Houston Hotel Tax Is 17%, Printed Three Different Ways on the Booking Screen
By Matt Spaulding · November 9, 2026
Photo: Ed Uthman, Houston, Texas, USA, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
A hotel room in the City of Houston carries 17% in hotel tax, and every booking screen we read there that showed a tax line came to that. The labels are less reliable. One screen calls a line STATE TAX that works out to 4%, the size of the county's 2% and the Sports Authority's 2% together, and two put the hotel's own fees right beside the tax lines. Open the rate details before you book and add up the tax lines charged on the room. If they come to more than 17% of the room price, something besides tax is in there.
Houston First's FAQ asks "What is the breakdown of the overall Hotel Occupancy Tax rate (of 17 percent)?" and answers with four pieces: 6% State of Texas, 7% City of Houston, 2% Harris County and 2% Harris County-Houston Sports Authority. The Texas Comptroller gives the state's piece as 6% of the cost of a room. The Harris County Tax Office collects the two 2% pieces, and Harris County's Office of County Administration says state law holds the county's own tax to 2% or less for a hotel inside the City of Houston.
These are the rates inside the City of Houston, and this guide stays there. No page we read says whether the Sports Authority tax applies outside the city.
How the 16 screens split the 17%
Three screens itemize four tax lines, six show three, six show one line or only a total, and one shows none until checkout. Each read was for one room and two adults on one night, in our own browser. Of the 16 hotels linked below, 12 were read on 28 October. The other four are cart screens (Mews, ResNexus, Cloudbeds and Choice), read on 4 November after a room went in the cart and before guest details. All were for the night of 17 November except the Mews read, which was for 18 November. We don't publish room rates, so every tax figure here is a percentage. A percentage inside a quoted label is printed by the screen, and any other is our arithmetic from the screen's own lines against its room subtotal. Unless we name one, none of these screens showed a fee line. Houston First and the government pages were read on 9 November. Any of it can change.
The Whitehall Houston splits the tax the way Houston First does, in its rate details: "State of TX sales tax 6%", "City Occupancy tax 7%", "County tax 2%" and "Sports Authority tax 2%". The first label is misleading. The Comptroller calls that 6% the state hotel occupancy tax.
La Colombe d'Or Hotel does the same on its Mews summary, with "Harris County Occupancy Tax 2%", "Houston Occupancy Tax 7%", "Sports Authority Tax 2%" and "Texas State Occupancy Tax 6%" under one Taxes total. La Maison in Midtown prints its four labels in the ResNexus cart without percentages: "County Tax", "Harris County Sports Auth", "City Tax" and "State Tax". They work out to 2%, 2%, 7% and 6% of the room.
On six screens the county's 2% and the Sports Authority's 2% appear as one 4% line, under a different name almost every time. The InterContinental Houston, in Texas Medical Center and the Museum District, calls it "County Tax 4%", beside "Houston City Tax 7%" and "State Tax 6%". At the Wyndham near NRG Park and the Medical Center, in Reliant Park, it's "Occupancy Tax 4%". The Wingate near Reliant Park prints "County Occupancy Tax 4%". Both print "State Tax 6%" and "City Tax 7%" too. Hotel ZaZa Museum District shows "State Tax", "City Tax" and "County Tax" with no percentages, and they come to 6%, 7% and 4% of the room.
The Marlene Inn has the only label we read that names both taxes inside the 4%. Its Cloudbeds popover lists "Harris County and the Houston Sports Authority Tax" beside "Texas Hotel Occupancy Tax" and "City of Houston Hotel Occupancy Tax", and the three come to 4%, 6% and 7% of the room.
Club Quarters Hotel Downtown uses a white-label SynXis screen, which reads "No hidden fees, excludes taxes", and shows "CITY TAX", "STATE TAX" and "OCCUPANCY TAX". CITY TAX is 7% of the room, STATE TAX is 4% and OCCUPANCY TAX is 6%, 17% in all. Read STATE TAX as the state's share and you have the wrong number. The screen doesn't explain its labels.
The Lancaster Hotel has one line, "Tax 17 Percent", and nothing else. The Post Oak Hotel at Uptown Houston, in the Galleria and Uptown, prints a single "Hotel Tax" that is 17% of the room. After Add Room, the Choice screen for Comfort Suites near Medical Center and NRG Stadium shows a "Total incl. taxes & fees" exactly 17% above the room price, with no breakdown.
IHG's newer layout has no rate-details block. At the Holiday Inn Houston Reliant Park Area, ticking "Includes taxes and fees" raised each of four room prices by 17%. The Staybridge Suites Houston Medical Center price went up 16.9%, which is 17% once you allow for whole-dollar prices. At the Holiday Inn Express & Suites Houston S Medical Ctr Area the member price and the struck-through price both came out 17% higher. None of the three shows which part of the 17% is which.
