Highlands and Cashiers, NC Short-Term Rental Rules: What's Actually in the Ordinance

Thomas Garner
11 hours ago
17 min read

Foggy Blue Ridge Mountain plateau near Highlands and Cashiers, North Carolina

"Highlands" and "Cashiers" get lumped together in almost every market report written about this stretch of the North Carolina plateau, and for good reason -- guests search for them as a pair, real estate agents market them as a pair, and the two towns sit close enough that you can drive between them in fifteen minutes. But if you own, or are considering buying, a short-term rental in either place, that pairing stops being useful the moment you ask the only question that actually matters: am I allowed to do this here? Highlands is an incorporated town with its own zoning code and its own codified short-term rental ordinance, enforced by its own staff. Cashiers is not a town at all -- it is an unincorporated community inside Jackson County, with no municipal government and no municipal short-term rental ordinance of its own. And the two places sit inside two different counties for tax and administrative purposes: Highlands falls within Macon County, Cashiers falls within Jackson County. That is three separate rulebooks, three separate sets of contacts, and three separate answers to the question every host on this plateau eventually has to ask.

This post exists because most of what circulates online about short-term rental rules on the Highlands-Cashiers plateau blurs those lines. A rule that applies inside Highlands town limits gets repeated as if it applies in Cashiers. A tax rate that applies in Jackson County gets quoted as if it applies everywhere on the plateau. A host reading a general "Highlands and Cashiers STR rules" roundup can walk away thinking they know the answer when they have actually only learned a third of it, and picked the wrong third for their property.

The stakes for getting this wrong are not abstract. A buyer who assumes Highlands' rules apply to a Cashiers property might skip HOA due diligence that turns out to be the only thing that actually governs their short-term rental use. A buyer who assumes Cashiers' lighter regulatory footprint applies to a Highlands property in the R-1 or R-2 district might not notice they are sitting on a use with a hard expiration date. Lenders, insurers, and property managers all ask jurisdiction-specific questions too, and "it's in the Highlands-Cashiers area" is not a complete answer to any of them.

We pulled the actual ordinance language directly from the Town of Highlands' codified Unified Development Ordinance on Municode -- current through the town's December 18, 2025 amendment -- rather than relying on summaries, forum posts, or outdated coverage. Where the record is clear, we quote it or paraphrase it closely and tell you exactly where it lives in the code. Where it is not clear -- specific permit fee amounts, the exact penalty schedule, Macon County's occupancy tax rate -- we say so directly instead of guessing, because a host making a real financial decision deserves to know the difference between confirmed and probably.

Three Jurisdictions, Three Rulebooks

Before getting into specific rules, it helps to see the map the way the local governments see it. The Town of Highlands has its own boundary, its own elected board, its own zoning map, and its own Unified Development Ordinance -- the document that actually governs short-term rentals inside town limits. Step outside that boundary and you are in unincorporated Macon County, where county rules apply instead of Highlands' town rules. Cashiers, roughly eight miles away, has never incorporated as a town; it is governed directly by Jackson County government, with no separate municipal layer in between. A few miles further west sits Sylva, which is an incorporated town in Jackson County with its own separate short-term rental ordinance -- one that has nothing to do with Cashiers and should never be cited as if it applies there. Keeping these boundaries straight is not a technicality. It is the difference between reading a rule that binds your property and reading a rule that binds someone else's.

There is a shorthand that is useful to keep in mind while reading the rest of this post: if a rule is about zoning, land use, occupancy limits, or a rental contract addendum, ask which government body actually wrote it. If it is about tax, ask which county the property sits in. And if it is about a gated community, none of the government layers matter nearly as much as what the HOA's own recorded documents say. Those three questions -- which town, which county, which HOA -- will get you to the correct answer for almost any specific compliance question on this plateau.

Town of Highlands, NC: The Short-Term Rental Ordinance

Highlands regulates short-term rentals through Section 6.5.18 of its Unified Development Ordinance, titled simply "Short-term rentals." The ordinance treats short-term rentals as their own independent land-use category, separate from long-term residential rental and separate from hotel or lodging uses. Whether a short-term rental is permitted on a given lot depends on the zoning district that lot sits in, as laid out in the Use Table at UDO Section 6.2.2 -- some districts show an "L" designation for limited or conditional permission, and others show an "X," meaning the use is not permitted at all. Because that table covers dozens of individual zoning districts and can be amended, we are not going to claim to know every district's exact designation here; the reliable move for any specific address is to pull the parcel's zoning designation from the town and check it against the current Use Table, or simply call Highlands Planning and confirm before you buy or list.

