Last reviewed: September 19, 2026. This guide is general information for hosts, not legal or tax advice. Rules change; confirm anything you rely on with the office listed at the end.
Step one: county or city?
Everything else depends on this. Gwinnett County’s short-term rental rules and its Code Enforcement officers cover unincorporated Gwinnett only. A rental inside Snellville, Duluth, Lawrenceville or any other Gwinnett city follows that city’s ordinances, and a few cities cross into neighboring counties. A “Lawrenceville” or “Dacula” mailing address is often unincorporated, so check the parcel, not the envelope.
What applies in unincorporated Gwinnett now
There is no county license or registration yet. Short-term rental is a listed residential use in Gwinnett’s Unified Development Ordinance (Section 210-140.34, repeated at 212-50.10 for mixed-use districts), and four standards apply automatically:
| Standard | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| No exterior evidence | No signs or anything visible from the street showing the home is a rental |
| Hard-surface parking only | Guests park on the driveway or a pad on the property — not the street, the yard, a neighbor’s lot or the right-of-way |
| Two adults per bedroom | With the total also meeting the ordinance’s definition of family, so a four-bedroom home is not automatically an eight-adult rental |
| Contact details posted | The owner’s or manager’s contact information displayed near the main entrance at all times |
The county treats “short-term” as a stay of fewer than 30 days. Enforcement today is complaint-driven: a neighbor reports through GwinnettZIP (anonymously if they choose), an officer inspects, a courtesy notice comes first, and uncorrected violations can go to Recorder’s Court with fines of up to $1,000 and/or 60 days per violation.
What changes on April 14, 2027
On April 14, 2026, the Board of Commissioners voted 5–0 to add a short-term rental ordinance to Chapter 74 of the county code, effective one year later. From April 14, 2027, rentals in unincorporated Gwinnett must:
- Hold a license, renewed every year. The county has said an owner who is not renting in a given year can let it lapse and apply again later.
- Name a local agent who lives in Gwinnett or an adjacent county. That is a tighter radius than the task force originally proposed.
- Pass an interior property maintenance inspection every two years, against International Property Maintenance Code standards.
- Keep meeting the operating standards above, which become conditions the county can enforce through the license.
The county contracted the program to an outside vendor. Its bid documents asked for the online application to open around January 14, 2027, three months before the deadline, with decisions promised within three business days. The license fee is set by the vendor’s winning bid rather than by the county; no fee had been published when we last checked. After April 2027 the vendor also monitors listing platforms, writes to unlicensed owners and escalates to Code Enforcement after 30 days without a response.
The three taxes on every Gwinnett booking
| Charge | Rate | Who remits it |
|---|---|---|
| Georgia sales tax (state 4% plus two 1% local taxes in Gwinnett) | 6% | Airbnb and VRBO as marketplace facilitators |
| Georgia state hotel-motel fee | $5 per night, first 30 nights | Airbnb and VRBO |
| Gwinnett County hotel/motel tax | 8% of rent | The platform, or the host for direct bookings |
If you only book through Airbnb or VRBO, check your payout breakdown to confirm all three are being collected. If you take direct bookings, you register through the Georgia Tax Center and file by the 20th of each month, even in months with no bookings. Cities that license rentals can add their own collection duties; Snellville’s application, for example, has the owner acknowledge a duty to remit hotel/motel tax to the City Clerk monthly.
A state requirement most hosts have missed
Georgia’s SB 570, the Human Trafficking Prevention Training Act, took effect on July 1, 2026. It requires operators of short-term rental properties to complete approved human-trafficking awareness training within 60 days of starting to operate and annually after that, adopt a reporting policy, post the required notice and keep training records for three years after they stop operating. It applies statewide, whether or not your county or city licenses rentals.
City by city
What we found for each Gwinnett city and when we last checked. Snellville’s requirements come from the city’s own application packet, which we read in full. For cities where we found no specific ordinance, zoning, business-tax and noise rules still apply — call City Hall before listing.
