Kohler vs Sheboygan STR Rules: §5.62, County TRH, and a $100 Permit

Jacob Mishalanie
Aug 18
11 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

The American Club entrance lawn in Kohler village, 2025

City of Sheboygan is not the Village of Kohler and not unincorporated Sheboygan County. If you are reading a village six-night line and applying it to a parcel inside the city, you are already on the wrong map. Inside the city, §50-32 wants a $100 room-tax permit that renews July 1 through the Host Compliance portal, plus a quarterly remittance form to Finance. Inside the village, §5.62 is live ordinance, not an unconfirmed gap. County tourist rooming house licensing sits under both. Confusing those desks is how buyers underwrite a house they cannot legally open.

This guide is the clerk map for hosts and buyers who need the ordinance path before they Keep a rate card. It names the parcel test, Wisconsin’s Right to Rent statute, the county health license, the city permit, and the village line on six or fewer nights. It also separates 5.5 percent sales tax from municipal room tax. For the competitive set, use theSheboygan market report. For startup cost without an invented purchase price, seewhat it costs to start. For purchase underwriting against two clerks, use theinvestment underwrite.

Nothing here is a substitute for the live ordinance text, the clerk, or counsel. Screenshot the current permit, license, and tax pages the week you underwrite. The market medians, $282 ADR, 39.2 percent occupancy, $26,565 year, $2,391 month, only matter after the parcel can legally list. Peak three of August, June, and July and lows of January, February, and November are pricing files, not license files. Keep them in separate folders in your head. A live Airbnb published market year is not a city permit, and AirROI Low is not the clerk.

Parcel first: city, village, or county

Sheboygan city is the incorporated lakeshore published market year. Kohler is an inland company village with its own clerk at 319 Highland Drive. Unincorporated Sheboygan County is a third map, and those three labels do not share one stamp. Short-term rules follow the parcel, not the marketing radius, not the golf course you can drive to, and not the lake you can see on a clear day from a village street. Treat the first hour of due diligence as a jurisdiction hour.

A house that looks like Sheboygan on a listing map may still sit in the village or outside both incorporated lines. A house inside Kohler is not governed by the city’s $100 July 1 permit alone, and a city house is not governed by village §5.62. Confirm the municipality on the tax bill and the plat before you model nights, taxes, or a management split. The two-hundred-seventeen-listing AirROI cell is a marketplace set. It is not a single licensing district and not proof that every published market year sits under the same clerk.

When a seller says the neighbor already allows it, ask which neighbor and which ordinance. Marketplace density is not a jurisdiction stamp, and airROI Low is not a parcel determination. Screenshot the boundary the same week you screenshot the application. If you cannot name the clerk, you cannot name the product. City lake copy belongs to a city parcel. Village golf-and-spa copy belongs to a village parcel that can actually clear §5.62. Do not blend those files to save a closing date.

Wisconsin 66.1014 and ATCP 72

Wisconsin Statute 66.1014, the Right to Rent law, says municipalities may not prohibit rentals of seven or more nights. That is a floor, not a free pass to skip local paper. A city or village can still license, tax, inspect, and set operational rules. Seven nights is the statewide prohibition line. It is not a Sheboygan permit and not a Kohler license. Read the statute as a limit on total bans, then read the clerk you actually have for the parcel.

ATCP 72 is the state lodging code, and it was updated January 25, 2026. Tourist rooming houses and hotels live under that code at the state layer. Local health licensing still runs through Sheboygan County. State code and county license are not the same screenshot. Hosts who treat 66.1014 as permission to list a two-night city weekend without a permit, or a six-night village stay without reading §5.62, are mixing a statewide floor with a local file.

Keep the statute in the left column and the local clerk in the right column. The statute can stop a municipality from banning seven-night stays. It does not complete your Host Compliance account, your county tourist rooming house file, or a village board vote by January 31. Counsel still belongs in the loop when stay length, unit count, or a grandfathered village unit is the whole deal. This page names the layers. It does not replace the text you should print the week you underwrite.

Sheboygan County TRH is a health license

Sheboygan County Public Health requires a tourist rooming house license for this product. Under a TRH, an operator may rent as many as four units. Five or more units moves you into a hotel license. That count is an operator count, not a marketing slogan and not a way to treat four listings as one file. The county’s first instruction is still to check the local municipality before you assume the health license is the only gate on the house.

A TRH is not a city room-tax permit and not a village short-term rental license. You can hold a clean health file and still fail at City Hall or at 319 Highland Drive. You can also fail the health file while a listing looks live on a channel. Inspect, water, septic or sewer, and sleeping-room facts belong in the health packet. Do not ask a photographer to paper a missing TRH. Do not ask a property manager to invent a fourth unit you do not have.

