Case Study: Yates County achieves $185K in back tax revenue with Granicus

How Yates County collected $185K in back taxes in six months and put that revenue back into its community

Yates County, a small lakefront county in New York, needed a better way to manage a surge in short-term rentals during the pandemic and recover unpaid occupancy taxes. Its four-person finance team had been tracking rentals manually in Excel, making the process slow and inefficient, so it turned to Granicus and its short-term rental management software, Host Compliance.

With Granicus, Yates County identified 753 short-term rentals instead of the 200 it had been managing manually, helping the county level compliance and quickly recover revenue. In just six months, the county collected $185,000 in back taxes and reached a 67% compliance rate, with projections to exceed $200,000 by year’s end. The funds were then invested back into community projects, tourism, and natural resource improvements.

Yates County

Jessica Mullins

Director of Finance