This controversial bill appears to be discriminatory against legal Hawaii vacation rentals. Read all the details.
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This controversial bill appears to be discriminatory against legal Hawaii vacation rentals. Read all the details.
Get Breaking Hawaii Travel News
Proposed is the key word here. There are quite a few proposals being floated throughout the country right now, from all sorts of “leaders”. Let’s not get to excited right now.
Unfortunately, if people don’t get excited and protest, bills like this can just slide on in.
Illegal! Violates the United States Constitution as well as the Hawaii State Constitution. It disenfranchises a certain category of taxpayer.
Please make a community meeting to allow the people that live and work in the STVR industry. This proposed law is unfairly targeted at small businesses. If revenues are the reason for this bill it is misdirected and unfairly at STVR. The better choice to increase revenue would be to direct your tax bill to the 90% large hotels Mose of all this law and others should be applied equally to all Island rentals.
Hi,
Does Hawaii not want visitors to come to the Islands? The negative actions of those in power and perhaps even the citizens of Hawaii seem to indicate that they do not want the business.
Classic government move to use a tax to solve a problem that is easily solved by limiting the number of airline seats to the islands. Fewer plane loads of people means fewer rentals. It’s not just the tax it’s the paperwork and the administration that snowballs. Find a better way.
Your solution is to limit the number of airline seats? LOL…
And how do you propose to do that? What if you are a resident wanting to go back home to HI? Or a business individual trying to conduct business? Or any other person going to HI for non tourist related reasons? And can you imagine the cost of those seats if there was a finite supply? Geez… that idea is worse than limiting the STR…
I don’t mind paying tax in Hawaii as we tourists are impacting the islands. However if they up the vacation rental taxes that much I doubt we will be able to afford to go anymore. Sad but it’s all getting so crowded and expensive that we may have to find somewhere else .
In the Zoom meeting with the HB 820 committee 99% of people who testified were not in favor. It’s a sham to ask for community input and totally disregard it. Hotels want to be rid of vacation rentals period! End of story!
This does nothing to solve the problems plaguing Hawaii. It does call out one group, condo and time share renters, and gouges them, which clearly is not Constitutional. There is something wrong with the government in Hawaii and they are killing the goose who has laid the golden egg for them for many years. More and more people will not return and the prices will have to come down if they wish to attract enough visitors to keep the hotels, condos, timeshares, restaurants, shops etc in business. I have to wonder if the Governor and the Congress has had too many Mai Tai drinks.
This is outrageous! We own a condo at Kona Bali Kai which we short term rent when we aren’t there to defray the costs of the AOAO fees, utilities, and property taxes. How is that property any different than the Royal Kona Resort a little north or the Outrigger a little south? It isn’t! Except maybe that some of the condos at KBK have full-time residents (as we will be someday). This bill is totally discriminatory and clearly backed by hotel lobbyists and benefactors. Shameful!
The topic of Hawaiian over tourism has been debated for years by both residents and politicians living on Hawaii. Many posting on BOH have stated and agreed that there’s over tourism on the islands.
The 2 most common discussed solutions are to eliminate short term rental properties and price low end budget travelers from coming to the islands.
HB820 is designed to accomplice both those goals.
HB820 will eliminate budget travelers, but they’ll be replaced by individuals who can afford the tax. If there’s a drop off in reservations you’ll see condo owners lower prices to adjust for the new tax.
The tax will have little effect on curing over tourism or eliminating short term rental properties it just screws the budget traveler.
Thank you, BOH. As owners of an historic Volcano vacation rental a mile from Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, our guests are Kamaaina and visitors from elsewhere. Hotels rooms in Volcano are limited to 37 rooms and most of those are filled with visitors from elsewhere and bicycle groups. Most vacation rentals in Volcano are second homes for kamaaina. Having them occupied and cared for assures the homes will not be burglarized and trashed. Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is the number #2 strongest attraction in the state. Yet, with only 37 hotel rooms, where do these visitors stay? Passing HB 820 would cripple the local restaurants, stores, art galleries, gift shops of our small community.
Over the past twenty years we have stayed in rentals, some historic, and have experienced more aloha from the owners than anywhere else on the islands. That is what draws us back. I hope the short term rental owners are organized and will protest these outrageous taxes. Personally, I wonder how much the hotel industry is behind this. As always, where goes the money?
If the problem is illegal short term rentals in communities that take local housing away, then address that. Find and fine the hosts. Stop giving permits and tax numbers to ‘neighborhoods and other sensitive areas in our communities’. Short term rental buildings are designated and hosts buy in them to rent. Locals rarely can live full time in these resort focused buildings. Focus on the problem. Give the locals back their communities,and their housing by legally restricting all ST in all communities.