Where a short-term rental is permitted, the ordinance attaches a detailed set of operational requirements under what the UDO labels "Standard A." These are not suggestions -- they are the conditions a legally operating short-term rental in Highlands has to meet, and they cover everything from how many guests can sleep in the house to how the trash gets bagged.

Occupancy Limits

Standard A caps overnight occupancy at two persons per bedroom, plus two additional persons. Critically, the ordinance does not let a host define "bedroom" informally or list a higher bedroom count than what is on file with the town. The bedroom count used for this calculation is whatever appears on the property's improvement permit, or, if no improvement permit exists for the structure, whatever appears on the county tax record card. A finished bonus room, den, or loft that was never permitted as a bedroom does not count toward capacity just because a host lists it as a sleeping space on a booking platform.

There is an additional layer for properties connected to the Town's public wastewater (sewer) system specifically. For those properties, overnight occupancy is capped at whichever is lower: the standard two-per-bedroom-plus-two formula, or twelve persons total. In practice, that means a large sewer-connected home with enough bedrooms to otherwise sleep, say, sixteen or eighteen guests under the standard formula is still hard-capped at twelve once it is tied into Highlands' public sewer system.

No Special Events or Gatherings

Short-term rentals in Highlands may not be used to host special events or gatherings. The ordinance does not provide a granular definition of what separates an ordinary group of overnight guests from a prohibited "event," but the intent is unambiguous: a licensed short-term rental is meant to function as temporary lodging for the registered guests staying there, not as a rented venue for weddings, reunions, parties, or similar gatherings that bring in additional attendees beyond the overnight occupancy.

Parking Rules

Guests may only park in the property's designated parking areas, and that parking has to comply with the Town's separate parking ordinance. The UDO is direct about the consequence for noncompliance: vehicles parked outside the designated areas are subject to towing, at the vehicle owner's own expense. For a host, this makes clear, visible parking instructions -- ideally posted at the property and included in guest communication before arrival -- a practical necessity, not just a courtesy.

Trash and Solid Waste

Trash generated by short-term rental guests has to be bagged and disposed of according to the Town's Solid Waste Management chapter, which is Chapter 12 of Highlands' General Code of Ordinances. That chapter sits outside the UDO itself, so a host who only reads Section 6.5.18 and stops there is missing a cross-referenced obligation that is just as enforceable.

Nuisance and Noise Compliance

Guests staying at a short-term rental in Highlands have to comply with the Town's Nuisance Ordinance, found in Chapter 8 of the General Code of Ordinances, and the Town's Noise Ordinance, found in Chapter 8, Article II. Again, both live outside the UDO proper, in the general municipal code, which is worth knowing if you are trying to build a complete compliance picture rather than just skimming the short-term rental section in isolation.

A Responsible Party Has to Be Reachable -- and Posted

The ordinance requires that the property owner, operator, or a designated agent be reachable to take and resolve guest and neighbor complaints. That is not a soft requirement to keep a phone charged -- the person's name and phone number must be conspicuously posted near the property's main entrance, so that a neighbor or town official who has a problem in the middle of the night has an immediate way to reach someone accountable for the property.

One Rental Contract at a Time, With the Town's Addendum

Highlands' ordinance prohibits more than one active short-term rental contract from governing the same rental period -- in other words, a host cannot double-book the same nights to two different parties under two different contracts. Every rental contract also has to include a Town-provided addendum, and the operator is required to obtain a signed acknowledgment of that addendum from the renter before handing over possession of the property. This effectively builds the town's rules directly into the guest's own paperwork, rather than leaving compliance to a listing description guests may or may not read closely.

Signage

Exterior signage advertising the short-term rental is allowed only under UDO Section 13.4.1.C, which covers temporary signs that do not require a permit. A host cannot install permanent exterior signage marketing the property as a short-term rental without running into this restriction.

The Provision That Actually Matters: The R-1/R-2 Phase-Out (Standard B)

Everything above is operational detail -- important, but not the provision that determines whether a Highlands short-term rental has a future at all. That is Standard B, and it is worth reading in the ordinance's own words rather than a paraphrase: "Notwithstanding anything in this UDO, short-term rentals in operation as of September 15, 2022 are nonconforming uses in the R-1 and R-2 zoning districts until September 15, 2027. After September 15, 2027, short-term rentals are not permitted in the R-1 or R-2 zoning districts, and all short-term rentals in those districts must be discontinued."

