REDMOND, OR -- Airbnb, one of the largest community driven hospitality companies in the world, will now be responsible for collecting eligible transient room taxes and paying them directly to the City of Redmond.
Before November 1st, the individual proprietors of the Airbnb rentals in Redmond had been responsible for paying the taxes to the City for their establishments, resulting in a lot of extra paperwork. Jodi Burch, with the City of Redmond, says this new procedure will ease staffing pressure for the City, as they will now receive a single monthly payment directly from Airbnb, which will also make things easier for each host. "We have seen an increase in the number of properties listed on Airbnb through just casual checking of their website, which is great news for the tourism industry in Redmond and the local businesses that benefit from that. So now, Airbnb will collect and remit on behalf of all hosts."
Burch says this agreement makes things much easier for individual hosts to collect the 9% tax from their lodgers and pay it to the City. "The responsibility for collecting the transient lodging tax was on each individual host to register with the City of Redmond, and to collect the tax and remit directly to the City. Airbnb is now collecting on behalf of the hosts, all hosts, that rent rooms within the City of Redmond and remitting those taxes directly to the City."
Redmond joined 20 other Oregon cities with similar agreements with the hospitality giant. Airbnb began collecting the transient lodging tax on all eligible bookings in the Redmond city limits on November 1st, and will be making single monthly payments to the City, going forward.