As usual, it seems like this proposal is trying to address an issue that is more relevant on Oahu and maybe Maui as well. Looking at it from here on Kauai where we have designated vacation rental zones and only licensed properties are able to legally operate, the arguments being made do not make any sense. Plus, I think there is a lot of grey area in terms of what is a vacation rental and what is not. For example, here in Poipu we have the Koloa Landing Resort, which consists of condos, many of which are privately owned. But the resort is managed by Mariott and runs like a hotel, with on-site restaurants, etc. Owners are completely hands off. How would that be classified?
I truly hope this means they won’t put 90 day minimums on condos.
Thank you
The person who is pushing this bill, is turning a blind eye to all that would be effected, For one all small businesses, restaurants, and all that depend on the tourism that provides jobs, which puts food on the table. They also help from having to draw unemployment because those were able are no longer able to employ them.
As the old saying goes, don’t Bite the hand that feeds you. 😡😡
Hawaii I hope you get what you are trying for. That way we can pull the Navy out and you can figure out how to pay for things!!!
Everyone should pay the same!
Hotels, B&B, Hoisted and Non Hoisted. Even playing field!
Any and all Taxes plus resort fees!!
All pay the same!
We visit the North Shore every winter and in beach homes. Almost all the homes’ in the areas we have stayed in, are rentals so it’s affecting other neighbors. Prices gone up so much in the last few years we’re not sure how much longer we will go.
Hawaii already has the highest tourist taxes in the entire nation. Your excuse is the tourism effects the infrastructure as well as the parks, rivers, mountains, beaches, etc. What will you do when everyone starts deciding to go to the South Pacific, such as Fiji, Tahiti, French, Polynesia, and your tourism drops by 50% then you’ll be crying to the federal government that you need to bail out because the states broke. If your goal is to cut back, the number of Theresa visit the state, then you’re well on your way to doing it. We already have trips planned for this year and next but if this bill goes through, I think I’ll cancel next year’s trip I hear Fiji and Tahiti are both beautiful and very welcoming to visitors
We’re probably not returning. Not going to go where we are not welcome. We’ll give our money to somewhere else. We’re just over Hawaii anymore. It’s unfortunate too, it was our favorite vacation every year. It’s so sad that they are driving everyone away. Isn’t tourism their bad and butter…..?
If the goal is to support hotels gouging people then I understand why they are doing this. If the goal is to keep housing from becoming more unaffordable than it is trying to reduce the spike in the AirBnB investment homes that have then spiked home prices in Hawaii and many areas across the country with increased demand from vacation rental investments pricing out folks who actually want to live in a home and work in Hawaii then a better way would be to have a property tax rate for primary residence (current rates) and then raise property taxes on non-primary residence homes, reducing that demand and allowing those who want to own to live in Hawaii afford it. Hawaii’s challenge is more acute due to the limited space.
They all ready do that.
Kauai Co. does this. In addition to paying greatly increased tax rate for being an “Investment Property” (their label for anything that is not your primary residence), you then get hit with the additional 50% if it is a transient vacation rental. They also charge $750 a year for the permit, plus an additional $1200 annual for trash collection (to be fair, part of why it is so much more is that trash collection for non-rentals is super cheap – around $12 a month).
That’s one way to deter tourism – Hawai’i main revenue!!!
Honestly I’m not sure that people who put proposals like this forward have Any economic sense – didn’t they learn/see what their coffers were like during the pandemic?
What will they ask from the Federal government when they don’t have enough money to pay their Government Employees – “we were so dumb we stopped tourism”…
Looks like the islands need new representatives. You’d be taxing the people who are bringing their money to the islands. The islands flourish from tourist who bring their hard earned money. If we can barely afford to come. We’ll buy groceries and eat in. That does nothing for the hurting restaurants. We’ll buy less souvenirs. That hurts the mom and pop stores. And yet the hotels in Kaanipalli who keep selling time shares instead of renting rooms. Eventually the whole coast will be timeshares. Rentals will be our only choice. Taxing visitors at 33% and not the hotels is not the spirit of aloha. It does nothing to solve the problem of employees not being able to make fair wages and being able to afford living on the islands they were born.
Hawaii is being smothered by too many visitors,low wages,housing that is too expensive
and a high cost of living. Hawaii needs fewer visitors with the visitors that do come willing to spend more money. All this scapegoating and finger pointing doesn’t fix anything!