Put the county license next to the municipal stamp in every purchase file. If the operator already has four TRH units, the fifth conversation is a hotel conversation, not a creative listing title. If the parcel sits in the village, the TRH is necessary and still not sufficient. If the parcel sits in the city, the TRH still sits beside the $100 permit. Screenshot the current county application the week you underwrite, because health forms change even when the marketplace extract does not.

City of Sheboygan: $100 permit, July 1, Host Compliance

City of Sheboygan §50-32 requires a room-tax permit. The locked fee in this cluster is $100 at the start and $100 each year. Renew July 1, and the city uses a Host Compliance portal. Quarterly remittance goes to Finance on the city’s form. Those are city facts, and they are not village facts. They are not the county TRH. A published market year in the 217 is not proof the operator paid the hundred dollars or filed the quarter on time.

This cluster will not print a leftover combined tax figure and will not invent the city’s room-tax rate unless that municipal line is re-read. Permit cost and tax rate are different sentences, and the hundred dollars is the permit. The quarterly form is remittance. Host Compliance is the portal, not a marketing agency and not a substitute for knowing what you collected. Owner-direct stays still need a remittance plan, and platform collection is convenient. It is not a complete city file by itself.

Purchase contracts should not assume the seller’s portal login transfers as a free stamp. Rebuild the paper path. Underwrite time to register, time to hit a July 1 renewal if you close in June, and time to get the permit in hand before you advertise August nights. Marketing that promises lake weekends without a current city permit is advertising a product you cannot legally sell. Keep the permit packet and the listing file in the same week of work.

Village of Kohler §5.62 is not an unconfirmed gap

Village of Kohler §5.62 is adopted ordinance, not a rumor and not a missing PDF. Ordinance 2021-2 passed June 21, 2021, was amended by 2021-7 on November 15, 2021, and took effect January 1, 2022. The clerk is the Village of Kohler at 319 Highland Drive. Hosts who treat Kohler as an unregulated company-town loophole are underwriting against a file that has been live for years. Screenshot the ordinance text. Do not screenshot a forum thread.

A village short-term rental, defined there as more than ten nights and fewer than thirty consecutive days, needs a Village license on top of a county TRH and a Wisconsin seller’s permit. A local contact must sit within two miles and answer twenty-four hours a day. The license runs on a license year, and the Board approves or denies by January 31. Village room tax is due at the current village rate. This cluster will not invent that percentage.

Kohler is inland. It is a golf-and-spa village, not a second lakefront published market year. §5.62 does not become optional because the guest wants North Beach. It does not become optional because AirROI Low looks like a weather label. If the parcel is in the village, the village clerk is in the deal. If you cannot meet the license, the contact rule, and the stay-length rules, stop writing lake-golf copy and reopen the parcel test before you list.

Six or fewer nights is the village line

Inside the village, rental of six or fewer consecutive days is prohibited, except for units that already held a county TRH and a Wisconsin seller’s permit as of December 15, 2021. That grandfather is a dated paper test, not a vibe and not a seller story. If you cannot show those two documents as of that date, you do not have the exception. Weekend product that works on a city lake house can be illegal on a village house a few minutes inland.

The village short-term definition still sits on the other side of that line: more than ten nights and fewer than thirty consecutive days, with a Village license. Thirty-plus nights is a different product conversation, and it still has to match the clerk, the TRH, and tax remittance. Do not advertise a Friday-to-Sunday golf weekend on a non-grandfathered Kohler parcel. Do not tell a Chicago guest the house is a two-night spa pad if §5.62 says otherwise.

Listing copy is part of compliance. If you are writinghow to market a Sheboygan or Kohler stay, the first honest line on a village house is the legal stay length, not the nearest fairway. Instant Book sits at only 18.0 percent in the Sheboygan extract, which means most hosts still have a chance to confirm nights before the stay locks. Use that chance. A citation on a July weekend costs more than a declined two-night inquiry in May.

Sales tax 5.5 percent is not the room tax

Wisconsin sales tax on lodging is 5 percent plus Sheboygan County’s 0.5 percent, which is 5.5 percent sales tax. That pile is not municipal room tax. The city has a room-tax permit and a quarterly remittance. The village has room tax at the current village rate, which this cluster will not invent. Do not blend those lines into one leftover percentage. Do not tell a guest they are paying a single blended lodging tax you made up in a spreadsheet.

Platforms may collect one pile, both piles, or neither, depending on the channel and the stay. Owner-direct stays still need a remittance plan for each pile that applies. Sales tax is remittance, not a purchase price and not proof the city permit is current. Room tax is remittance, not listing income and not a tourism-desk bonus you get to keep. Keep the 5.5 percent sales-tax sentence in the sales-tax folder. Keep room tax in the clerk folder.

