What Hostax does
A management company that collects lodging and occupancy tax in several jurisdictions has one recurring chore: every jurisdiction needs its own rate check, its own calculation and its own way of receiving the return. Hostax is built around that chore. Its homepage describes a tax compliance platform for vacation rental management that plugs into the company’s property management system and then works through the jurisdiction research, rate confirmation, booking site facilitator rules, calculation, filing coordination and audit paperwork. It says the reach is every U.S. jurisdiction in a customer’s portfolio, and that a compliance record is kept for each property, each jurisdiction and each filing cycle.
Watch: how short term rental taxes work for managers
Chapters jump to a section on YouTube. The full transcript is below.
Full transcript
Why STR tax is not one tax
If you run a short-term rental, tax is not one tax. It changes by state, by county, and sometimes by town. Take Pennsylvania. The state applies a 6% hotel occupancy tax to rentals booked through online brokers, and Monroe County adds 3%. In Tennessee, it is a 7% state sales tax, plus a local rate. Those are rates we read from government pages in October. Check yours before you file.
What a property manager inherits, and Hostax
Now multiply that by every property and every booking site you list on. That is the job a property manager inherits. Hostax is a tax compliance platform built for vacation rental management companies. Its site says it connects to your property management system, then handles jurisdiction research, rate confirmation, how the booking sites handle tax, the calculation, and the documentation.
How filing works by jurisdiction
Filing depends on the jurisdiction. Where mail-in is accepted, Hostax prepares the mailer and you send it with one click. Where a portal login is required, it prepares the filing package and you submit it.
Price and the STR Select ranking
What we could not find is a price, so you will need to ask for a quote. In our STR compliance ranking, Hostax sits fifth of seven because we rank on what we can check. The full ranking and the sources are on strselect.com under Tools, Hostax.
Who it fits
Management companies that run many properties across more than one taxing jurisdiction and report to homeowners, which is the audience the homepage names. The one customer quote on the site comes from a manager with 200+ rentals listed on 12+ booking sites. A host with a single property who mainly wants permit and zoning alerts is better served by HostReady or STR Comply in the same ranking.
Pricing, checked November 8, 2026
Hostax does not print a price anywhere we could find. The homepage and the contact page list no plan, rate or fee. The contact form asks for your property management system and your number of properties, so a quote is probably built from the size of your portfolio. Last looked at on November 8, 2026.
The portfolio based quote is our reading of the form fields. Hostax does not say how it prices.
Source: hos.tax/contact-us/, checked November 8, 2026.
By the numbers
| Stat | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Vacation rental operators and their homeowners | hos.tax/ |
| Reach claimed | Every U.S. jurisdiction in a customer’s portfolio, with no jurisdiction count given | hos.tax/ |
| Mail-in jurisdictions | Hostax prepares the complete mailer and the operator triggers the send with a single click | hos.tax/ |
| Portal login jurisdictions | Hostax prepares the filing package, ready for the operator to submit | hos.tax/ |
| Records kept | One for every property, jurisdiction and filing cycle, whichever way the return goes in | hos.tax/ |
| Data source | The customer’s property management system; no supported systems are listed | hos.tax/ |
Where Hostax sits
Picture a manager with forty homes spread over six counties. Each county wants its own return, some by post and some through a login on a government site. Hostax says it takes the booking data out of the management system you already run, works out what is owed in each place, and assembles the paperwork for you.
The homepage splits the work in two. Where a jurisdiction takes paper, the finished mailer is waiting and you press one button to send it. Where a jurisdiction wants a portal login, the package is ready and your team submits it. In both cases a record is kept for each home, each taxing place and each filing period.
The only customer voice on hos.tax is a quote from Grand Welcome, a manager in Ohio and Kentucky that lists 200+ rentals across 12+ booking sites. It is a testimonial on the vendor’s own page, so we read it as a description of who the product is aimed at and not as a review. If you run a portfolio of that size, the contact form is the real next step: it asks for your name, email, phone, company, property management system, number of properties and a message, and it is the only place a price or a connection list could come from.
What the site does not give you is anything to measure. There is no price, no count of places covered, no list of connected management systems and no outside rating, so the fair way to compare Hostax with its neighbors is to ask it for those four items in writing.
The verdict
For a property manager the appeal is plain: one platform that turns booking data into a filing package in each jurisdiction, instead of a spreadsheet and a calendar of due dates. We still place it fifth, because the ranking follows what a reader can check, and Hostax gives a reader little to check. It prints no price, no jurisdiction count and no list of property management systems it works with, and we found no public review score. Its customer quote sits on its own homepage and we did not verify it. If your portfolio spans many jurisdictions, ask Hostax for a written quote and a list of the systems it connects to, and ask Avalara MyLodgeTax for the same, then compare which steps each one completes for you.
Alternatives to compare
Full side by side with published pricing: STR Compliance Tools ranking Next in this ranking: HostReady.
Hostax badge
Hostax can show this on its website. It links back here and updates if the position changes.