Greenville County

Operating rules

Primary residence

No

Min stay (nights)

—

Max nights / year

—

Max occupancy

—

Zoning-restricted

No

Cap on licenses

—

Zoning: The County of Greenville Zoning Ordinance (adopted June 7, 2005; amendments through December 3, 2025) contains no 'short-term rental', 'vacation rental', or 'transient rental' use category and no 'Lodging' use category. Full-text search found zero occurrences of 'short-term rental'. The only lodging uses regulated are: 'Bed and Breakfast' — defined as 'Private home offering lodging and breakfast to guests', permitted (P) in NC, C-1, C-2 and C-3 and allowed as Condition 4 (C4) in residential districts, subject to Section 6:2 Use Condition (4) requirements including a guest register, no cooking facilities in guest rooms, a 1,500-foot separation from another Bed and Breakfast/boarding house/rooming house/inn or hotel in residential districts, and rear/side parking; and 'Hotel/Motel' — defined as 'A building or group of buildings containing individual sleeping or living units designed for the temporary occupancy of transient guests and which has conveniently located parking', permitted only in commercial/service districts. Greenville County is approximately two-thirds UNZONED; where a parcel is unzoned there are no use-based restrictions, though Land Development Regulations still apply. CAUTION: because the county has never classified whole-home STRs as a use, there is residual interpretive risk that a zoning official could treat a whole-house STR in a residential district as a Hotel/Motel use (not permitted there); no county interpretation or enforcement action establishing that reading was located.

• This record covers UNINCORPORATED Greenville County only. The municipalities inside the county — Greenville, Greer, Mauldin, Simpsonville, Fountain Inn and Travelers Rest — set their own STR rules. The City of Greenville operates its own STR permit program (the source of the widely-miscited $40 permit fee).
• An ad hoc Greenville County Council committee began examining STR regulation in February 2026. Per reporting on that meeting, the County Attorney advised that of South Carolina's 46 counties only about half a dozen (York, Lexington, Charleston among them) have passed STR ordinances, and all are completely zoned — unlike Greenville County. No ordinance had been adopted as of July 2026. This item is a change-monitoring trigger.
• No county-level minimum stay, night cap, occupancy formula, primary-residence rule, or license cap exists because no STR ordinance exists.
• The 90-continuous-day threshold in SC law is a TAX boundary (rentals to the same person for 90 continuous days fall outside the accommodations tax), not a minimum-stay restriction on operating.

Enforcement

Active enforcement

no

Fines

No STR-specific penalties exist because no STR ordinance exists. Applicable county penalties are tax/registration based: (1) Accommodations Fee — penalty of 2% of the fee due for each month outstanding, with the return delinquent on the 21st day of the month following the reporting period; (2) Business Registration (Ord. 4277) — failure to submit an application is a violation of the ordinance and could result in a misdemeanor charge, with repeated violations potentially leading to further legal action; (3) Local Hospitality Tax (food/beverage only) — 5% penalty per month or portion thereof on the original amount due.

Notes

No dedicated STR enforcement program, complaint portal, or inspection regime was found at the Greenville County level. Enforcement that exists is revenue-side (Treasurer/Financial Operations) and general code compliance. The Hospitality Tax ordinance authorizes systematic inspections and audits of service providers, with entry to premises and examination of books and records on 24 hours' written notice — but that reaches prepared food/beverage sellers, not STR room revenue. South Carolina's 'Fairness in Lodging Act' (Act No. 261 of 2014) directs SCDOR and local governments to share information to improve accommodations-tax compliance and requires 'rent by owner' vacation-rental websites to notify SC property owners of licensing and remittance duties — an indirect compliance lever that does reach STR operators. Greenville County Council's ad hoc committee began weighing resident complaints about noise, parking and trash from STRs in February 2026; any resulting ordinance would change this record.