Underwrite both piles after you know the parcel. A city house has city room tax plus 5.5 percent sales tax. A village house has village room tax plus the same state-and-county sales tax. Missing either file does not change ADR on the extract. It changes whether the year you modeled is a legal year. If a broker’s package shows one combined tax line and no clerk, the package is incomplete. Two piles, and two screenshots, and one honest underwrite.

What to screenshot before you list

Screenshot the parcel map that proves the house sits in City of Sheboygan, or in the Village of Kohler, or in unincorporated county. Screenshot the current county tourist rooming house application and the four-unit operator limit. Screenshot Wisconsin 66.1014 and the January 25, 2026 ATCP 72 update as the state layer, not as a local permit. If the published market year is the city, screenshot §50-32, the $100 fee, the July 1 renewal, the Host Compliance portal, and the quarterly Finance form.

If the published market year is the village, screenshot §5.62, the six-or-fewer-nights prohibition, the December 15, 2021 grandfather test, the more-than-ten and fewer-than-thirty license definition, the two-mile contact rule, the January 31 Board date, and the clerk address at 319 Highland Drive. Screenshot a one-line note that village room-tax percent is the current village rate and is not invented here. Screenshot 5.5 percent sales tax as a separate pile from room tax. Date the folder.

Then screenshot the AirROI Sheboygan spine so the legal folder and the cash folder stay honest together: 217 listings, $282 ADR, 39.2 percent occupancy, $110 RevPAR, $26,565 year, $2,391 month, peak three of August, June, and July. Add a note that Low is not the permit and that there is no Kohler AirROI cell. List only after the clerk file can actually support the nights you want to sell. Paper first, and published market year second. Rate card third.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a Sheboygan city house under the same rules as a Kohler village house?

No -- City of Sheboygan, the Village of Kohler, and unincorporated Sheboygan County are three separate rulebooks. The city runs a $100 room-tax permit renewing July 1 through Host Compliance; the village runs under §5.62, including a six-or-fewer-nights restriction; and county tourist rooming house licensing sits underneath both. Confirm which map the parcel actually sits on before modeling any nightly minimum.

What does Wisconsin's Right to Rent statute (66.1014) actually protect?

It says municipalities can't prohibit rentals of seven or more nights -- that's a statewide floor, not a city permit or a village license. Local clerks can still license, tax, and inspect on top of it. ATCP 72, the state lodging code updated January 25, 2026, is a separate document from 66.1014 and shouldn't be confused with it.

What is a Sheboygan County tourist rooming house (TRH) license?

It's a county health license that lets an operator rent up to four units; five or more requires a hotel license instead. It doesn't replace the city's $100 permit or a Kohler village license -- a live Airbnb listing isn't proof the county health file is current, and the first step is still checking which municipality the parcel sits in.

What does the City of Sheboygan's $100 permit actually cover?

Section 50-32 requires a room-tax permit at $100 initially and $100 annually, renewed July 1 through the Host Compliance portal, plus a quarterly remittance form to Finance. That fee is not the room-tax rate itself and not the 5.5 percent sales tax -- it's the permit cost, separate from what gets remitted.

Is Village of Kohler §5.62 a real ordinance?

Yes -- Ordinance 2021-2 passed June 21, 2021, was amended by 2021-7 on November 15, 2021, and took effect January 1, 2022. Stays of more than ten and fewer than thirty consecutive days need a Village license on top of a county TRH and a Wisconsin seller's permit. The village clerk's office is at 319 Highland Drive.

Can I rent a Kohler village house for a two-night golf weekend?

Not unless the unit already held a county TRH and a Wisconsin seller's permit as of December 15, 2021 -- the village otherwise prohibits rentals of six or fewer consecutive days. Weekend product that works on a Sheboygan lake house can be flatly illegal on a non-grandfathered Kohler parcel, so don't advertise a Friday-to-Sunday stay there without confirming grandfather status first.

Is Wisconsin's 5.5 percent sales tax the same thing as room tax?

No -- 5.5 percent is Wisconsin's 5 percent state sales tax on lodging plus Sheboygan County's 0.5 percent, and it's a separate remittance from any municipal room tax. Keep the sales-tax filing and the room-tax filing in separate folders, and confirm the city or village's current room-tax rate directly rather than assuming it matches the sales-tax figure.

What should I screenshot before listing a Sheboygan-area property?

The parcel's jurisdiction map, the county TRH application, and either the city's $100 July 1 Host Compliance path or the village's §5.62 language including the six-night rule and the December 15, 2021 grandfather date. Screenshot the 5.5 percent sales-tax registration separately -- none of these substitute for each other, and a market revenue estimate isn't proof any of them are filed.

Work with Crest & Cove Creative

A Sheboygan-area listing that quotes Kohler's six-night rule on a city or unincorporated-county parcel is citing the wrong clerk's ordinance before a guest even sees the calendar.

We write listing and compliance copy that matches your parcel's actual jurisdiction, city, village, or county, not a borrowed rule from next door.

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