A week in a cottage on Mount Desert Island starts with the town, not the house. The island is four towns, and they rent by different rules. Bar Harbor registers and inspects its short-term rentals, caps its whole houses and holds each to four nights at least. Mount Desert, Southwest Harbor and Tremont have no short-term rental ordinance: no town registration, no number, no inspection. Maine’s 9% tax on lodging applies in all four, and outside the bus season every cottage on the island is a driving base.
This page is the four towns, Bar Harbor’s rules as a renter meets them, the tax, and how the free bus served each village in 2026. For hotels, inns and the mainland towns of Trenton and Ellsworth, where to stay near Acadia is the page.
Four towns, four sets of rules
The Town of Mount Desert’s own history draws the lines: Bar Harbor is the island’s eastern side, Mount Desert its middle third, and Tremont began as its western third. Southwest Harbor and Tremont share the quiet side, across Somes Sound from Bar Harbor.
| Town | Villages | Island Explorer, in 2026 | Town registration of rentals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bar Harbor | Bar Harbor, Hulls Cove, Salisbury Cove, Town Hill | The hub, at the Village Green | Yes: a number in every listing, a fire-safety inspection, a cap on whole houses, four nights at least |
| Mount Desert | Northeast Harbor, Seal Harbor, Somesville, Otter Creek, Hall Quarry, Pretty Marsh | Route 6 to Seal Harbor and Northeast Harbor, by way of Jordan Pond; Route 7 to Somesville | None |
| Southwest Harbor | Southwest Harbor | Route 7 | None |
| Tremont | Bass Harbor, Bernard, Seal Cove, West Tremont, Center | Route 7 to Bass Harbor; Route 11, the Tremont bus, from Southwest Harbor | None |
Which town for which week
- Bar Harbor, for dinner on foot and, in season, the free bus from town to Sand Beach, the Loop Road and Jordan Pond. It is the one town whose rentals have passed a town inspection. Its four-night minimum rules out a whole house for a weekend.
- Northeast Harbor and Seal Harbor, if Jordan Pond is the center of the week. In summer 2026 Route 6 left the Village Green every hour and reached Jordan Pond in 20 minutes, Seal Harbor in 25 and Northeast Harbor’s Main Street in 35. The Thuya and Asticou gardens are in Northeast Harbor (with their seasons).
- Somesville, Mount Desert’s village in the middle of the island, on Route 7 about 18 minutes from the Village Green.
- Southwest Harbor and Bass Harbor, for the quiet side: Bass Harbor Head Light, Seawall, Wonderland and Beech Mountain are close. Route 7 took 37 minutes to Southwest Harbor’s Main Street on most trips and 45 to Bass Harbor.
Bar Harbor’s rules, as a renter meets them
Bar Harbor’s
Chapter 174,
as amended on 18 November 2025 and in force since 18 December 2025, and
§ 125-69Y of its Land Use Ordinance set the
rules, and the town’s
short-term rental page
sums them up. They hold inside the town of Bar Harbor and stop at its line.
- Four nights at least for a whole house. The town’s VR-2 is an entire home that is not its owner’s primary residence, rented for less than 30 days and for four nights at least. A VR-1, the owner’s own home or a unit on the owner’s home lot, rents for two nights at least. A stay of 30 days or more falls outside both.
- A registration number in every listing. No one may advertise or rent a short-term rental in the town without its registration, and the number must appear “in all advertising, including but not limited to online platforms.” A Bar Harbor listing with no number is not following the town’s rules, so ask for the number before you book.
- An emergency sheet inside the door. The town’s emergency information sheet, posted on or by the inside of the front or main door, carries the registration number, the address and how to reach emergency responders, how to complain to the town about life safety, and the owner’s details and a local contact’s. The town’s web page still speaks of a posted registration card; the ordinance asks for the sheet.
- Inspected for fire safety. Every rental passes the town’s life-safety inspection before it is first registered, and again every three years: interconnected smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, escape windows in the bedrooms, fire extinguishers, and the 911 address posted where it can be seen from the road. A portable heater may not be a room’s main heat.
- Everyone sleeps in the house. No guest may be housed apart from it, in a tent, trailer, camper, RV or outbuilding, so a group cannot overflow into a camper in the drive.
- The trash goes out every week while the house is rented.
- A cap on whole houses. Town-wide, VR-2 registrations may not exceed 9% of the town’s dwelling units, a count the assessor makes at the start of each calendar year. Owners beyond the cap wait on a list; when slots open at the start of a year, the owner at the top has 120 days to take one, inspection included.
