Regulation & Licensing · 2026
What the Law Requires in Yachats & Florence
Oregon taxes short stays at the state level and leaves the rest to cities and counties, and this stretch of coast has five local rulebooks: two counties and three cities. Oregon's own transient lodging tax stands at 1.5 percent through the end of 2026. For amounts charged from January 1, 2027 it rises to 2.75 percent, a change the 2026 Legislature made to pay for wildlife conservation, and receipts have to call the added 1.25 percent a nature conservation fee. The duty to collect falls on whoever takes the guest's money, the owner or a platform. Returns go in every quarter, by the last day of the following month, even in a quarter with no stays, and once a guest has stayed 30 days in a row the whole stay is exempt. On Oregon reservations of 29 nights or fewer, Airbnb adds and remits the state tax, cleaning fee included. Its Oregon list also names Florence and unincorporated Lane County among the local taxes it collects, but not Yachats, Waldport or Lincoln County. Airbnb does collect local taxes that the Department of Revenue administers for some cities and counties, so check the department's list; if your town or county isn't on it, plan to file the local tax yourself.
Lincoln County regulates hardest on the land outside its cities. Any dwelling rented short term there needs a short-term rental license from the Sheriff's Office under Lincoln County Code 4.405 to 4.460, which Ordinance 523 amended on October 27, 2021. Six days later, on November 2, 2021, voters approved Ballot Measure 21-203, a citizen measure to phase rentals out of the county's residential zones over five years. On August 8, 2022 the Land Use Board of Appeals reversed it, holding that Oregon's law on existing uses barred the county from forcing lawful rentals to close within five years or banning their transfer to a new owner. The commissioners then set limits of their own: on February 1, 2023 they drew seven license regions with fixed caps, and since a license can't be transferred when a property changes hands, the count falls as houses sell. West of Highway 101 the regions break at bridges, and every one of the five western regions holds more licenses than its cap. Two of them cover this market: Region 4 runs from the Beaver Creek bridge south to the Alsea Bay bridge at Waldport, and on August 27, 2026 it had 110 licensed rentals against a cap of 26, while Region 5, everything south of the Alsea Bay bridge, had 76 against a cap of 7. Check the county's region map for your parcel. East of the highway, Highway 20 splits the two inland regions; in March 2025 the county lowered both caps and let a moratorium on processing applications run out on March 31, and in August 2026 one of those two regions held the only open license in the county. When a license frees up, the Sheriff's Office picks a property from that region's waitlist at random and the owner gets 45 days to apply; KLCC counted 138 owners on the waitlists in August 2026. New licenses cost $900 and renewals $650. Before licensing you need an evaluation of the septic system, done within the past three years by an inspector on the DEQ list, because the system's capacity decides how many bedrooms you can rent, and the county runs a 24-hour complaint hotline for neighbors. Guests on county land pay a 12 percent transient lodging tax, up from 10 percent on January 1, 2024; owners register with the county treasurer and file every quarter. In August 2026 the Oregon Court of Appeals rejected a challenge to the licensing program by 20 owners, ruling that it was not a land-use decision. It also reversed a lower-court ruling that three provisions, among them the ban on weddings and similar events at rentals over their capacity, were unconstitutionally vague, and returned that question to Lincoln County Circuit Court.
The City of Yachats keeps its own capped system in Chapter 4.08 of its municipal code, most recently amended by Ordinance 380 on March 18, 2026. The code treats any unit rented, or offered, for less than 30 days as a vacation rental, and it presumes a home is one when four different vehicles stay overnight within a month, three months in a row. Only 125 vacation rental licenses exist at any one time. Once all are issued, the city keeps a waitlist in order of application, with a $25 nonrefundable fee to apply, and the applicant at the top gets ten business days to book the inspection. A license is personal to the owner and can't be transferred, and nobody may hold a second one unless the units share a property, a duplex for example. In residential zones a rental may have at most four bedrooms; rentals that already existed when Ordinance 328 took effect (it was adopted in November 2014) are exempt. The guest limit is two per sleeping area plus two more, and no ad may offer more. Each bedroom needs a parking space on the property, with at least two in all, and overnight vehicles may not exceed the surfaced spaces or six, whichever is fewer. The local contact has to live within 10 miles, take calls from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. and deal with a problem within two hours, and the license with that person's name and number goes on the front of the house, beside house numbers at least four inches tall. The first inspection costs $100 and another is due before the sixth year, and the license fee runs from $200 for two bedrooms or fewer to $350 for five or more. Applications are due January 1 and delinquent February 1, a third verified complaint within 90 days lets the city revoke a license without a hearing, and fines go up to $1,000 per violation. Guests pay the city's 9 percent occupancy tax, filed quarterly; the collector, owner or platform, may keep 5 percent of the net tax for its trouble, and an owner who leaves it unpaid for two calendar years in a row loses the license. Waldport is lighter. It licenses short-term rentals without capping their number: the Lincoln Chronicle counted 44 active licenses in January 2024, when it reported that the city council had voted to raise Waldport's lodging tax to 12 percent. Waldport's code sits on Municode, which we couldn't open, and we found no rental page on the city's website, so ask City Hall for the current license fee, rules and tax rate before you list.
South of the county line, Lane County leaves land use mostly to the cities and is strict about tax. Florence requires a city business license for every short-term rental inside city limits, and its residential zoning chapter, rewritten by an ordinance that took effect August 17, 2023, says accessory dwelling units may not be used as short-term rentals; we found no cap or separate rental permit in the chapters we read. Florence's own transient lodging tax is 4 percent of the rent. Owners and booking platforms are both collectors and jointly liable for it, returns are quarterly, and the collector keeps a 5 percent administration fee. Lane County's transient room tax is 10 percent, built in three layers: 5 percent since 1974, 3 percent added later and 2 percent more from January 1, 2023. The county code doesn't exempt stays inside cities; instead it credits up to 3 percent of the rent for city lodging tax paid on the same stay. Owners register with the county within 15 days of opening, file quarterly and may keep 5 percent of the net tax. Airbnb collects the county's 10 percent on its Lane County bookings outside Eugene, Springfield, Florence and Cottage Grove, and inside Florence it lists a 9 percent Florence Transient Room Tax on stays of 30 nights or fewer. On our reading of the two codes, the city's 4 percent plus the county's 10 percent, less the 3 percent credit, would come to more than that 9 percent, so ask Florence and Lane County which taxes Airbnb's figure covers and what, if anything, you still owe. The county's code index has no short-term rental chapter, and we found no county license, cap or permit for rentals on the land around Florence; ask the county planners what applies to your parcel. A homeowners association on either side of the line can be stricter than any public rule. All of this is orientation, not legal advice: confirm each requirement with the city, the county, the Oregon Department of Revenue and your association before you list. Cavmir markets the house; the licenses, the inspections and the tax returns remain yours and your advisers' to handle.