How do you rent a Myrtle Beach house to J-1 students?
The program, the employers, the beds, the rules.

The short answer

J-1 students are college students from abroad, here on a four-month summer work visa. South Carolina hosted about 3,000 of them in 2025. Myrtle Beach was the fourth busiest destination in the country.

They rent by the bed, three or four to a room, at about $100 to $140 a week each. That is the appeal. One house, four months, several rents at once.

The limit is how many people the house may lawfully hold. The city counts bedroom floor area, 70 square feet for the first person and 50 for each one after that. A 2,500 square foot four-bedroom house holds about 10 to 13 people. A garage holds none.

We have walked through a house here with more than 60 J-1 students living in it. That is the case this page tells you not to copy, and the sections below say why.

What is a J-1 student, and why do they rent in Myrtle Beach?

A J-1 student is a full-time college student from another country on a Summer Work Travel visa. The program allows up to four months of seasonal work during the student's summer break, and no extension. Most students have a job before they arrive, through a sponsor organization that screens them and vets the employer.

They rent here because the jobs are here. Myrtle Beach has about 35,000 residents and about 17 million visitors a year. Hotels, restaurants and attractions need summer staff the town cannot supply. The city has hosted about 8,500 J-1 students since 2018.

The State Department counted 104,609 Summer Work Travel students in 2025. South Carolina had 3,003 of them, the 14th most of any state. Myrtle Beach was the fourth busiest destination in the country, after Ocean City, Orlando and Wisconsin Dells. No source gives the exact Myrtle Beach count.

The top sending countries in 2025 were Jamaica, Thailand, Mexico, Peru, Romania, Turkey, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic. Each country has its own program window. Most run May to September. Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and South Africa run December to April, so some students are here in winter.

Which employers hire the most J-1 students, and do they house them?

The employers with the most seasonal jobs. The president of Lazarus Entertainment Group said in November 2024 that 150 of the 500 summer staff at Myrtle Waves Water Park and Broadway Grand Prix are J-1 students. He said he had been pre-renting houses around the city to get enough beds. He had reserved 150 of the 300 beds in the new residence hall for the next summer.

The owner of Extreme Pizza and Toasted Yolk Cafe told a reporter in February 2026 that without the students the summer would be like 2021. That was the year no one had enough staff. Sponsor job listings for the area show a pizza restaurant, a diner chain and an oceanfront resort offering housing at $100 a week. A beachwear chain offers it at $110 a week, taken from the paycheck.

The rule puts the housing duty on the sponsor, not the employer. If the employer does not provide housing, the sponsor must actively and immediately assist the student in finding it. The sponsor must also consider housing that meets local codes when it places the job. No rule requires a sponsor to inspect or approve a private landlord's house, and no rule caps the rent.

One purpose-built building exists. The International Residence Hall on Globe Drive has more than 300 beds, four to a room, with weekly rent. It opened in May 2025, with tax incentives from the city. More buildings are planned; the reported totals differ by source. Its rent is not published.

There is no sponsor portal where a landlord signs up. The visitor bureau held a J-1 forum for employers, landlords and sponsors in February 2026. Employers pre-rent, and students search. A house that an employer has rented for its staff, year after year, is the steadiest version of this rental.

How much rent does a J-1 house collect in Myrtle Beach?

Rent is per bed, per week, with the kitchen, Wi-Fi and laundry included. One North Myrtle Beach operator lists $120 a week in spring and $130 in summer, three to a room, with a 90-day minimum lease and a $260 deposit. Another lists $130 and $140 a week, four to a room in bunk beds, with a $250 deposit. Employer housing in the sponsor listings is $100 to $110 a week.

That is about $430 to $610 a month per person. Our earlier figure of $500 to $700 a month came from our own observation. The listings are lower, so this page uses the listings.

The bed count in the table is the lawful count for a 2,500 square foot four-bedroom house. The season is four months because the visa allows four. Deposits of $250 a person are held through the season, and the local listings keep $50 to $100 of each for cleaning and linens at checkout.

One sponsor caps a student's rent at a third of gross pay. At 32 hours a week, the minimum in several local listings, a third of pay is a few hundred dollars a month. The rent per bed has a ceiling the students' wages put on it.

How many people can a Myrtle Beach house lawfully hold?

Inside the City of Myrtle Beach the answer comes from bedroom floor area. The city adopts the International Property Maintenance Code. Its occupancy section says a bedroom for one person needs 70 square feet, and a bedroom for two or more needs 50 square feet for each person. Kitchens and nonhabitable spaces cannot be slept in. Every bedroom needs a path to a toilet without passing through another bedroom.

