Tisbury Vacation Rental Investment: A Cap Voters Chose to Keep
Tisbury -- the town whose harbor village, Vineyard Haven, is what most visitors actually mean when they say that name -- already has its own short-term rental cap, and as of this writing that cap is staying in place. Unlike Edgartown's still-pending STR bylaw fight, Tisbury's version of this story is resolved: town meeting voters explicitly declined to remove the cap this spring. What this page cannot do is hand you the actual number. The specific cap -- how many STR permits or units, or what share of housing stock, it limits -- was not confirmed in this research pass, and you should get that figure directly from the Town of Tisbury before assuming any particular ceiling applies to a property you're considering. This page also lays out the statewide Massachusetts tax stack that applies here regardless of the local cap, and a regional tax question this site has not been able to resolve for Dukes County on any of its Martha's Vineyard pages yet. Nothing here is legal, tax, or investment advice -- confirm current rules directly with the Town of Tisbury Town Clerk's office and a Massachusetts CPA or real estate attorney before you buy.
Tisbury's Short-Term Rental Cap: A Resolved Vote, Not an Open Question
Here's what's genuinely different about Tisbury compared to Edgartown's still-pending bylaw and Oak Bluffs' still-open local-option question: this fight already happened, and it has an outcome. A dated sequence of Martha's Vineyard Times headlines tells the story plainly. On February 13, 2026, "Tisbury Considers Eliminating a Cap on Short-Term Rentals" reported the town was weighing whether to remove its existing cap. On April 23, 2026 -- the same date as that year's Annual Town Meeting -- "Tisbury Voters to Consider Elimination of Short-Term Rental Cap" confirmed the question was headed to a vote. And on April 29, 2026, "Tisbury Denies Short-Term Rental Cap Removal" confirmed the result: voters chose to keep the cap, not scrap it. That's the opposite of a simple "islands are loosening STR rules" narrative -- Tisbury affirmatively chose to keep a restriction on its books.
What this page will not do is guess at the mechanics. The specific numeric cap Tisbury voters chose to keep -- how many short-term rental permits or units the town allows, or what percentage of the housing stock that represents -- was not extracted in this research pass, nor was the vote's margin. Tisbury's own bylaws (available through tisburyma.gov) and a March 26, 2026 Vineyard Gazette report, "Short-Term Rental Regulations Head to Town Meeting," are real, direct sources for confirming the exact cap language and number before you rely on it. If a property you're evaluating is marketed as already holding an active STR permit, get written confirmation directly from the Tisbury Board of Selectmen or town clerk that the permit is current and transferable -- don't assume a cap-constrained system in a resort town lets a new buyer simply pick up where the seller left off.
Massachusetts Short-Term Rental Law: The Statewide Baseline That Applies Regardless
Whatever Tisbury's own cap turns out to specify, Massachusetts' statewide short-term rental law sits underneath it exactly the same as it does in every other Massachusetts town. Chapter 337 of the Acts of 2018 requires short-term rental operators to register with the state Department of Revenue and creates a public registry of registered units -- a real, checkable list, not merely a paperwork requirement. The law also mandates a minimum of $1,000,000 in liability insurance coverage for a short-term rental, whether that's the operator's own policy or coverage provided through the booking platform -- worth flagging to any buyer thinking of a Tisbury property as a simple income asset rather than a regulated hospitality business subject to both a state cap-adjacent registry and a town-level unit cap at the same time.
On top of registration and insurance, the law layers a room-occupancy excise: a 5% state excise, with cities and towns given the option to add a local-option excise of up to 6% on top of that -- a combined baseline as high as 11% before any regional add-on. Whether Tisbury has adopted the full 6% local-option excise, a lower rate, or none at all was not confirmed in this research pass -- that's a direct question for the Tisbury Assessor's Office or Town Clerk, not something to assume from the statewide ceiling.
