With talk about a rise in the Transient Room Tax what do you need to know? First and foremost, the tax is only paid on hotel stays so unless you are staying in a hotel, you won’t be paying this tax. Uintah County shared in a Thursday press release that during the 2025 Legislative Session, the Utah State Legislature passed H.B. 456 – Transient Room Tax Amendments, to reform the Transient Room Tax guidelines to increase the TRT by 0.75% beginning on July 1st. Currently, the state collects a 0.32% tax and the tax will increase to 1.07%. The increase will go toward statewide infrastructure tourism related projects and to the Outdoor Recreation Mitigation Grant Program to assist Search and Rescue funding. Additionally, through H.B. 456, counties are given the option to increase, through county ordinance, the county-wide Transient Room Tax an additional .25% from 4.25% to 4.5%. This increase would go into effect on October 1st. The Uintah County Commission was presented with the background of H.B. 456 during the June 4th Commission Work Session. The Commission will now consider the ordinance during the June 24th regular Commission Meeting. A separate news story will be shared about how this could help with funding Uintah County Search and Rescue efforts. The full Uintah County press release is available on the Uintah County Facebook page.
