Myrtle Beach

Operating rules

Primary residence

No

Min stay (nights)

—

Max nights / year

—

Max occupancy

—

Zoning-restricted

Yes

Cap on licenses

No

Grandfathering: yes

Zoning: Short-term rental = "Visitor Accommodation" = any rental under 90 continuous days, expressly classified as a COMMERCIAL use (Zoning Sec. 203). Per the Table of Permitted Uses (Sec. 1407.C), "Visitor accommodations not otherwise listed" is permitted by right (P) only in RMV (Multi-family Residential District - High Density with Visitor Accommodations), MU-H, C6, A (Amusement), E (Entertainment), HC1 and HC2 (Highway Commercial); allowed by special exception (S) in IR, subject to Sec. 1503.A. The cell is BLANK - meaning "use type not allowed" - in every other district including all conventional residential districts R5, R7, R8, R10, R15, RMM, RMH and RMH-MH, and in MU-M, C7, C8, CG, MP, IN, AP, BP, LM, WM, CS and PRC. Net effect: the great majority of Myrtle Beach's residential land cannot be short-term rented at all, while the oceanfront/commercial tourist corridor can.

• No numeric cap on the number of STR licenses; the binding constraint is zoning district, not a permit quota.
• No minimum-stay floor and no annual night cap: the 90-day figure is the definitional CEILING separating a short-term (visitor accommodation, commercial) use from a long-term residential tenancy - not a minimum stay.
• Grandfathering: a small number of houses in traditional residential zones operate as legal nonconforming uses. The City's STR guidance page says "fewer than 30 houses"; the Planning & Zoning department page says "24 houses." These two official city figures conflict slightly; treat the count as approximately 24-30 and governed by the nonconforming use provisions at Zoning Art. 7, Sec. 705.
• No primary-residence requirement and no owner-occupancy requirement appears anywhere in the code; STRs are simply a commercial use confined to commercial and visitor-oriented districts.
• REVERSE RESTRICTION - Short-Term Rental Conversion (STRC) Overlay Zone, Zoning Sec. 1808 (Ord. No. 2024-69, adopted 12-10-24): in the commercial corridor between Kings Highway and the Atlantic Ocean, buildings of more than two units built or used as short-term rentals are PROHIBITED from converting to long-term (90+ day) rental. This ordinance protects STR inventory and lodging-tax revenue rather than curbing STRs; it is the opposite of the typical municipal STR crackdown and is a common source of misreporting.
• STRC overlay exception: owners already legally operating with a long-term rental business license at the time of adoption (12-10-24) may continue as long-term rentals so long as they maintain that license.
• STRC overlay anti-evasion clause: stringing together successive sub-90-day leases so an occupant stays past 90 continuous days is itself a violation.
• Occupancy is not capped by a city STR-specific formula, but Sec. 14-220 imposes strict guest-registration, photo-ID and minor-chaperone duties that function as a de facto party-house control.

Enforcement

Active enforcement

yes

Fines

Violations of the zoning code (operating a short-term rental in a district where Visitor Accommodations is not a permitted use) and of the business license ordinance are misdemeanors punishable by a fine of up to $500 and/or up to 30 days imprisonment upon conviction. Failure to keep the required guest register, to obtain guest photo ID, or to record guest vehicle information under Sec. 14-220 is separately a misdemeanor. Late tax remittance carries a 2% per month penalty on the Hospitality Tax and on the Local Accommodations Tax, and a 10% penalty on the Hospitality Fee. Late business license renewal carries a 5% penalty of the license fee per month or fraction of a month.

Notes

Enforcement is zoning-driven rather than permit-audit-driven: because STRs are a commercial use barred from residential districts, the city's principal lever is a zoning violation plus business-license revocation, not a cap or lottery. The Zoning Administrator and Fire Inspector must both sign off before a business license issues, which functions as the front-end gate. The Planning & Zoning Department directs property-specific zoning questions to (843) 918-1050 and the Zoning Division to (843) 918-1179; the Business License Office is (843) 918-1200. The city also maintains a published Short Term Rental Zone Map. The December 2024 STRC overlay demonstrates active, revenue-motivated council attention to the STR sector: city officials tied the ordinance to accommodations-tax preservation. Sec. 11-25 makes clear a new business must be licensed prior to operation, so an unlicensed STR is in violation from its first booking.