Folly Beach SC Short-Term Rental Rules: The City Desk to Use

Jacob Mishalanie
5 days ago
10 min read

Atlantic view southeast from Folly Beach Pier, Folly Beach, South Carolina

A host who Googled 'Folly Beach short-term rental rules' in July would have found a fairly stable picture: Chapter 117 of the municipal code, a handful of license types, an 800-license cap voters approved. A host running the same search in September is looking at a different picture entirely — a judge struck the cap down in mid-August, and council answered by freezing new licenses anyway while it figures out what comes next.

That's not a reason to panic, but it is a reason to stop trusting any cached summary of Folly's rules, including older versions of this one. This post lays out the actual desk to use — City of Folly Beach, not Charleston County, not a neighbor town's page — and walks through what changed, what didn't, and what a host needs to confirm directly before listing or renewing in 2026. This is not legal advice.

Every section below is written to survive the next update to Folly's rules as gracefully as possible, by naming the specific action or ruling and its date rather than describing a static, permanent-sounding rule. That's the only honest way to write about a regulatory picture that moved twice in a single month and could move again before this post's next scheduled review.

The right desk: City of Folly Beach, not Charleston County

Folly Beach short-term rentals are governed at the city level, through the City of Folly Beach's short-term rental program page and Chapter 117 of the municipal code, administered under the AmLegal codelibrary. That's the desk to check first, every time — not Charleston County's general accommodations pages, and not a nearby town's ordinance mistaken for Folly's own.

Charleston County does intersect with hosting here, but narrowly: accommodations tax remittance and a business license renewal form are referenced from the city's own STR page. That county layer is a tax and paperwork overlay on top of the city's licensing requirement, not a substitute for it. A host who's current with the county but hasn't confirmed their Folly Beach license type hasn't actually finished the compliance work.

License types: LTR, OSTR, ISTR, PSTR

The city's short-term rental program lists several license categories — LTR, OSTR, ISTR, and PSTR — tied to different rental patterns for a property. Which category applies depends on specifics like whether the owner occupies the property, how frequently it's rented, and other factors the city's own page spells out in more detail than a generalized market post can responsibly summarize.

Business license renewals have historically run on a spring window — roughly March 10 through April 30 in the most recently published cycle — but given how much moved in August 2026, a host should treat that date range as a starting point to verify, not a fixed annual fact. Confirm current renewal windows and fees directly with the city before assuming last year's calendar still applies.

The August 2026 ruling: what actually happened

In mid-August, a Charleston County judge struck down Folly Beach's voter-approved cap of 800 short-term rental licenses, along with the registration permit fee attached to it, ruling the cap illegal under state law. That's a real, consequential ruling — but it comes with an appeal posture the city may still be working through, and it doesn't mean every piece of the prior licensing structure disappeared overnight.

What it does mean is that the specific 800-cap mechanism and its associated fee, as previously written, are not currently enforceable the way they were before the ruling. Anyone repeating the old cap-and-fee language as current, binding law without noting the ruling is working from outdated information.

The council moratorium: a pause, not a policy reset

Later in August, Folly Beach's city council approved a temporary moratorium on issuing new short-term rental licenses while it works through the fallout from the ruling. Coverage of the vote reports the moratorium is set to expire in February 2027 unless council extends it or a study is completed first — meaning this is explicitly framed as a pause for study, not a permanent policy shift in either direction.

For a host with an existing, active license, the moratorium's direct impact is likely narrower than for someone hoping to obtain a brand-new license this year — but 'likely narrower' is not the same as 'confirmed unaffected.' Renewal timing, license-class changes, and any transfer of a license between owners are all situations where the moratorium's exact scope matters, and none of them should be assumed clear without checking with the city directly.

For anyone planning to buy a Folly Beach property specifically to start a new short-term rental, the moratorium is the first phone call to make — before touching a purchase contract, not after. A property that can't currently obtain a new license changes the entire financial picture of that purchase.