Seems like a “lazy” way to regulate short-term rentals. Just tax the heck out of people to decrease the number of STRs rather than have rules/regulations and enforce same rules/regulations.
Kauai county further penalizes Legal vacation rental properties by raising the property tax an additional 50%. In our case, this was about $8K extra for 2022. And trash pick up is an extra $100 a month
I get it. They want to get rid of vacation rentals, so they want to make the taxes as punitive as possible. Of course, if they succeed in killing off vacation rentals, all that sweet property tax money goes to $0. Hotels would no longer have to compete with vacation rentals, so their rates will go up. Maybe the tax collector at state and county figure the added hotel rent will at least somewhat off set the lost VR rent – but not the property tax part.
And, hotels
Also: the belief that these legal vacation rentals will turn into “affordable housing for locals” is delusional. Maybe some of the really terrible vacation rentals(?) – IDK, but our home would stay empty while we are off island, or maybe we’ll join the rent-free house-swapping community.
Wow, that’s crazy…50% extra and 100 a month for trash pick up.
100% correct. Maui, for instance, just passed a regulation that put a cap on short-term rental growth. It is not allowed for there to be more short-term rental units than currently exist. Not hotels, though. They can grow as much as they want.
I very much doubt “overtourism” is really what this is all about. It’s the competition with the hotels.
I am amazed they can propose charging owners of timeshares an accommodation tax for staying in a property they own (unless they are renting it to someone else). Especially when the state already charges discriminatory very high non-resident property taxes on those units.
The message is very clear…… if this bill passes or not Hawaii does want visitors to its islands, they are showing us this, through their actions.
Totally support legal vacation rentals. What is Hawai’i trying to do, stop all tourism by pricing themselves out of the vacation market? We have gone to Hawai’i many times, only once using a hotel. But, we have always supported the economy using tours, rentals, restaurants, local farmers markets and retail. We have always been respectful of the people and the land while witnessing locals not doing the same. We last visited in November 1921. It has been sad to see the changes and charges. It might be our last trip to Hawai’i. Last year we decided on a cruise to Greek Isles and this year is a trip within the mainland.
It is sad that your legislators cannot find an equitable solution.
“We last visited in November 1921”
And I thought I was old …
Another example of biting the hand that feeds us. Tourists surely have a limit and with thousands of other tropical destinations, Hawaii isn’t that unique hence why we supposedly have the HTB. If Local Government coalesces support under the guise of protecting local housing and controlling tourism to crush small businesses then once again we have ourselves to blame for believing and electing them. What is it going to take to stop the insanity of electing these people into office? I have mentioned my plan to increase availability of housing, decrease the cost of living, and improve the sustainability of our State. Elect me to clean out the hale.
The problem is the local and state government agencies are so corrupt that they have drowned the people of Hawaii. The homeless and addicted population are taking over because there is no funding to help with their situation. The reason they raise taxes on vacation rentals is because the larger companies have literally payed their way. If the people of Hawaii want to see more positive change the they need to change their ways of thinking, voting habits and who they let represent and oppress them. The most beautiful place in the world has become condemned because people won’t see the reality of what’s in front of them. Stop the oppression of Hawaii!!!
The people of Hawaii are the ones revolting against short-term rentals. They have no idea that there might be unintended consequences. And they are the ones who vote.
If this bill passes, which I don’t think it will, vacation rental owners will need to lower their rental fees by a like amount to stay competitive with not only hotels, but other vacation rentals. Renters will only pay so much for the privilege of staying in a home/condo vs. a hotel.
Homes are great for large groups. I have found the advertised rate for vacation rentals is misleading by a large amount. The extra charges are far far more than hotels. I agree, those other charges need to come down….let’s see…a cleaning charge, then told to wash the dishes, put the laundry in the washing machine, etc, etc. but paying a hefty cleaning fee for the “privilege” of doing some of the cleaning myself? Most hotels I stay at price the cleaning into the actual room rate and then actually do all of the cleaning, not ask me to do some of it. So if they charge more for taxes and reduce the gouging cleaning fee since they are asking me to do some of the cleaning anyway then really shouldn’t be a big price change for tourists.
You’ve been on social media too much. Those things aren’t really a thing. The hotel lobby is hard at work.
If I just wanted a beautiful beach I could go right here in Connecticut, or nearby Li, even in Queens NY to Rockaway Beach where I spent summers as a child. My street Beach 57th Street is now a surfer’s beach because it’s waves are like the Northern shore of Oahu. I could go anywhere on the east or west coast without having to spend all my savings. Were it not for my family (2 adorable grandkids) I would never step foot in Hawaii again. I don’t go where I am not wanted!
