If you’re going on a trip with your friends, or going to see other family members, sometimes you need a place to crash for a night. Unless you want to sleep in the back of your car, a hotel room is often your best bet.
Unfortunately, you first need to make sure that you’re old enough. But how old do you have to be to rent a hotel room? The answer isn’t as simple as you might hope.
How Old Do You Have to Be to Rent a Hotel Room?
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For the most part, there aren’t any specific laws surrounding age restrictions when it comes to booking a hotel room. However, most hotels have the same age limit. The age of 18 is standard across the United States as the minimum age you can be to rent a hotel room by yourself.
Since there aren’t any laws about the age of renting a hotel room, you may be wondering why 18 is the most common age. This is because of another rule. In most states, minors aren’t able to be held under contract. This means that if a 16-year-old signs a contract and violates a rule, they can’t be held responsible for it.
Renting a hotel room involves signing a contract. Since most hotels don’t want to deal with people that don’t have to follow the rules, they often decide to protect themselves by only booking hotel rooms for people that are legally bound by a contract.
There are other factors involved, such as damages, annoying other guests, and finances, but the contract capacity is often the main factor. Sometimes, you can rent a hotel room younger if you look at more local hotels instead of big chains, or if you can get your parents or guardians to sign a contract for you and claim financial responsibility for the fees and any fines that you incur.
It’s important to note that while most states allow people to enter into legally binding contracts at 18, some states do have higher age limits. The age is between 18 and 21 on average. Additionally, even in states that have 18 as the age limit for contracts, hotels may raise the age to rent a hotel room up to 21 anyway, especially if they serve alcohol.
Because every hotel and location is a little different, it’s always a good idea to check and confirm that you’re the right age to check into a hotel room. Just because you book a hotel room doesn’t mean you’ll be able to check in when the time comes if you’re not the right age, so it’s better to know before you get there rather than when you need the room.