Ignore the 'low regulation' scrape

Some third-party aggregator sites still characterize Folly Beach as a lightly regulated, easy-entry short-term rental market, typically based on scraped listing counts rather than an actual reading of the ordinance. That characterization doesn't match Chapter 117, the 800-cap litigation, or the August moratorium, and a host who plans around it is planning around a description that was already wrong before this year's court and council action made it more wrong.

The rules thesis for Folly Beach in 2026 is straightforward to state even if the underlying situation is genuinely in flux: Chapter 117 plus the city's own STR program page, read alongside the specific August 2026 court ruling and council moratorium, by date. Anything less specific than that is a starting point for a phone call, not a final answer.

Why the ruling happened: the state-law conflict

The core of the court's decision was a conflict with state law — the judge found Folly's voter-approved cap mechanism ran afoul of state statute governing how municipalities can restrict this kind of business activity. That's a structural, legal problem with the cap mechanism itself, not a finding that short-term rentals are somehow disfavored in Folly Beach or that the city lacks authority to regulate them at all.

That distinction matters for how a host should read the situation. The city retains its general authority to license, tax, and regulate short-term rentals under Chapter 117 — what got struck down was one specific tool, the numeric cap and its fee, not the entire regulatory framework. Council's fast pivot to a moratorium, rather than simply abandoning any effort to manage new supply, reflects that the city intends to keep exercising its broader authority even without the specific mechanism a court just invalidated.

What an appeal could change

Because this ruling came out of a Charleston County court, the city has the option to appeal to a higher court, and coverage of the case doesn't foreclose that possibility. An appeal, if pursued, could take months to resolve and could theoretically restore some version of the cap mechanism, modify it, or leave the trial court's ruling standing. None of that is knowable in advance, which is exactly why a host shouldn't treat either the pre-ruling cap or the post-ruling moratorium as a permanent state of affairs.

The practical takeaway isn't to wait indefinitely for legal certainty before making any hosting decisions — that's not realistic for someone running a business. It's to build a habit of checking the city's own page and any local news coverage before major decisions specifically, rather than assuming a compliance picture from six or twelve months ago still holds.

A pattern worth recognizing beyond Folly Beach

Folly isn't the only coastal town where a voter-approved or council-approved cap has run into a legal challenge over state preemption; it's a pattern showing up in short-term rental regulation across multiple states as local governments try to manage rapid growth in this kind of housing use. Hosts who've operated in other regulated coastal markets may recognize the shape of this fight even if the specific dates and numbers are unique to Folly.

What that broader pattern suggests for a Folly host is patience paired with vigilance — this kind of legal fight tends to resolve over a period of months to a couple of years, not overnight, and the operating rules in the interim can shift more than once along the way, as they already have here.

What to actually confirm, and with whom

Before listing a new property, renewing an existing license, or making any marketing investment tied to a specific license class, confirm directly with the City of Folly Beach: current license type required for the property's rental pattern, whether the moratorium affects this specific renewal or application, current fees given the fee structure the ruling touched, and the appeal status of the August ruling if that timeline matters to the decision at hand.

The city's short-term rental program contact, licenses@follybeach.gov, along with any phone numbers published directly on the city's own STR page, are the correct channel — not a general city switchboard number pulled from an old directory, and not a number found on a third-party site. If a published phone number appears on the city's own page at the time of confirming, it's fine to use it; this post doesn't repeat one here because that number needs to be pulled fresh, not archived into a blog post that might outlive its accuracy.

Documenting the conversation

Whatever answer the city gives on license class, moratorium exceptions, or renewal timing, write it down — the date of the call or email, the name of who confirmed it if given, and the specific answer. Municipal rules in flux tend to produce a churn of slightly different answers from different staff at different points in the year, and a host with a dated record of what they were told has a much stronger position if a conflict comes up later than one relying on memory.

This is especially worth doing right now, given how much has moved in a single month. A confirmation from early August, before the ruling, may already be stale by the time a host reads this. Treat any prior confirmation older than the August court and council actions as needing a fresh check, not as still current.

