | Rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Georgia state sales tax | 4% | n/a |
| Chatham County local sales tax | 3% | Made up of three 1% components: LOST, SPLOST, and TSPLOST |
| Savannah hotel/motel excise tax | 8% | Raised from 6% effective September 1, 2023, under a special state authorization (O.C.G.A. 48-13-51(b)) |
| Georgia state hotel-motel fee | $5 per room, per night | Flat fee, not a percentage; collected for the first 30 nights of a stay |
| Combined percentage rate | 15% | Plus the flat $5-per-night state fee on every applicable night |
Chatham County's 3% local sales tax is not a single line item but three separate 1% taxes stacked together: the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST), which offsets county and city property taxes; the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST), earmarked for capital infrastructure; and the Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (TSPLOST), dedicated to road and transit projects. None of the three is specific to lodging, but all three apply to a hotel room the same as any other retail purchase in the county.
Unlike a typical rate increase a city can pass on its own, Savannah's jump to 8% came with a state-mandated revenue split: 37.5% to the city's general fund, 33.8% to Visit Savannah for tourism marketing, 14% to the Savannah Convention Center, and 14.7% to a new Tourism Product Development fund that state law required the city to create as a condition of the higher rate. That fund is earmarked for a specific project list, including River Street redevelopment, the Historic Waterworks Building and connecting trails, and the Tide to Town trail network.
Collection and Remittance
The guest pays both the percentage-based taxes and the flat nightly fee as part of the room charge, but the hotel, motel, or short-term rental operator is legally responsible for collecting and remitting them. Savannah's hotel/motel excise tax return is filed monthly with the city, separately from the state sales tax and the state hotel-motel fee, which are reported to the Georgia Department of Revenue.
Short-term rental operators must hold a Short-Term Vacation Rental (STVR) certificate from the city before they can legally collect bookings at all, and platforms vary in how much of Savannah's tax stack they actually remit on a host's behalf, so a host cannot assume a platform's collected total matches every component owed to the city, county, and state.
Exemptions From Savannah's Hotel Tax
Georgia's hotel/motel excise tax does not apply once a guest has occupied the same room for more than 30 consecutive days; that guest is reclassified as a permanent resident rather than a transient occupant. The flat $5-per-night state fee follows a related but separate rule: it is collected only for the first 30 nights of a stay, then stops, regardless of how the excise tax exemption is documented.
Federal government employees traveling on official business and paying by a federal government check, wire, centrally billed credit card, or purchase order are exempt from the state hotel-motel fee, though the exemption depends on the payment method used at checkout, not the traveler's employer alone.
Common Mistakes Hotels Make With TOT Compliance
- Billing the old 6% city rate. Savannah's hotel/motel excise tax rose to 8% on September 1, 2023, its first increase in roughly three decades, and a property still quoting 6% is under-collecting on every stay.
- Forgetting the flat $5-per-night state fee. Because it is a fixed dollar amount rather than a percentage, the state hotel-motel fee is easy to leave out of a percentage-based tax calculation, especially on multi-room or multi-night group bookings.
- Treating the 30-day exemption and the fee cutoff as identical. The excise tax exemption depends on documenting a continuous 30-plus-day stay to the same guest, while the $5 fee simply stops applying after night 30. Properties sometimes apply one rule to both charges.
- Operating a non-owner-occupied short-term rental past a ward's 20% cap. Savannah has limited non-owner-occupied STVR certificates to 20% of parcels per ward in the Downtown and Victorian Historic Districts since 2017, and collecting the lodging tax does not substitute for holding a valid certificate.
- Assuming a booking platform remits the full local tax stack. Platform remittance coverage for Savannah's excise tax, Chatham County's sales tax, and the state fee is not uniform, so a host needs to confirm what each platform actually pays on their behalf.
- Not updating point-of-sale systems after a legislatively mandated fund split. The 8% rate came with a fixed state-required allocation across the city, Visit Savannah, the Convention Center, and the Tourism Product Development fund, which changes how the city tracks and audits collections even though it doesn't change what a guest pays at checkout.
Where A PMS Fits Into TOT Compliance
None of this is about software fixing tax law, but a PMS does remove the two places Savannah properties most often slip: tracking a flat per-night fee alongside percentage-based taxes, and catching a mid-decade rate change like the 2023 increase before it causes an under-collection streak. roommaster lets a property configure a flat fee and percentage-based tax components separately, so the state's $5-per-night charge doesn't get folded incorrectly into the excise tax calculation, and its booking engine shows guests the full, tax-inclusive total before they confirm. Revenue reports by date range also make it straightforward to reconcile monthly collections against what the city, county, and state each expect.
See how roommaster simplifies multi-property tax reporting.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Does Savannah have its own hotel tax rate?
Yes. Savannah charges an 8% hotel/motel excise tax on top of Georgia's 4% state sales tax and Chatham County's 3% local sales tax, plus a separate flat $5-per-night state hotel-motel fee, for a combined 15% percentage rate plus the flat fee.
2. What is Savannah's hotel tax?
Savannah's hotel tax is the city's 8% hotel/motel excise tax, raised from 6% effective September 1, 2023. Combined with the state and county sales taxes, guests pay a 15% percentage-based rate plus Georgia's flat $5-per-night state fee.
3. What is Savannah's lodging tax?
Savannah's lodging tax is the same charge as its hotel tax. "Hotel tax," "lodging tax," "occupancy tax," and "bed tax" all describe the same excise tax on a Savannah stay, not separate charges.
4. How long must a guest stay to be exempt from Savannah's hotel tax?
A guest must occupy the same room for more than 30 consecutive days to be exempt from Georgia's hotel/motel excise tax, at which point the guest is treated as a permanent resident. The separate $5-per-night state fee simply stops being collected after the 30th night, on a related but distinct rule.
5. Does Savannah require hotels to disclose all fees upfront?
Georgia and Savannah have not passed their own mandatory fee disclosure law, but a federal rule from the Federal Trade Commission, effective May 2025, already requires hotels nationwide, including in Savannah, to display resort fees and other mandatory charges in the advertised price.
6. Who is responsible for filing Savannah's hotel tax?
The hotel, motel, or short-term rental operator is responsible for collecting and remitting the tax, even if a booking platform collects part of it. Savannah's hotel/motel excise tax is filed monthly with the city, separately from the state sales tax and the state hotel-motel fee, which go to the Georgia Department of Revenue.
7. Why did Savannah's hotel tax rate change in 2023?
Georgia law only lets most cities set a hotel/motel excise tax up to 5% on their own authority. Reaching Savannah's 8% rate required the Georgia General Assembly to pass special enabling legislation in 2023, which also mandated a specific revenue split, including a new Tourism Product Development fund for projects like the River Street redevelopment.
