Short-Term Rentals in Rich County, Utah

Rich County has licensed short-term rentals in the unincorporated county since 2017

Rich County adopted its own short-term rental ordinance in 2017, covering what the county defines as short-term or transient stays -- rentals lasting less than 30 consecutive days -- on land in the unincorporated county. The ordinance is framed by the county as an attempt to balance three interests directly: the county's own, its year-round residents and neighbors, and the interests of people offering short-term rentals. That framing matters practically, because it means the county's licensing requirements exist specifically to manage the friction between a working rural neighborhood and a nightly-rental use, not simply to collect a fee.

Operating a short-term rental in unincorporated Rich County requires a special business license, and that license is conditioned on an inspection of the property, ongoing compliance with the license's terms, and payment of an annual fee the county uses to offset the cost of administering and inspecting the program. In other words, this isn't a one-time registration -- it's a licensed use subject to recurring inspection and renewal, and a property that fails to maintain compliance can be subject to license conditions or loss of the license.

The county is actively revisiting this ordinance -- confirm current terms before relying on this page

As of early 2025, the Rich County Board of Commissioners was considering amendments to the short-term rental ordinance -- a live process, not a settled, unchanging rule set. A copy of the current or proposed ordinance can be requested directly from the Rich County Clerk's office. Given that an amendment process was underway, don't assume the 2017 licensing terms described here (inspection, annual fee, business license) remain unchanged without confirming the ordinance's current text and any amendments that may since have been adopted.

Rich County's transient room tax (TRT) rate is 3% of gross taxable rental sales, collected on top of any state and local sales tax that applies to a short-term rental -- a straightforward, confirmable figure to build into a nightly-rental pro forma for unincorporated county land.

Remember: this is the unincorporated-county process, not Garden City's

Our county hub already flags that Garden City, Laketown, Randolph, and Woodruff are incorporated towns with their own zoning and, in Garden City's case, dedicated nightly-rental zoning districts. Garden City runs its own separate short-term rental licensing process -- for example, the town has historically accepted new short-term rental license applications only during a specific annual window (January 1 through April 30) -- which is entirely distinct from the county's 2017 ordinance described above. Before applying for a short-term rental license anywhere near Bear Lake, confirm first whether the specific parcel is inside an incorporated town (apply to that town) or in the unincorporated county (apply to Rich County using the process on this page).