In plain terms: if a short-term rental in Highlands' R-1 or R-2 residential zoning districts was already up and running as of September 15, 2022, the town is allowing it to keep operating as a legal nonconforming use -- but only through September 15, 2027. After that date, the ordinance is explicit that short-term rentals are no longer a permitted use in R-1 or R-2, full stop, and any that are still operating in those districts have to shut down. A property that only started short-term renting after September 15, 2022, and sits in R-1 or R-2, does not get the benefit of this grandfathering window at all -- the phase-out clock applies only to operations that predate that date.

This provision was added to the UDO by a September 19, 2024 amendment, and it survived the town's most recent codification update, the December 18, 2025 amendment, fully intact. That matters for anyone trying to figure out whether this is stale language from an old draft: it is not. As of the ordinance's current codified text, the September 2027 R-1/R-2 phase-out is live, active law in Highlands.

It is also fair to tell you this provision has been contested. The amortization and phase-out was the subject of a lawsuit, Save Highlands Committee v. Town of Highlands, filed in Macon County Superior Court, and a judge reportedly denied the town's motion to dismiss that case in March 2025. Some news coverage from December 2025 referenced a possible settlement in that litigation. We want to be straightforward about what we can and cannot confirm here: the ordinance text itself, as currently codified through the December 18, 2025 amendment, still contains the full phase-out language quoted above. So the accurate, defensible position is that the September 2027 deadline is the current, operative rule as written -- while acknowledging that litigation history exists and could still affect how or whether that deadline plays out. Any host who owns or is buying a short-term rental in Highlands' R-1 or R-2 districts should verify the current status directly with the Town of Highlands at 828-526-2118 before making a long-term financial decision based on that 2027 date.

This is the single most consequential fact in this entire post for anyone evaluating a Highlands purchase. A property in R-1 or R-2 that only became a short-term rental after September 15, 2022 is not grandfathered at all under the current ordinance text, and a property that was already operating before that date is on a five-year countdown from the amendment's effective framing, not a permanent right. Before buying specifically for short-term rental income in a Highlands residential district, confirm the parcel's zoning district and the property's short-term rental start date, and weigh both against this deadline rather than assuming any Highlands property is fair game indefinitely.

Enforcement and Penalties (Standard C)

Violations of the short-term rental standards are enforced through the remedies and penalties set out generally in Article 15 of the UDO, which is the town's standard enforcement framework for zoning and land-use violations. We did not find, and are not going to invent, a specific dollar figure for short-term rental fines here -- the ordinance points to Article 15's general enforcement mechanisms rather than listing a short-term-rental-specific penalty schedule in Section 6.5.18 itself. A host who wants the exact fine amounts and enforcement process should request the current Article 15 penalty schedule directly from Highlands Planning.

What We Could Not Confirm: Permit Fees

We searched Municode extensively for a specific short-term rental permit or licensing fee amount for Highlands, and found none stated in the ordinance text itself. That means we are not going to tell you a number -- no "$200," no "$50," nothing -- because we did not confirm one from a primary source, and repeating an unconfirmed figure from a secondary site would be exactly the kind of blurry, unreliable information this post is trying to avoid. If a specific licensing or permit fee applies to short-term rentals in Highlands, confirm it directly with the Town of Highlands Planning Department at 828-526-2118 before budgeting around it.

Cashiers, NC: No Town, No Town Ordinance

Cashiers has no town government of its own. It is an unincorporated community inside Jackson County, which means there is no Cashiers town council, no Cashiers zoning board, and no Cashiers-specific municipal code sitting alongside the Highlands UDO. Any land-use or short-term rental authority that reaches Cashiers comes from Jackson County government directly.

In our research, we did not identify a Cashiers- or Jackson-County-specific short-term rental zoning restriction comparable to what Highlands has built into its UDO. That is a meaningfully different regulatory picture from Highlands' active R-1/R-2 phase-out, and it is one of the clearest reasons treating "Highlands and Cashiers" as a single rule set is misleading. That said, absence of a confirmed restriction in our research is not the same as a guarantee that none exists or that none will be adopted -- Jackson County's ordinances can change, and a host operating in Cashiers should still check directly with Jackson County Planning for the current word on any land-use rules that might touch short-term rentals.

One more clarification worth making explicitly: nearby Sylva, NC is an incorporated town within Jackson County that has adopted its own separate short-term rental ordinance. That ordinance governs short-term rentals inside Sylva town limits. It does not apply to Cashiers, and the two should never be conflated just because they share a county.

