enabling municipalities to adopt a municipal occupancy fee.
SB 634 authorizes municipalities, by local vote, to impose a municipal occupancy fee on room rentals. The fee may be structured either as a flat daily charge or as a percentage of the room price, but it may not exceed $2 per occupancy per 24-hour period. The bill also exempts occupancies with an average daily price of $40 or less, and it limits the fee to a maximum of 184 consecutive days per occupancy. Municipalities would be required to follow a local adoption process involving notice, a public hearing, and a ballot or legislative-body vote depending on whether the municipality is a town or city.
Revenue from the fee must be placed into a capital reserve fund, tourism support fund, revolving fund, or other special revenue fund authorized by the municipality. Those funds are intended to help pay for municipal services associated with tourism and transient traffic, and the bill specifies that the money is not part of the general fund surplus. Municipalities may also later rescind the fee through the same local process, and any money already collected would still have to be used for the approved purposes.
The bill would add a new local-option authority to RSA 353, allowing towns and cities to create and administer a municipal occupancy fee without requiring statewide adoption. It would affect municipalities, lodging operators, and room occupants by creating a new potential charge on hotel and other room rentals, while also establishing procedural requirements for adoption, collection, enforcement, and rescission. The bill also ties enforcement to existing municipal ordinance enforcement provisions and directs how the resulting revenues may be segregated and spent.
The available voting history suggests the bill faced significant opposition in the Senate, where it was reported as inexpedient to legislate by a 15-9 vote. No committee transcript is provided, so there is no recorded discussion to indicate support or opposition arguments beyond the vote itself. Overall, the bill appears to have been controversial, with enough support to advance in committee but not enough to avoid an unfavorable recommendation.
The main points of contention likely concern whether municipalities should be allowed to add a new fee on lodging, how the revenue would be used, and whether the fee could affect tourism or room-rental affordability. Supporters would likely view the measure as a local funding tool for tourism-related services and capital needs, while opponents may object to another tax-like charge on visitors and the potential burden on the hospitality industry. The Senate vote against the bill indicates that a majority of senators on the issue were not persuaded by the proposal.