Outer Banks septic guide
Platform service fees and North Carolina accommodation tax
Yes — for rentals made through an accommodation facilitator, the taxable sales price includes the facilitator's necessary charges, by whatever name called. What that means on the receipt.
Yes — and the legislature phrased the answer broadly enough that the question barely survives being asked. § 105-164.4F facilitator fees taxable: under G.S. 105-164.4F, the sales price of an accommodation rental made by an accommodation facilitator includes any charges or fees — by whatever name called — charged by the facilitator to the purchaser that are necessary to complete the rental. A booking fee, a guest service fee, a service charge: whatever the platform's checkout page names it, the statute has already called it part of the price.
The details
What rides the fee: the 4.75% NC general sales tax rate — the state's tax on gross receipts from the rental of an accommodation — applies to a sales price that now includes the facilitator's necessary charges. The practical translation for a guest is that the tax on a platform booking is computed on the stay plus the platform's take, not on the stay alone. The practical translation for an owner is that the platform's fee is inside the taxable base, not alongside it.
The statute's phrase 'necessary to complete the rental' is the honest limit, and it is narrower than 'everything on the checkout page.' Charges that are genuinely optional — an upsell a guest could decline without losing the room — sit differently from the mandatory service fee no booking completes without. Where a particular line falls is a question for the Department of Revenue, and this page asserts only what the statute itself says.
The county layer does not disappear because a platform processed the stay. The 6% Dare County occupancy tax — the county's levy on gross receipts derived from the rental of accommodations — runs on its own rules and its own monthly calendar, and an owner who has delegated collection to a platform still owns the question of what was collected, on what base, and remitted where.
Why a cleaning company keeps this guide: the facilitator's fee, the guest's tax lines and the cleaning fee all live on the same itemized receipt — the receipt a Saturday guest reads while the crew is still making beds. The better the turn, the less anyone interrogates the numbers; but when the numbers do get interrogated, the statute above is the one doing the answering.
By whatever name called — the General Assembly's phrase, and a good habit to bring to any platform's checkout page.
On the record: § 105-164.4F facilitator fees taxable (N.C. General Statutes § 105-164.4F — Accommodation Rentals (ncleg.gov, retrieved 2026-09-17)) · 4.75% NC general sales tax rate (N.C. General Statutes § 105-164.4(a) (ncleg.gov, retrieved 2026-09-17)) · 6% Dare County occupancy tax (Dare County Tax Department — Occupancy Tax (darenc.gov, retrieved 2026-09-17))
Hand-verified 2026-09-17 against the primary sources named above; where a fact could not be verified it was left out, never guessed.