Let’s say a traveler from California or Utah flies to North Carolina and needs to rent a car to drive the beach or the mountains for a week. As part of the rental fee paid at the counter of the rental place, they pay a North Carolina sales tax on the “short-term rental.”  

For years and years, the revenues from the “short-term rentals” sales tax collection have been going to the North Carolina General Fund, not to our Highway fund.  The short-term rental drivers are using our roads and bridges, adding to congestion and taking advantage of our transportation infrastructure system. Yet, the money was not funding transportation and infrastructure. 

North Carolina legislators just fixed this in the bipartisan 2021 State Budget that was signed into law Thursday. The budget redirects the money from “short-term rentals” sales tax into the Highway fund.  

This is a common-sense fix that will help modernize our state’s transportation revenue model.  

We commend the legislators for the common-sense approach. We hope this is a building block to continue modernizing our approach to maintaining and investing in our roads and bridges.