Jackson County Occupancy Tax: 6%, Effective July 1, 2025

Where Cashiers does have a confirmed, current, county-level number is occupancy tax. Jackson County's occupancy tax on short-term lodging increased from 4% to 6%, effective July 1, 2025. We confirmed this both through Jackson County's own published information and independently through Smoky Mountain News' local reporting, so this is a figure we are comfortable stating as solid fact rather than hedging. Any short-term rental operating in Cashiers -- along with the rest of unincorporated Jackson County -- should be collecting and remitting occupancy tax at the current 6% rate, not the older 4% figure that may still be floating around in outdated guides.

For hosts building out pricing models, that two-point increase is worth building into your projections now rather than discovering it at tax remittance time. It is a modest change on any individual booking, but across a full calendar of luxury-rate bookings in a market like Cashiers, it adds up to a real line item, and getting it wrong in either direction -- undercollecting from guests or misreporting to the county -- creates cleanup work that is easy to avoid by simply using the current rate from the start.

The Real Constraint in Cashiers: HOA and POA Covenants

With no town zoning layer and no confirmed Cashiers-specific STR ordinance, the practical restriction that actually stops or limits short-term rentals in Cashiers most often has nothing to do with government at all. A large share of Cashiers-area real estate sits inside private, gated communities -- places like Wade Hampton, the Chattooga Club, High Hampton, and Trillium Links & Lake Club -- each governed by its own homeowners' or property owners' association and its own set of recorded covenants, conditions, and restrictions (CC&Rs).

Those CC&Rs can restrict or flatly ban short-term rental use inside the community, entirely independent of what Jackson County allows or does not allow at the government level. A property could sit on land where the county has no short-term rental restriction whatsoever, and still be legally barred from short-term renting because the HOA's governing documents prohibit it, or require minimum rental terms far longer than a typical short-term stay. For Cashiers specifically, this is frequently the only operative restriction a buyer will run into, which makes it just as important -- arguably more important, day to day -- than any government ordinance. Before buying a Cashiers property with short-term rental income in mind, get the current CC&Rs and rental policy directly from the HOA or POA management company, and get it in writing rather than relying on a listing agent's summary.

It is worth noting that HOA rental restrictions are not unique to Cashiers -- Highlands has HOA-governed neighborhoods too, and a property inside one of those communities has to clear both the Town's UDO and its own HOA's covenants. But because Cashiers has no town-level short-term rental ordinance sitting underneath those HOA rules, the HOA layer effectively becomes the entire regulatory picture for many Cashiers properties, rather than one layer among several.

Macon County: What We Know and What We Don't

Macon County is the county that contains the Town of Highlands, along with the unincorporated land surrounding it. Inside Highlands' town limits, the Town's own UDO controls short-term rental zoning and operations, as covered above -- Macon County's role there is more about administrative and tax functions that sit above the town level. For unincorporated Macon County land outside Highlands town limits, county-level rules would apply directly, similar in structure to how Jackson County governs unincorporated Cashiers, though we did not research Macon County's unincorporated short-term rental zoning rules in the same depth for this post.

On occupancy tax specifically, we were not able to independently confirm Macon County's current short-term rental occupancy tax rate from a primary source in this research. A figure of 3% appears in some secondary sources, and we want to flag that explicitly as unconfirmed rather than presenting it as fact the way we can with Jackson County's verified 6% rate. If occupancy tax collection affects your Macon County short-term rental math, verify the current rate directly with the Macon County Tax Office or Occupancy Tax office before building it into your pricing or projections.

This is a good moment to restate the broader pattern running through this whole post: where we have a primary-source number in hand -- the Highlands UDO's occupancy limits, the R-1/R-2 phase-out dates, Jackson County's 6% occupancy tax -- we state it plainly and without hedging. Where we don't -- Highlands' permit fee, Article 15's exact penalty amounts, Macon County's tax rate -- we say so directly and point you to the office that can give you the real answer. That distinction is the entire point of writing a jurisdiction-specific guide instead of a generic one.

