Tourism Taxes Amendments

Tighter oversight of county tourism taxes

Beginning May 6, 2026, Utah strengthens reporting and oversight for counties collecting hotel and tourism-related taxes. Counties must break down spending by legally allowed uses in their annual financial reports. They must also submit yearly written reports using the state auditor’s form. Hotel-tax reports must detail promotion spending and agreements sharing tax money with municipalities, including amounts shared under each agreement. They must list the previous fiscal year’s search-and-rescue efforts and total tourism-related rescue and emergency medical costs. Reports must describe factors making these services harder or costlier, including road conditions, and money recovered from people served. They must show percentages served who were in-state visitors, out-of-state visitors, or county residents, plus counts with missing information. Counties must send the previous fiscal year’s written report to the state auditor and legislative fiscal analyst by October 1. By December 1, those officials must agree on whether each report sufficiently shows compliance with legal spending requirements. They must send their analysis to the Revenue and Taxation Interim Committee and the Political Subdivisions Interim Committee. The auditor may audit reported spending; any audit findings must accompany the analysis. A county’s report must also accompany the analysis when both officials agree it does not sufficiently show compliance. That same finding allows the auditor to block the county’s access to hotel or tourism-related tax revenue.