Paid hotel stays in Nashville-Davidson County attract both sales tax and local hotel occupancy charges. Your final bill combines percentage taxes with a fixed charge for each occupied room-night, so the advertised room price is not necessarily the amount you will pay.
Qualifying long stays and rooms paid for directly by government agencies receive different treatment. Start with the quote’s tax-inclusive or tax-exclusive total, and distinguish government charges from the hotel’s own fees and any temporary card hold.
Hotel taxes and the nightly charge
- Tennessee state sales tax
- 7%
- Davidson County local sales tax
- 2.75%, including the 0.5% transit surcharge
- Combined sales tax
- 9.75%
- Metro hotel occupancy tax
- 7% of the room charge, including mandatory occupancy fees
- Combined percentage taxes
- 16.75%
- Fixed occupancy charge
- $2.50 per occupied room, per night
The Metro charges apply throughout Nashville-Davidson County, not just downtown Nashville. A conventional hotel’s paid transient accommodation falls within their scope. Complimentary lodging with no charge is excluded from local occupancy tax. The long-stay and government-payment exceptions are explained below.
The combined sales-tax figure is not a tourist-only levy. It brings together Tennessee’s state tax and the county’s local sales tax, while Metro’s occupancy tax is a separate charge on lodging. Calling the hotel tax “17%” rounds the percentage component, but a rounded percentage alone leaves out the fixed room-night charge. That charge accrues by room, not by guest, so sharing a room does not multiply it.
The local sales-tax component includes the transit surcharge effective from 1 February 2025. For ordinary short stays, use the breakdown above rather than treating every line labelled “tax” as the same levy.
The additional portion of the fixed charge above $2 has a statutory expiry of 21 May 2032. The ordinance extending that period was approved on 4 September 2026, with commencement tied to discharge of the Convention Center Authority’s specified outstanding indebtedness. This expiry concerns the additional fixed-charge portion, rather than the entire hotel-tax bill.
Calculate the full room bill
- Establish whether the quote includes government taxes. If it does, do not add them again.
- Total the room charges and mandatory fees for the stay. Required destination or resort fees form part of both the sales-tax and occupancy-tax bases, even when itemised separately.
- Apply the combined percentage taxes to that taxable amount, then add the fixed charge for every occupied room-night.
- For a hypothetical room costing $200 a night for three nights, with no additional mandatory fees: $600 × 16.75% = $100.50 in percentage taxes. Add $7.50 in fixed charges, giving a full-stay total of $708.
Known, calculable mandatory property charges must be included in the upfront advertised lodging price. The federal price-disclosure rule covers hotels and intermediaries such as booking platforms and travel agents. A mandatory fee is part of the price of staying, not an optional purchase simply because it appears on a separate line.
Government taxes may be excluded from that upfront price, but their nature, purpose and amount must be disclosed before payment is requested. The final payment amount must include them.
Optional parking or other chosen extras are separate purchases, not the room’s mandatory fee. A refundable deposit or temporary card hold is not a tax and should be distinguished from the final charge when comparing the quote with your payment record.
Long stays and government-paid rooms
Metro’s long-stay occupancy-tax exemption starts on the 31st night of continuous occupancy. Qualifying occupancy lasts at least 30 continuous days, but the first part of the stay remains taxable. This is not a retrospective exemption for every night merely because your reservation is long enough.
Tennessee sales tax follows a different continuous-stay condition: rooms furnished to the same person for 90 or more continuous days are exempt. A Metro occupancy-tax exemption does not automatically remove state and local sales tax. When arranging an extended stay, ask the hotel to distinguish these two treatments on the bill rather than applying a single “tax-exempt” label.
Nonprofit or other tax-exempt organisational status alone does not qualify a stay for Metro’s exemption. That includes religious groups, private schools and private universities, hospitals and fraternal organisations. Being a military member or a foreign-government representative also does not by itself make the room exempt.
For government-paid rooms, sales-tax eligibility remains separate and requires the applicable documented government exemption. Tell the hotel who will pay and provide the exemption documentation relevant to that tax, so the payment arrangement and the tax treatment match.
Query an unexpected tax charge
Do
- Keep the booking quote, itemised hotel receipt and evidence of payment together.
- Compare room charges, mandatory fees, taxable amounts and occupied room-nights with the quote.
- Ask the hotel to explain a suspected calculation or payment error and issue a corrected bill where appropriate.
Don’t
- Treat a property’s destination or resort fee as a government tax simply because it is mandatory.
- Count a temporary card authorisation as a second final payment.
- Add taxes again to a quote that already includes them.
Start with the hotel’s itemised explanation. Identify the disputed line and whether your concern is the taxable amount, the number of rooms or nights, an exemption, or a payment that appears twice. Keeping the question specific makes it easier to separate a tax calculation from a hotel fee or card hold.
For an unresolved question about local hotel occupancy tax, contact Metro Nashville Finance Collections, also called the Metropolitan Collections Office, at collections.office@nashville.gov or 615-862-6215. Describe the stay and the disputed local-tax line, and retain the hotel’s response alongside your original records.
Sources & fact-checking
Checks against the sources below cover: fares and charges, as well as services.
- Sales and Use Tax Guide
- Local Sales Tax Rates
- BL2026-1493, Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County
- Increase of Hotel Occupancy Tax: Metropolitan Nashville-Davidson County
- Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Department of Finance Collections — service
- Taxation of Short-Term Rentals
- Chapter 5.12 – Hotel Occupancy Privilege Tax, Metropolitan Code of Laws
- SUT-47 – Short-Term Rentals Are Subject to Sales Tax
- Federal Trade Commission — service
- Metro Nashville Finance Department Collections Office — service
- Metro Nashville Finance Collections — service
- Occupancy Tax Notice #25-07: Short-Term Rental Unit – 30 Day Occupancy
