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Accountants in East Hampton

Eight miles from our Sag Harbor office. Second home owners, rental property and a registry regime that is getting stricter.

Nearest office
Hamptons Office
Hours
Sun–Fri, 11am–8pm ET

East Hampton town has 29,400 residents, a median household income of $132,348 and a median home value of $1,178,500, with owner occupancy at 77.8%. In a town that size those numbers describe a second home and rental economy rather than a conventional residential one.

The village and the town are separate jurisdictions with separate rules, and that is the single most important thing to establish about any East Hampton property. Main Street and Newtown Lane are the village retail core. Town wide, the working economy is construction, landscaping, property management, hospitality and brokerage.

Local tax

Village or town changes the answer

In the Town of East Hampton, rentals shorter than two weeks are permitted up to twice in any six months, and a rental registry number is required and must appear in the advertisement. Penalties for failing to register run from $3,000 to $15,000, and advertising without the number from $150 to $1,500.

In the Village of East Hampton the rules are tighter. Rentals under two weeks are not permitted at all, there is a maximum of two short term rentals per calendar year, and the registry covers lettings under 120 days with notarised affidavits. The town law does not apply inside the incorporated villages of East Hampton and Sag Harbor, so a village property follows village rules alone.

Enforcement is tightening. The town identified 1,874 listings with roughly half unregistered and moved in late 2025 toward rental tracking software, with officials discussing higher fees and a possible local tax. If you let your house, this is the year to be registered.

On the transfer tax, the 2.5% Peconic rate applies with a $400,000 allowance on improved residential property, but only where consideration is $2,000,000 or less. With a median home value just under $1.2 million, a large share of actual sales here exceed that cap and get no allowance at all. Budgeting on the allowance is how buyers arrive at closing short.

Beyond that: Schedule E, the section 280A fourteen day rule, mixed personal and rental use allocation, passive activity limits, and basis tracking through renovations. Many owners are domiciled in New York City or out of state, which makes nonresident returns on IT-203, domicile analysis and the 183 day statutory residency test the highest value work on this page. Zone 2 for MCTMT at 0.34%.

Figures above are drawn from the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, the New York City Department of Finance, the US Census Bureau, New York City Small Business Services and the relevant town and village codes, and were current in October 2026. Local rules change, so confirm anything you plan to act on.

Services

What we do in East Hampton

Questions

Frequently asked questions

Am I in the village or the town?

It depends on the address, and it changes your rental rules completely. The village prohibits lettings under two weeks and caps you at two short term rentals a year. The town allows under two weeks twice in six months with a registry number. Establish which you are in before you advertise anything.

Is the first $400,000 of my purchase exempt from the transfer tax?

Only if the consideration is $2,000,000 or less. Above that there is no allowance and the full 2.5% applies from the first dollar. Given what property sells for here, a great many sales fall above the cap, and this is the most common error in East End summaries.

I rent the house out for two weeks a year. Do I report the income?

If you rent for 14 days or fewer in the year and use the property as a residence, the rental income can be excluded entirely, though you then deduct no rental expenses. Go to 15 days and the whole picture changes. It is one of the few genuinely bright lines in the code and it is worth planning around deliberately.

I live in Manhattan and have a house here. Where am I taxed?

It turns on domicile and on day counts, and New York audits residency actively. If you are claiming a change of domicile, the documentation needs to be built as you go rather than assembled afterwards.

Nearby

Also served from Hamptons Office

Talk to someone who knows East Hampton

Call (516) 845-9969 or book online. Remote works just as well if coming in is awkward.