- Every registration ends on 31 May. One not renewed by then has expired and cannot be renewed: the owner applies again as new, and a whole house goes back behind the cap. Nor can a registration be transferred. A house sold during the year keeps its registration only until the next 31 May.
Booking a Bar Harbor house in winter for the summer
A July week booked in January runs on a registration that expires on 31 May, before you arrive. The ordinance gives no grace period. A house whose owner misses the renewal, or that is sold over the winter, cannot be rented that summer until a new registration is issued, and for a whole house a new registration is subject to the cap. In the spring, it is worth asking whether the house’s registration has been renewed for the summer.
Mount Desert, Southwest Harbor and Tremont
None of the three has a short-term rental ordinance. Their own ordinance lists (Mount Desert, Southwest Harbor, Tremont) carry none, and neither Mount Desert’s land use ordinance, as amended to 5 May 2026, nor Tremont’s 2026 one registers or inspects a rental.
So there is no town registration, no number to look for in a listing and no town inspection behind the house. Ask how the house is heated and whether its smoke and carbon monoxide alarms work, the things Bar Harbor’s inspector checks.
Southwest Harbor is looking at it. Its Sustainability Committee is running a short-term rental survey, with answers due by 30 November 2026. Nothing has been adopted.
Maine’s 9% on the whole bill
Maine taxes the rental of living quarters at 9%, and the Maine Revenue Services bulletin on it, revised on 11 March 2026, names cottages, camps, condominium units and vacation homes. The tax is on everything you pay for the stay. A crib rental and a midweek cleaning are taxed with the rent, and so are pet fees and cleaning or damage fees. A rental platform counts as a retailer under the law and collects the tax on what it books, and the rate is the same online or off.
- A long stay does not escape it on a vacation. The exemption for 28 days or more in the same place is for a primary residence, or for someone living away from home for school or work. The bulletin’s own examples of who does not qualify are an out-of-state resident vacationing in Maine and a Bangor resident vacationing on the coast.
- A cancellation fee is not taxed; a no-show is. A deposit kept when you cancel on or before the arrival date is not taxed. One forfeited because you never turned up is taxed as rent.
The bus, and the car
The Island Explorer is free and seasonal. In 2026 the Northeast Harbor and Southwest Harbor routes ran from 23 June to 12 October; only the Gateway Center, Loop Road and Schoodic routes started earlier, on 20 May. On 3 November 2026 the operator’s service calendar still showed 2026, with no dates for 2027.
The two routes that reach the cottage villages from Bar Harbor ran like this in 2026, from the operator’s timetables:
| Route | From the Village Green | Buses a day, summer / fall |
|---|---|---|
| 6, Northeast Harbor | Jordan Pond 20 min, Seal Harbor 25, Northeast Harbor Main Street 35 | Hourly, 9:15 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. / four |
| 7, Southwest Harbor | Somesville 18 min, Southwest Harbor Main Street 37, Bass Harbor 45, Seawall Campground 52 | Seven, 7:50 a.m. to 9 p.m. / six |
Summer service ran 23 June to 16 August 2026, and fall service 17 August to 12 October. On the quiet side, Route 11, the Tremont bus, ran local trips out of Southwest Harbor in both seasons. None of these routes goes to Sand Beach, Thunder Hole or the Beehive: from the quiet side those mean changing buses in Bar Harbor, or driving. Bass Harbor Head Light has no bus at all. How the free bus works, and where it does not help is its own page.
When to look
July and August are what the island runs out of. The Park Service counted 4,079,318 recreation visits to Acadia in 2025, and 1,641,298 of them, two in every five, came in July and August. Bar Harbor’s whole houses are capped on top of that. For a July or August week we would choose the week in the winter and the house soon after, while the choice is widest. June, September and early October give more room, and in 2026 the bus ran until 12 October.
A week fits the park pass. The park’s vehicle pass is good for seven days, about the length of a cottage week. If the dog is coming, the park’s dog rules apply on the trails whatever the house allows.
Vrbo’s island list, and rooms instead
Vrbo’s list for the island, below, holds whole cottages, cabins and apartments on the island itself, from Bar Harbor to Northeast, Seal and Southwest Harbor, and none on the mainland. Put in your week to see what is free, and in a Bar Harbor listing look for the town’s registration number. Booking.com’s Bar Harbor and Southwest Harbor lists beside it are for a room instead of a house.
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