Short-Term Rentals in Miller County, Missouri

No county zoning means no county STR license or cap

Because Miller County has never adopted zoning under RSMo Chapter 64, there is no county ordinance requiring a short-term rental license, capping the number of rentals, or restricting where a cabin or house can be rented out overnight in unincorporated parts of the county -- a real contrast with some of the incorporated cities around the Lake of the Ozarks, and with other tourist-heavy counties nationally that have adopted formal STR licensing programs. If your parcel sits inside Osage Beach's small Miller County sliver, though, that city's own short-term-rental rules and business-license requirements apply within its limits regardless of the county's stance, so confirm which side of the city line a specific parcel falls on before assuming the county's lighter-touch approach governs.

That lack of a county licensing scheme doesn't mean a specific parcel is unrestricted, however -- lake-area subdivisions frequently carry their own restrictive covenants, and some explicitly prohibit or limit short-term/vacation rental use regardless of what the county allows. Pull the recorded covenants for a specific subdivision (through the Miller County Recorder of Deeds) before assuming a parcel can be rented out short-term just because the county itself imposes no such restriction.

The 2024 collapse of the Lake of the Ozarks lodging tax

From 1993 through mid-2024, lodging businesses around the Lake of the Ozarks -- including short-term rentals -- collected a lodging tax through Lake Area Business Districts covering Camden, Miller, and Morgan counties, administered by the Tri-County Lodging Association (TCLA). The rate wasn't uniform: it ran 5% in Miller County specifically, compared with 3% in neighboring Camden and Morgan counties, with revenue earmarked for regional tourism advertising and promotion contracted out mainly to the Lake of the Ozarks Convention & Visitor Bureau.

On June 26, 2024, the Missouri Supreme Court declared the underlying statutes (RSMo 67.1170, 67.1175, 67.1177, and 67.1180) unconstitutional in their entirety and enjoined any further collection under that framework. The Lodging Taxing Districts in all three counties shut down as a direct result, and as of this review there is no statewide legislative fix restoring a lawful version of the tax. For an operator, the practical effect cuts two ways: no more 5% lodging tax to collect and remit on a Miller County short-term rental (a real, immediate cost reduction), but also the loss of the coordinated regional tourism marketing that tax used to fund -- something local business owners were still publicly debating how to replace as of 2025, with at least one city (per local reporting) voting to support exploring a lake-wide tourism-tax conversation, without a concrete new mechanism in place as of this review.

None of this touches Missouri's separate state and local sales tax obligations, which still apply to short-term rental income regardless of the lodging-tax district's status -- confirm current state and any remaining local sales-tax collection requirements with the Missouri Department of Revenue and the county rather than assuming the 2024 ruling eliminated all tax obligations on rental income.