Where this fits with the rest of a host's compliance picture

Licensing is one piece of a larger compliance picture that also includes accommodations tax remittance through the county, occupancy and parking rules, and whatever inspection or safety requirements attach to the specific license type. None of those pieces substitutes for the others — a host who's square on lodging tax but hasn't confirmed their license class under the current moratorium rules hasn't finished the job, and vice versa.

Treating Chapter 117 and the city's STR page as the anchor document, with the county's tax and form requirements as a secondary layer, keeps that picture organized. Building a marketing plan, a pricing strategy, or a purchase decision on top of an unconfirmed or outdated piece of that foundation is the single most avoidable mistake a Folly Beach host can make this year.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Folly Beach still enforce an 800-license cap on short-term rentals?

Not as previously written. A Charleston County judge struck down the voter-approved 800-license cap and its registration permit fee in mid-August 2026, ruling it illegal under state law. The city may pursue an appeal, so this remains a live legal situation — confirm current status with the City of Folly Beach rather than assuming the old cap language still applies.

Is Folly Beach currently issuing new short-term rental licenses?

Council approved a temporary moratorium on issuing new licenses in late August 2026, reported to expire in February 2027 unless extended or until a related study is complete. Anyone planning a new application should confirm the moratorium's current status and scope directly with the city before proceeding.

What license types exist for a Folly Beach short-term rental?

The city's program lists several categories — LTR, OSTR, ISTR, and PSTR — tied to different rental patterns. Which one applies to a given property depends on specifics the city's own short-term rental page addresses; this is not legal advice, so confirm the correct category directly with the city.

What ordinance governs short-term rentals in Folly Beach?

Chapter 117 of Folly Beach's municipal code, available through the AmLegal codelibrary, is the ordinance chapter covering short-term rental business licenses, registration, and tax requirements. Given the August 2026 litigation, confirm which sections are currently in effect at the time of reading.

Does Charleston County regulate Folly Beach short-term rentals?

Charleston County's role is limited to accommodations tax remittance and a business license renewal form referenced from the city's own STR page — it's a tax and paperwork layer, not a substitute for the city's own licensing requirement under Chapter 117.

Is it true that Folly Beach has minimal short-term rental regulation?

No. That characterization comes from third-party aggregator scrapes of listing counts, not an actual reading of the ordinance. Chapter 117, the 800-cap litigation, and the August 2026 moratorium all point to an actively regulated and currently contested rules environment, not a lightly regulated one.

Who should I contact to confirm Folly Beach short-term rental rules?

The City of Folly Beach's short-term rental program, reachable through licenses@follybeach.gov and any phone numbers published directly on the city's own STR page, is the correct desk. Pull current contact details from the city's live page rather than an older or third-party source.

How does the August 2026 court ruling affect existing license holders?

The ruling struck the 800-cap and its associated fee, but the direct impact on an existing, active license is likely narrower than for a new applicant. Renewal timing, license-class changes, and license transfers between owners are situations where the exact impact should be confirmed with the city rather than assumed.

Should I buy a Folly Beach property to start a new short-term rental right now?

Confirm the moratorium's current status and scope with the City of Folly Beach before signing a purchase contract. A property that can't obtain a new license under the current pause changes the financial picture of that purchase significantly.

When do Folly Beach short-term rental business licenses typically renew?

The most recently published cycle showed a renewal window of roughly March 10 through April 30, but given the amount of change in August 2026, confirm the current renewal window and fee schedule directly with the city rather than relying on last year's dates.

Work with Crest & Cove Creative

Hosts who bookmarked Folly's rules page in the spring are now operating on rules that changed twice in August, and most don't know it yet. Name the failure mode the guest can check on the listing.

A Crest & Cove marketing audit won't file your license paperwork, but it will flag whether your listing's claims match your current compliance status. Book a free audit to check. Send the live listing draft and the facts you can actually cite.

Reach out at crestcove.co or (256) 998-7502.