Apparently, some State Legislators have reloaded and are preparing to shoot themselves in the other foot!
This is nothing but a money grab for the state which already has a huge surplus of revenue. The GET that is collected accounts for a larger percentage of revenue (32%) than any other state which collects sales taxes. The authors of the bill are again attempting to fool the public by saying that STVR’s are taking away affordable housing stock. This is simply not true. you can see it in every other state that has tried to regulate short term vacation rentals. Prices on homes are not going to magically fall so much that they are “affordable”. Locals are being taxed to death, visitors are being taxed to death. It’t like Hawaii is trying to destroy the largest source of income – tourism. What’s next?!
Who keeps voting for these people?
The people of Hawaii vote for these people.
It sounds like strong armed robbery! Is his goal to foreclose on these vacation rentals? Who can afford to fly, rent a vehicle and vacation home/condo for a full month? Who’ll pay the taxes when you run all of us who rarely can afford to visit. Sure doesn’t pass the smell test for “Aloha” to me!
What can you expect from a one-party state for over a half a century? As a 30 year resident, all I’ve observed they know how to do is tax and spend. Not very positive for making an environment conducive for creating wealth for the average Joe.
I cannot afford Hawaii I used to visit annually. Every party taking their pound of flesh. I guess the aloha Spirit of welcoming respectful tourists is over. Aloha. Breaks my 💔 heart. I respect the land, love the locals and love little ohana cottages…can’t afford to rent a car or pay fees for rentals any longer. Tahiti for me, I guess.
Aloha Rob and Jeff. Well, well,well. How much more can we take? For visitors,0. For the bills that are thought up to raise the tax, Endless. What in the world are they trying to do to their economy? The 1 at Hanalei. $1200.00 a night for a basic room. $20,000 a night for the penthouse which hasn’t even been finished yet. That’s before taxes and fees. I am coming over early March. Will give you a report on a variety of happenings over there. Too bad a tsunami doesn’t wash all of these greedy people in govt. away. Always the best for you both. Mahalo as always for your work!!
The $1200 room at “The 1” comes with another $18 tax plus resort fee, so it’s more like $1500 a night, for a view of the air conditioner of the room next door.
We know a couple of young people who just started working service jobs (e.g., bartender) there. Beers start at $9, which is not so bad these days, but a glass of their worst chardonnay will set you back $34 before tax tip. Parking is $45 but I think is waived if you spend at least that much inside. One round of drinks would do it.
I’ll take these dysfunctional politicians form of discrimination over what is going on in many states across mainland where they try to discriminate against anyone who isn’t white/straight/male/Christian. These taxation bills are ridiculous but they are not taking away medical access, or books from libraries, or teaching my kids an even more white washed version of history. This is the reality of a one party supermajority of the not so Grand old Party. I had hoped to retire in Hawaii in a modest home or condo but it’s apparent that it’s going to be out of reach in affordability. I haven’t been back to Hawaii since 2019 since it’s now out if my price range.
Hey sports fans… How about these? They love to screw up a good thing.
This is outrageous! For people such as I who have children and grandchildren living in small towns on the Windward shore we are already being penalized by the no rentals for less than 30 days. This will make it impossible for most of us to visit because there are no hotels! I guess the want only the billionaires who buy whole islands and push everyone else out!
Tourists are already highly taxed and I don’t see them doing anything with the money because I don’t see the roads being fixed or the parking lot’s pave or anything fixed. I’ve been going to Molly since 2008 and all that time I have no idea what they do with all the texts they collect currently, I suggest you talk to government about where the money goes before you decide to hike the fees because in my mind it’s not going where it’s supposed to.
Exactly. These politicians need to be held accountable and live within their budgets.
Let’s just say that all the short term rentals were no longer legal and they now had to sell those houses on the open market. How many of those woukd actually be affordable by normal Hawaiian residence? So to say that these rentals are keeping regular every day people from buying homes is kind of a stretch. In fact, it’s a big stretch.
Patrick, Exactly what I was thinking! The government likes to pit their constituents against the visitors by saying this is going to free up more housing from those big bad AirBNB rentals.
The accommodations tax is already a disincentive to visit Hawaii. If it even doubled from the current rate, we would sadly stop visiting Hawaii as nightly rental rates are already so high that adding 20% would price it out of reach. We love Hawaii but the Caribbean has some lovely islands with beautiful beaches and they don’t tax like that.
What about house swaps. Do not the visitors affect the infrastructure as well – but pay no accommodation tax???