A 2,500 square foot four-bedroom house: one 14 by 16 foot bedroom holds four people. Three 12 by 12 foot bedrooms hold two each. That is ten people. If the three smaller bedrooms are 12 by 14 feet, they hold three each, and the house holds thirteen. A detached garage holds no one unless it was converted under a permit with a certificate of occupancy.

North Myrtle Beach and the unincorporated county do not list the property maintenance code among their adopted codes, as mirrored online. They enforce through the building codes, their unfit-dwelling rules and, in North Myrtle Beach, the zoning definitions. Confirm the count for the exact house with the building department before you model the rent. We do that with you.

What happens if you put too many people in the house?

We have walked through a house here with more than 60 J-1 students living in it. Do not copy it.

The fines are per day. A code violation in the city is a civil fine of up to $200. After seven days' notice to fix it, the fine is up to $2,000 for each day it continues. Every rental in the city needs a business license. Renting without one is a misdemeanor, with up to a $500 fine and 30 days, and each day is a separate offense.

Enforcement happens, and it starts with complaints. In July 2021 a homeowner was charged for housing three J-1 students in a garage apartment he built without permits; the students were moved. In 2025 the city described reports of more than ten students in a two-bedroom space. In 2026 the fire marshal described past citations for four or five students in one bed with an air mattress in the closet.

Is the J-1 housing market already full?

No. The people who need the beds have said so in public, by name.

The owner of Lazarus Entertainment Group said securing beds that met his standards was hard. He described putting deposits on houses all over Myrtle Beach to get enough of them, and called it difficult and challenging. He hires about 150 J-1 students a season out of 500 seasonal staff.

The city manager said the same from the other side. When the city finds a house with too many people in it, it has to have somewhere to move those young adults to. The city needs spare beds to exist before it can enforce anything.

Then count it.

Even finished, the purpose-built building holds under half the students who work here. The rest need a house.

The gap is not only beds. It is clean beds. The mayor said in 2024 that some properties are not taken care of as they should be, and that students have been taken advantage of. A partner in the residence hall said he had heard of 19 people in one house. A house inside the lawful count, with a real bed for each person, is competing against that.

How do you find J-1 students to rent to?

Start with the employers, not the students. The big ones rent houses before the season and put their own staff in them. The president of Lazarus Entertainment Group described putting deposits on houses all over Myrtle Beach to get enough beds, and called it difficult. A house an employer takes every year fills with no advertising at all.

Sponsors will not do it for you. The State Department lists every sponsor by name and you can call them. They no longer keep lists of landlords, and they have no staff for placing students in private houses. The rule says only that the sponsor must help the student find housing and must send information about available housing before the student leaves home. Nobody inspects or approves your house.

Who do you ask about that site? The police department runs it as the International Student Outreach Program, with the area chamber and the hospitality association. The program takes calls at 843-918-1806 and email at [email protected]. The hospitality association is at 843-626-9668. Be straight about what you are asking. Neither publishes a landlord list, so you are asking them to point students at a house, not to add you to a form.

Write the listing the way a student reads it. The weekly rent per bed. The deposit and what comes back. How far to work, in miles. A photo of the bed. Sponsors tell students to ask those exact questions, so answer them before they ask.

List the house over the winter. Employers plan the season months ahead, and the students land in May. A house first listed in March is late.

What do J-1 students look for in a Myrtle Beach rental?

• Close to work without a car. One operator says all its houses are under two miles from the job and most students rent or buy a bike. Every Coast RTA bus carries two bikes. A house near the oceanfront employers or on a bus route fills first.
• A kitchen, Wi-Fi and laundry. Every local listing advertises all three. Linens are sometimes included.
• Weekly rent and a clear deposit. Sponsors tell students to ask the weekly cost, the deposit and what is refundable, and to check the occupancy limit in the lease.
• No scams. The city's orientation site warns students about people who take deposits and provide no room. Sponsors tell them never to wire money before arrival. A landlord who shows the house on a video call and takes the deposit on arrival removes that fear.
• Smoke detectors. Sponsors tell students to check for them. The 2013 motel closure in the city was for missing detectors and seven or eight people in rooms built for four.

How do you screen and lease to J-1 tenants?

One lease per person, in English. Sponsors assume an English lease and tell students to read it and keep a signed copy. Put the move-in and move-out dates, the rent, the deposit and the occupancy limit in it. The student must report the address to the sponsor within ten days, so the sponsor has your address on file.

Screen every applicant the same way. National origin is a protected class, and a rule that all tenants must speak English is a practice federal housing regulators call suspect. A passport is a photo ID. Sponsors tell students a landlord can ask for photo ID, an employer letter and proof of funds from home. Every student has the sponsor's 24-hour number and can give it to you.