The Water Protection Fund Question: An Open Issue, Not a Settled Number
This site's own Barnstable County (Cape Cod) research found that a further 2.75% "Cape Cod and Islands Water Protection Fund" excise applies on top of the state-plus-local stack in Barnstable County towns. Whether that same fund's "Islands" language extends to Dukes County -- and therefore to Tisbury -- was not independently confirmed in this research pass, consistent with the identical open question already flagged on this site's Edgartown and Oak Bluffs pages. The fund's name explicitly references "Islands," which would seem to point toward Martha's Vineyard being included, but no Massachusetts Department of Revenue or Cape Cod Commission document listing exactly which counties and towns are subject to the excise was located or confirmed for Tisbury specifically.
That leaves a genuinely open question rather than a number to publish as fact: is Tisbury's combined short-term rental tax stack 5% state plus up to 6% local (an 11% ceiling), or does a further 2.75% push it to something closer to 13.75%, as in Barnstable County? Don't assume either answer. Confirm the current combined rate directly with the Massachusetts Department of Revenue's Room Occupancy Excise Tax page, the Tisbury Assessor's Office, or a Massachusetts CPA before building a specific number into a rental pro forma.
What Actually Drives Tisbury Rental Demand: The Ferry Gateway
Tisbury's rental draw runs through logistics more than any other Vineyard town's. The Steamship Authority's Vineyard Haven terminal, at 1 Water St in downtown Tisbury, is the island's main year-round vehicle-ferry port -- it keeps running car service through the winter off-season when Oak Bluffs' vehicle service is reduced or suspended, per the Steamship Authority's own published Woods Hole-Vineyard Haven-Oak Bluffs schedule. A rental property within walking distance of that terminal puts a renter one step off the boat and into town, a genuine convenience edge over rental stock in more removed parts of Edgartown, Chilmark, or West Tisbury. A substantial, currently active redevelopment project sits on top of that same terminal -- the Tisbury Marine Terminal, reviewed by the Martha's Vineyard Commission as its own Development of Regional Impact (DRI 277-M) from 2021 through at least a late-2024 expansion report -- though its current construction status and cost were not confirmed in this research pass.
Beyond the ferry itself, Tisbury's identity as a year-round working harbor town -- not primarily a summer leisure one -- is a genuine differentiator. Two currently operating boatyards, Gannon and Benjamin Marine Railway and Martha's Vineyard Shipyard, anchor Vineyard Haven Harbor, and the harbor itself sits inside a formally designated District of Critical Planning Concern (the Vineyard Haven Harbor DCPC, dating to 1999) specifically meant to keep the working waterfront from being displaced by generic development. For a renter or buyer, that translates into a town whose downtown stays open and populated in the off-season in a way some of the island's more purely seasonal enclaves don't -- a real factor in shoulder-season rental demand, even though no Tisbury-specific occupancy-rate or nightly-rate figure was confirmed in this research pass.
Property Tax and Home Prices: A Real Mechanism, Numbers You Should Verify
No specific current Tisbury property tax mill rate was confirmed in this research pass, despite the town's own site hosting a directly named "Primer on Tisbury Real Estate Taxes" page -- get the current rate straight from the Tisbury Assessor's Office rather than from any third-party aggregator, and treat any number you find on tax-comparison sites as a starting point for a phone call, not a figure to build into a purchase decision.
On home prices, the one specific, dated figure this research turned up is now a dated baseline, not a current number: a Vineyard Gazette report from December 9, 2022, "Property Values Soar in Tisbury, as Median Home Price Approaches $1 Million," put Tisbury's median home price at just under $1 million as of that reporting. That figure is roughly three and a half years old relative to this page's research date and should be labeled explicitly as a 2022 baseline given the well-documented general upward trend in Vineyard real estate since -- not treated as a current 2025-2026 price. No current median or average sale price for Tisbury was confirmed in this research pass; get a current comparable-sales analysis from a Martha's Vineyard real estate agent before underwriting a purchase.
What This Means for a Buyer: A Framework, Not a Promise
Here's what's sourced and what isn't. Sourced: a real, dated, and fully resolved outcome -- Tisbury voters explicitly declined to remove the town's existing short-term rental cap at the spring 2026 Annual Town Meeting, following a February 2026 proposal and an April 29, 2026 vote; Massachusetts' statewide Chapter 337 framework -- DOR registration, the public STR registry, the 5% state room-occupancy excise, up to 6% local option, and the $1,000,000 minimum liability insurance requirement, all confirmed and consistent with every other Massachusetts market this site has covered; the Steamship Authority's Vineyard Haven terminal as the island's main year-round vehicle-ferry port; and a 2022 baseline median home price approaching $1 million, explicitly labeled as dated rather than current.
