An Airbnb Host's Guide to Offering a Golf Cart on Pleasure Island

A cart parked at the property is one of the strongest amenities on this island. It photographs well, it solves the parking problem your guests are about to discover, and it shows up in the review. That part is real.

What sits underneath it is less fun, and most of it never comes up until something happens. Three questions decide whether a cart amenity is a good idea for you: what the vehicle legally is, who is insuring it while a guest drives it down Lake Park Boulevard, and how the platform actually lets you charge for it. Here is what we could verify, and what we could not.

Start with what the vehicle legally is

There is a hard line between a golf cart and a low-speed vehicle, and it is not a marketing distinction. North Carolina DMV is specific about how one becomes the other: "A licensed manufacturer must be the one to upfit a golf cart to a low-speed vehicle, to include issuing a 17-digit and character vehicle identification number, a Manufacturer's Certificate of Origin, and meet all National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, N.C. General Statute, and N.C. Administrative Code requirements for a low-speed vehicle."

That single sentence disqualifies a large share of what gets sold locally as "street ready." A cart someone upfitted in a shed with lights and a mirror is still a golf cart. It has no 17-digit VIN and no MCO, so it cannot be titled, and under state law an LSV "shall be registered and insured in accordance with G.S. 20-50 and G.S. 20-309" and may be operated "only on streets and highways where the posted speed limit is 35 miles per hour or less." If you are buying, buy something you can put a plate on. The full difference between the two classes is here.

In Carolina Beach the stakes are higher than "less convenient." The town closed its golf cart permit program to new applicants on July 1, 2023 — its page says "Only golf cart owners that have obtained permits in the previous calendar year may continue to renew their permit; no new permit applicants will be allowed" — and "Effective January 1, 2028, golf carts will no longer be permitted in Carolina Beach." So buying a non-LSV cart for a Carolina Beach rental property is not a 2028 problem. It is a today problem: there is no permit available to you, at any price. An LSV needs no town operating permit at all. What the 2028 ordinance does and doesn't change.

Airbnb's host liability insurance excludes autos

This is the one that surprises people. Airbnb's own Host Liability Insurance Program Summary lists among its exclusions "bodily injury or property damage connected in any way to aircraft, autos, and mobile equipment, except where these are listed on Airbnb and being used as Accommodations." The $1,000,000 limit is real, and the carve-out is real, but the carve-out is for a vehicle that is the listing — a parked airstream, not a cart your guest is driving to Fort Fisher.

We are reading a published program summary, not adjudicating a claim. The full policy has terms and conditions we cannot see, an LSV is not obviously the same thing as an "auto" in every policy's definitions, and how any of it applies to a specific incident is between the insurer, the guest, and a lawyer. What we would not do is assume the platform's coverage is the backstop for a vehicle amenity. Read the exclusion yourself before you decide.

Your own policy almost certainly needs an endorsement

The North Carolina Department of Insurance describes the mechanism plainly: a miscellaneous type vehicle endorsement "can be purchased in addition to your basic automobile coverages" and "can provide coverage to motorcycles, golf carts, travel trailers and other similar type vehicles." Purchased in addition. It is not riding along on your auto or homeowners policy by default.

The question to put to your carrier is narrower than the one most hosts ask. Not "do you cover my golf cart." Ask whether the vehicle is covered while a paying guest of a short-term rental drives it off your property, name the business use explicitly, and get the answer in writing. A yes on a phone call about a golf cart at your own house is not a yes about a guest three miles away on Dow Road. If your carrier says no, that answer is useful — it is the same reason a renter's personal auto policy doesn't cover a rented LSV the way it covers a rental car.

Separately, and this is a lawyer question rather than an insurance one: ask a North Carolina attorney about negligent entrustment before you hand keys to someone you have never met and cannot screen. We are a rental company, not counsel, and we are not going to pretend to know how that lands.

If you plan to charge for it, read the platform rules first

Airbnb's rule is short: "Hosts aren't permitted to collect any fees related to Airbnb reservations outside of our platform, unless expressly authorized by us." The permitted exceptions are narrow — mandatory fees disclosed in the listing's price breakdown at checkout, taxes in places where the host is required to collect them directly, and optional fees run through the Resolution Center.

The part that catches cart hosts is the deposit. Airbnb's guidance is that security deposits are not allowed for most hosts, with damage handled through AirCover instead. Every rental company on this island manages cart damage with a deposit or an authorization hold. That tool is not available to you in the same form, which means the damage conversation happens after the fact, with a guest who has already left.

There is also a tax question we are not going to answer for you. North Carolina charges an alternate highway use tax on the gross receipts from the short-term lease or rental of a motor vehicle, at eight percent, in place of the tax normally paid at titling. Whether a cart charge bundled into a nightly rate is a "short-term lease or rental of a motor vehicle" for the purposes of that statute is a question for NCDOR or your own accountant. It is not a question for a blog post, and it is not a question for the host forum thread where you found a confident answer.

Parking is most of the value, and the pass rides with the vehicle

Carolina Beach sells an annual LSV parking pass for $100, on sale each January 1, online or in person at Town Hall or the parking office on Canal Drive. It is optional — an LSV needs no permit to operate — but it is the thing that makes the amenity feel like an amenity, because it is honored where annual town passes are honored.

Two practical notes. The pass is bought for a vehicle, so it stays with the cart and it is your line item, not your guest's. And Kure Beach runs an entirely separate parking program, so a Carolina Beach pass does nothing there — worth knowing before your listing promises "parking included" to a guest whose plan is Kure Beach pier. The two towns' programs, side by side.

Charging is the other physical detail. The cart has to plug into something, on a circuit you are allowed to use, reachable from wherever it parks. Single-family driveway, usually fine. Condo building, ask the board before you buy the cart, not after.

The version most hosts actually end up wanting

Owning the cart means a title in your name, a plate on your insurance, a charger to install, a permit program that no longer accepts you if you buy the wrong thing, a platform liability policy that excludes autos, and a vehicle sitting at the property in February earning nothing. Some hosts want all of that, and for a property that runs hot all season it can pencil out.

The alternative is to let the cart be someone else's asset. A rental arrives at the property, it goes back when the guests leave, and the town parking pass is already on it. Our weekly rate is $590, one flat rate all year — $660 all-in with the $10-a-day Road Service Plan, which includes the Carolina Beach parking pass. There is no counter for anything to be added at; pickup is contactless, and delivery and pickup anywhere on the island are free at three nights or more. Short-term renters drive under our commercial policy for the length of the trip, which is the specific thing your own policy is least likely to do.

We do not publish a host rate for a cart stationed at a property for a season, and we are not going to invent one here. If that is the arrangement you want, call and we will talk it through honestly, including telling you when owning is the better answer for your property.

Sources: NCDMV on other vehicle types to title and register; N.C.G.S. 20-121.1; Town of Carolina Beach golf cart and LSV permits; Airbnb Host Liability Insurance Program Summary; Airbnb on collecting fees outside Airbnb; NC Department of Insurance on miscellaneous auto coverages; NCDOR motor vehicle lease and subscription tax. Insurance policies, town ordinances, platform rules and tax treatment all change — confirm anything here before you rely on it, and confirm it with the party who would actually pay the claim. Questions about a cart for your guests: text or call 910-999-2278.