A Practical Compliance Checklist by Jurisdiction

Highlands town limits: confirm your parcel's zoning district against UDO Section 6.2.2's Use Table before assuming short-term rental is permitted.
Highlands town limits: if your property is in R-1 or R-2 and was already operating as a short-term rental before September 15, 2022, track the September 15, 2027 discontinuation deadline and confirm current status with the Town.
Highlands town limits: verify your permitted bedroom count against the improvement permit or tax card, not your own listing description, before setting occupancy limits.
Highlands town limits: confirm whether your property is connected to public sewer, since that triggers the twelve-person occupancy cap.
Highlands town limits: post the responsible party's name and phone number conspicuously near the main entrance, and use the Town-provided rental contract addendum.
Highlands town limits: call Highlands Planning at 828-526-2118 to confirm current permit fees and Article 15 penalty amounts, since neither is stated in the ordinance text itself.
Cashiers / unincorporated Jackson County: confirm current short-term rental status directly with Jackson County Planning, since no county-specific STR zoning restriction was confirmed in this research.
Cashiers / unincorporated Jackson County: collect and remit occupancy tax at the current 6% rate, effective July 1, 2025.
Cashiers / unincorporated Jackson County: get the current HOA or POA covenants in writing before assuming short-term rental is allowed inside any gated community.
Macon County (outside Highlands town limits): confirm applicable zoning directly with Macon County Planning, and verify the current occupancy tax rate with the Macon County Tax Office rather than relying on the unconfirmed 3% figure circulating online.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are short-term rentals legal in Highlands, NC?

Yes, in the zoning districts where the Use Table at UDO Section 6.2.2 permits them, subject to the operational requirements in Standard A of Section 6.5.18 -- occupancy limits, parking, trash, noise, posted contact information, and the rental contract addendum. Short-term rentals in the R-1 and R-2 residential districts are a separate case: they are only allowed to continue as a nonconforming use if they were already operating before September 15, 2022, and only through September 15, 2027.

What is the R-1/R-2 short-term rental phase-out in Highlands?

It's Standard B of UDO Section 6.5.18: short-term rentals already operating in the R-1 and R-2 zoning districts as of September 15, 2022 are treated as legal nonconforming uses only until September 15, 2027. After that date, short-term rentals are not a permitted use in R-1 or R-2 at all, and any still operating there have to be discontinued. This provision was added in a September 19, 2024 amendment and remains in the ordinance as codified through December 18, 2025.

How many guests can stay in a Highlands short-term rental?

The standard formula is two persons per bedroom plus two additional persons, based on the bedroom count listed on the property's improvement permit or tax record card. For properties connected to the Town's public sewer system, occupancy is capped at whichever is lower: that same per-bedroom formula, or twelve persons total.

Does Cashiers, NC have its own short-term rental ordinance?

No. Cashiers is an unincorporated community with no town government, so it has no municipal ordinance of its own. Jackson County governs Cashiers directly, and our research did not identify a Cashiers- or Jackson-County-specific short-term rental zoning restriction comparable to Highlands' rules. That could change, so check current status with Jackson County Planning directly.

What is the Jackson County occupancy tax rate for short-term rentals?

6%, effective July 1, 2025, up from the prior 4% rate. This applies to short-term lodging in unincorporated Jackson County, including Cashiers, and is confirmed through Jackson County's own published information along with independent local reporting from Smoky Mountain News.

Can an HOA in Cashiers ban short-term rentals even if the county allows them?

Yes. Many Cashiers-area properties sit inside private gated communities such as Wade Hampton, the Chattooga Club, High Hampton, and Trillium Links & Lake Club, each with its own recorded covenants that can restrict or prohibit short-term rental use independent of any county rule. In practice, this HOA-level restriction is often the only real limitation on short-term rentals in Cashiers, and it should be confirmed in writing before purchase.

What happens if a Highlands short-term rental violates the ordinance?

Violations are addressed through the general remedies and penalties in Article 15 of the Highlands UDO. The ordinance does not spell out a short-term-rental-specific fine schedule in Section 6.5.18, so hosts should request the current Article 15 enforcement and penalty details directly from Highlands Planning rather than relying on a secondhand figure.

Is there a specific licensing fee for short-term rentals in Highlands?

We searched the codified ordinance text on Municode and did not find a stated permit or licensing fee amount for short-term rentals in Highlands. If a fee applies, it is not spelled out in Section 6.5.18 itself, so confirm the current amount directly with the Town of Highlands Planning Department at 828-526-2118 before budgeting for it.

Work with Crest & Cove Creative

Getting the jurisdiction right is step one. Getting found by the right guests is step two.

Thinking through what you can and can't do with a short-term rental on the Highlands-Cashiers plateau? Crest & Cove Creative helps STR owners in North Georgia and Western North Carolina build the marketing and content that turns compliant listings into booked calendars. Call us at (256) 998-7502 to talk through your property.