Charges beside the tax lines
The Four Seasons Hotel Houston shows no tax line before checkout. Each room reads "Includes Mandatory Fee (taxes calculated at checkout)". The fee is the hotel's own, a charge the screen labels State Cost Recovery Fee: $4.25 a night "plus applicable taxes", which "is in addition to the room rate per night". In the hotel's words, "This fee is used to offset the property's State Franchise Tax." The nightly price you see already includes the $4.25, and tax is added at checkout.
The InterContinental is the one screen we read that prints a tax line for its own add-on: "Amenity Fee 25.00USD on rate, per night" and "Amenity Fee Tax 17% on fee". That is $25 a night, $29.25 with the 17%.
Hotel ZaZa's screen puts the hotel's own charges beside its three tax lines. A line it labels Amenity Fee comes to $37.44, and one it labels State Recovery Fee to $3.55. By our division the $37.44 already includes 17% tax, and the screen doesn't split it out.
Texas taxes any charge for items or services that come with the room, listed separately or not, except personal services and telephone (Comptroller rule 34 TAC 3.162(a)(2), read on Cornell's copy). No Comptroller page we read names resort or destination fees, or an amenity fee.
The Hilton-family screens we read in Houston on 28 October say the price "excludes taxes and government charges" and print no tax line. Some carry a line the screen labels Texas Recovery Fee, or another mandatory charge, and the Houston hotel resort fees guide covers those. No source we read says what Hilton's Texas Recovery Fee is.
Thirty nights or more
Texas Tax Code 156.101 reads: "This chapter does not impose a tax on a person who has the right to use or possess a room in a hotel for at least 30 consecutive days, so long as there is no interruption of payment for the period." Section 351.002(c) applies the same exemption to city hotel taxes.
The Comptroller's FAQ, under "Who is exempt from paying state and local hotel taxes?", says: "Guests who stay 30 or more days and notify the hotel in writing of their intention beforehand are exempt from the day of notification. Guests who do not notify the hotel must pay the tax the first 30 days and are exempt thereafter. Any interruption in the term of occupancy will void the exemption."
Houston First's FAQ lists "certain hotel guests" who are "exempt from the municipal hotel occupancy tax", and one bullet reads: "Permanent residents, meaning guests who notify the hotel in writing of their intent to stay 30 or more consecutive days, are exempt from hotel occupancy taxes from the beginning of their stay, provided there is no interruption in payment for the room." It doesn't mention the county or Sports Authority taxes, and it has no sentence about a guest who gives no notice.
The Comptroller starts the exemption on the day of notification. Houston First starts it at the beginning of the stay. We haven't found a page that says which applies.
The Comptroller's quick-reference sheet for hotels, last updated 21 July 2016, says a hotel can be held liable for the tax if the guest doesn't pay for 30 consecutive days, even with a written agreement or notice. So the hotel may collect tax for the first 30 days and then refund or credit it. With no notice, tax is due on the first 30 days and the guest is not entitled to a refund. The sheet also says: "Checking a guest out and immediately back in is NOT an interruption of the guest's right to occupy a room." If you are booking 30 nights or more, give the hotel written notice of the full stay before you arrive, and get it to put in writing which taxes it will leave off and from what date.
What we couldn't establish
A British Airways listing for the Hilton Americas, and other third-party listings for Embassy Suites Downtown and Hampton Inn Downtown, have carried a "Downtown District Fee" of $2.00 plus tax, "paid to Houston First Corporation, a local government corporation". We couldn't reload the British Airways page on 9 November. A vendor's guide for hotel software says "City Code Section 31-131(c) adds a flat Sports Facility Fee of $2 per room per night". We haven't read that code section, no official page we read confirms either $2, and Houston First's tax pages mention neither. They may be the same charge.
Hilton's own screens for those three hotels, read on 28 October, showed no mandatory charge line, but their prices exclude taxes and government charges, so they settle nothing. We wouldn't call the $2 a tax. Before you compare downtown totals, ask the hotel whether a per-night charge sits on top of the 17%.
None of the city's or the state's tax pages we read, Houston First's FAQ and filing page and the Comptroller's, mentions a Houston hotel public improvement district or tourism assessment.
We found no separate Houston arts tax in any source. A City council document from 17 February 2016 shows 19.3% of the City's hotel tax money going to the arts (2014 data), so arts money comes out of the City's 7%.
The Four Seasons is in downtown Houston, and the Lancaster and Club Quarters are in the Theater District. Each hotel page gives the fee line we read on its booking screen, or says there wasn't one.