Not sourced, and not something this page will guess at: the exact numeric short-term rental cap Tisbury voters chose to keep, and that vote's margin; whether Tisbury has adopted the full 6% local-option excise, a lower rate, or none; whether Tisbury's combined short-term rental tax stack includes the 2.75% Cape Cod and Islands Water Protection Fund excise on top of the state-plus-local baseline; the current Tisbury property tax mill rate; and any current (2025-2026) median or average home sale price for Tisbury. This page is independent research, not a substitute for direct confirmation. Before underwriting a Tisbury rental purchase, confirm the exact STR cap number and any waitlist or permit-transfer rules with the Tisbury Town Clerk's office, confirm the combined tax rate with the Massachusetts Department of Revenue or a Massachusetts CPA, and get a property-specific rental income projection from a local property manager rather than relying on any island-wide average. Nothing on this page is legal, tax, or investment advice.
Ready to talk to a local Vineyard Haven (Tisbury) agent?
Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. Data sourced from: a dated sequence of Martha's Vineyard Times reports -- "Tisbury Considers Eliminating a Cap on Short-Term Rentals" (Feb. 13, 2026), "Tisbury Voters to Consider Elimination of Short-Term Rental Cap" (Apr. 23, 2026), and "Tisbury Denies Short-Term Rental Cap Removal" (Apr. 29, 2026) -- confirming Tisbury has an existing short-term rental cap and that town meeting voters explicitly declined to eliminate it in spring 2026; the Vineyard Gazette's March 26, 2026 report "Short-Term Rental Regulations Head to Town Meeting," a further primary source for the cap's exact terms; Massachusetts' 2018 short-term rental law, Chapter 337 of the Acts of 2018 (malegislature.gov), establishing Department of Revenue registration, the public short-term rental registry, the 5% state room-occupancy excise, up to 6% local-option excise, and a $1,000,000 minimum liability insurance requirement, applied consistently across this site's other Massachusetts pages; this site's own Barnstable County research confirming a 2.75% Cape Cod and Islands Water Protection Fund excise applies in Barnstable County towns, and this site's own Edgartown and Oak Bluffs research, neither of which could confirm whether that same fund extends to Dukes County; the Steamship Authority's own Woods Hole-Vineyard Haven-Oak Bluffs route schedule and a Yelp-listed Vineyard Haven terminal address of 1 Water St; Martha's Vineyard Commission and Vineyard Gazette/MV Times coverage of the Tisbury Marine Terminal redevelopment (DRI 277-M, 2021 MVC approval through a December 2024 expansion report); Tisbury's own hosted Vineyard Haven Harbor District of Critical Planning Concern regulations, dated to 1999 per Vineyard Gazette coverage from that year; and the Vineyard Gazette's December 9, 2022 report "Property Values Soar in Tisbury, as Median Home Price Approaches $1 Million," used here only as an explicitly labeled 2022 baseline. Honest gaps disclosed rather than filled with invented figures: the exact numeric short-term rental cap Tisbury voters chose to keep, and that vote's margin, were not extracted; whether Tisbury has adopted the full 6% local-option excise, a lower rate, or none was not confirmed; whether the 2.75% Cape Cod and Islands Water Protection Fund excise applies to Dukes County/Tisbury was not confirmed either way; no current (2025-2026) median or average home sale price for Tisbury was confirmed, and no current Tisbury property tax mill rate was confirmed despite the town's own "Primer on Tisbury Real Estate Taxes" page existing as a direct primary source; and the Tisbury Marine Terminal redevelopment's current construction status and cost were not confirmed. Short-term rental rules, tax rates, and Town Meeting outcomes change; confirm current requirements directly with the Town of Tisbury Town Clerk's office, the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, and a licensed Massachusetts accountant or real estate attorney before investing in a Tisbury short-term rental property. Nothing on this page is legal, tax, or investment advice.