What Utah’s rental tax adds to your booking
Reviewed by Ben Kiser, RV rental operator and fleet consultant.
Salt Lake County charges 9.5 percent motor vehicle rental tax on top of 8.45 percent sales tax. It stops at 30 consecutive days, because at that point Utah stops calling the booking a short-term rental at all.
That line is in Utah Code 59-12-102(135), which defines a short-term rental as one of “less than 30 consecutive days”. A 29 night booking and a 30 night booking at the same nightly rate are taxed differently, and the longer one can come out cheaper. Only 4.6 percent of the 610 listings measured in this market on 2026-09-18 were flagged as accepting a long stay, so the supply side is the real constraint rather than the tax.
The rate belongs to the host and is not live, so this site does not publish it. Copy it from the listing for your dates.
Utah stops calling it a short-term rental at 30 consecutive days.
14,001 lbs and above is exempt from the rental tax at any length of rental.
Salt Lake County does not levy the towable rental tax. Grand County and Washington County both do.
Enter the nightly rate from your listing to see the Utah tax on it.
Rates read from the Utah Code and the Tax Commission rate chart on 2026-09-18. This is an estimate of the tax, not a quote. Hosts add their own cleaning, mileage, generator and delivery fees, and this site takes no payment. Utah Code 59-12-102, 59-12-1201.
Worked examples
Rendered here in full rather than only inside the calculator, so the arithmetic is in the page itself. Rates used are the medians measured on 2026-09-18.
| Booking | Rental | Rental tax | Sales tax | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A week in a Class C at the market median 7 nights at $219.00 | $1,533.00 | $145.64 | $129.54 | $1,808.18 |
| Twenty-nine nights, one short of the line 29 nights at $165.00 | $4,785.00 | $454.58 | $404.33 | $5,643.91 |
| Thirty nights, the same rate 30 nights at $165.00 | $4,950.00 | $0.00 | $418.28 | $5,368.28 |
| A travel trailer for ten nights 10 nights at $119.00 | $1,190.00 | $0.00 | $100.56 | $1,290.56 |
The second and third rows are the point. One extra night at the market median rate of $165.00 costs $165.00 in rent and removes $454.58 of tax from the whole booking.
Where these figures come from
- Utah Code 59-12-1201, the state rate and the GVWR exemption
- Utah Code 59-12-603, the county rate
- Utah Code 59-12-102, the definition that creates the 30 day line
- Utah State Tax Commission rate chart, the Salt Lake County rate, read 2026-09-18
One thing worth stating plainly: tax.utah.gov describes the weight exemption as 12,001 pounds. That was the rule before 1 July 2026 and the statute now says 14,001. Utah Publication 25 uses a third measure, gross laden weight rather than gross vehicle weight rating, and the copy served today is watermarked as a draft pending a public meeting. Where they disagree, this page follows the statute.
Questions
Next: which RV actually fits the Utah parks, and monthly rentals, where the 30 day line matters most.