| Location | What we found |
|---|---|
| Unincorporated Gwinnett County | No license yet; four zoning standards apply now. Annual license, local agent in Gwinnett or an adjacent county, and an inspection every two years from April 14, 2027. |
| Lawrenceville | No city short-term rental license found; zoning and business-tax rules still apply. Confirm with City Hall. |
| Duluth | No city short-term rental license found in our last check. Confirm with the city. |
| Suwanee | No city short-term rental ordinance found in our last check. Confirm with the city. |
| Buford | No city short-term rental license found in our last check; Hall County parcels follow Hall County rules. Confirm with the city. |
| Sugar Hill | No city short-term rental ordinance found in our last check. Confirm with the city. |
| Snellville | City short-term rental license required: $250 new, $100 renewal, named 24-hour local contact (city application packet, January 2026). |
| Lilburn | No city short-term rental license found in our last check. Confirm with the city. |
| Norcross | No city short-term rental license found in our last check. Confirm with the city. |
| Peachtree Corners | City zoning was reported in 2019 to bar residential rentals under 31 days. Confirm current rules with the city before listing. |
| Dacula | No city short-term rental license found in our last check. Most Dacula addresses are unincorporated and fall under the county rules. |
| Grayson | No city short-term rental license found in our last check. Confirm with the city. |
| Loganville | Mostly in Walton County; Gwinnett-side parcels outside city limits follow Gwinnett County rules. Confirm with the city. |
| Auburn | Mostly in Barrow County; the city sets its own rules. Confirm with the city. |
| Braselton | Town and county rules vary across four counties. Confirm with the Town of Braselton. |
| Berkeley Lake | No city short-term rental license found in our last check. Confirm with the city. |
“Not found” means we did not find a city-specific short-term rental ordinance or license in our last check. It is not a statement that none exists. Confirm with City Hall before listing.
Snellville in detail
Snellville runs the most complete city program in the county. Its application packet (revised May 2025, posted January 2026) sets a $250 fee for new applicants and $100 to renew, and requires:
- A named 24-hour local contact, with their mobile number and how many miles they live from the unit
- The square footage of each bedroom, with bedrooms defined by building-code requirements including an emergency escape opening
- Occupancy of no more than two people per bedroom plus two per unit, and the number of on-site paved parking spaces
- An interconnected, hard-wired smoke detection system
- Security cameras covering the driveway and every entry point
- Advertising that matches the licensed details
A host’s checklist for 2026 and 2027
- Confirm whether your parcel is in a city or unincorporated Gwinnett.
- Read your HOA covenants. A covenant that bans short-term rentals is enforceable whatever the county allows.
- Set the home up for the four county standards: parking, occupancy, no exterior signage, posted contact card.
- Complete the SB 570 training within 60 days of your first booking and diarize the annual refresher.
- Confirm all three taxes are collected on your platform payouts, or register if you book direct.
- Line up a local agent before early 2027, when every unincorporated owner will be looking at once.
- Book a property maintenance inspection early enough to fix what it finds.
- Apply when the portal opens, targeted for mid-January 2027, rather than in April.
Where cleaning fits
None of the rules above is about cleaning, but three of them are easier with a reliable turnover crew. The inspection is a property-condition check, and a unit that is photographed and reported on after every stay rarely hides a problem until inspection day. Complaint-driven enforcement usually starts with parking, trash and noise — trash left at the curb after checkout is one of the things neighbors notice first, and our turnovers return bins to where your HOA requires. And a turnover report is a dated record of the unit’s condition if a neighbor’s complaint is ever disputed.
If you want a turnover partner who is based in Gwinnett, see Airbnb and VRBO cleaning. If you are also looking for a local agent for 2027, mention it on the quote form; we are talking with hosts about what that service should include.
Who to contact
- Gwinnett County Planning and Development (zoning, the ordinance, licensing program): 75 Langley Drive, Lawrenceville, GA 30046; 770-822-8000.
- Gwinnett Code Enforcement (complaints, unincorporated only): 770-513-5020.
- Gwinnett Licensing and Revenue (county hotel/motel tax): 678-377-4100.
- Georgia Department of Revenue (state sales tax and the $5 fee): through the Georgia Tax Center.
- Snellville Planning and Development: 2342 Oak Road, 2nd Floor, Snellville, GA 30078; 770-985-3513.
Sources
- City of Snellville, Short-Term Rental Application Packet (read in full, September 2026)
- Gwinnett County UDO Title 2, Sections 210-140.34 and 212-50.10
- Gwinnett County Short-Term Rental Task Force report, January 2025
- Board of Commissioners business session minutes, April 14, 2026
- Gwinnett County RP013-26, short-term rental licensing and monitoring services
- Gwinnett County Code Enforcement
- Georgia SB 570, Human Trafficking Prevention Training Act
- Georgia Department of Revenue, state hotel-motel fee FAQ
- BNBCalc, Gwinnett County short-term rental regulations (updated August 2026) — a secondary summary we used to locate the county documents above
- WSB-TV, metro Atlanta short-term rental rules by city (2019) — source for the Peachtree Corners 31-day rule