End the lease before the program does. The visa allows four months plus 30 days to travel, and the student must leave the country by then. A fixed term that ends on the job's end date, with the deposit returned to an address abroad, is the clean version. The landlord rules page has the deposit clock and the notices.

What happens if you need to evict a J-1 tenant?

The same law as any tenant. The state landlord and tenant act applies to every dwelling in the state and says nothing about citizenship. The grounds are unpaid rent, a term that has ended, or a broken lease. More people in the house than the lease allows is a broken lease, and the fourteen-day notice applies.

Weekly rent with no fixed term makes a week-to-week tenancy, which either side ends on seven days' written notice. A fixed term ends on its date. Fifteen days of unexplained absence after unpaid rent is abandonment. The magistrate process, the writ and the fees are on the landlord rules page.

The student's program does not end with the housing. Losing housing is not a ground for termination. The sponsor must actively and immediately help the student find new housing, and the student reports the new address within ten days. Sponsors list eviction as a reason to call their 24-hour line. In the 2021 garage case the city moved the students the same day.

The cost of an eviction on a four-month lease is the season. A house that stays inside the lawful count, with one lease per person and the sponsor's number in the file, rarely needs one. In Chapter3's files, the problem houses are the overfilled ones, not the tenants.

What do you do with the house the other eight months?

The season is four months because the visa allows four. A house that sits empty from October is a worse rental than a house on one yearly lease. Plan the other eight months before you buy, not after.

Some students are here in winter. Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and South Africa run December to April, so their students work our winter. How many reach this area is not published.

The residence hall has said what it does. A partner in it said H-2B workers stay nine months a year, so it expects lower winter occupancy rather than an empty building. H-2B is the other seasonal visa. Those workers staff the same hotels, golf courses and restaurants, and they stay longer than a J-1 student can.

Run the comparison before you buy. Four months by the bed, from the table above, collects about what a yearly lease on the same house collects in twelve. You beat a yearly lease only if you fill those eight months.

Wear is the part people forget. Ten people use a house harder than three. Budget paint and cleaning every autumn. Put the turnover between tenants into the year you model.

What can go wrong with a J-1 rental?

Neighbors notice a full house, and the city says neighbors are how it learns about overcrowding. Stay inside the lawful count and that call does not come.

The residence hall competes at the low end, three hundred beds at a time, with employers reserving blocks. A clean house inside the lawful count, near the jobs, competes on quality. A duplex or fourplex spreads the same model across units; the small multifamily page has the financing. Student rentals near the university are the year-round version.

Common questions

J-1 rental FAQ

What is a J-1 student?

A full-time college student from another country on a Summer Work Travel visa, allowed up to four months of seasonal work during the home country's summer break. The State Department counted 104,609 of them in 2025. South Carolina had 3,003, and Myrtle Beach was the fourth busiest destination in the country.

How much do J-1 students pay for housing in Myrtle Beach?

About $100 to $140 a week per bed, three or four to a room, with the kitchen, Wi-Fi and laundry included. That is about $430 to $610 a month per person. Deposits in the local listings are $250 to $260, with $50 to $100 kept for cleaning at checkout.

How many J-1 students can live in one house?

Inside the City of Myrtle Beach, as many as the bedroom floor area allows. That is 70 square feet for one person and 50 square feet each for two or more, with no sleeping in kitchens or garages. A 2,500 square foot four-bedroom house holds about 10 to 13 people. North Myrtle Beach and the county use their building codes and unfit-dwelling rules instead, so confirm the count for the exact house.

Which Myrtle Beach employers hire J-1 students?

The largest reported is Lazarus Entertainment Group. Its president said 150 of the 500 summer staff at Myrtle Waves and Broadway Grand Prix are J-1 students. He pre-rents houses and reserved 150 residence hall beds. Sponsor listings also show a pizza restaurant, a diner chain, an oceanfront resort and a beachwear chain offering housing at $100 to $110 a week.

Can you evict a J-1 student?

Yes, under the same state law as any tenant, for unpaid rent, a term that has ended or a broken lease, through the magistrate court. Losing housing does not end the student's program. The sponsor must help find new housing, and the student reports the new address within ten days.

What months do J-1 students rent in Myrtle Beach?

Most program windows run May to September, and the visa allows four months plus 30 days to travel. Students from Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and South Africa have December to April windows, so some are here in winter, but no source counts them locally.

Sources: 22 CFR 62.32, 22 CFR 62.10, 22 CFR 62.40, State Department 2025, 2026 program dates, WTOP, April 2026, WBTW, March 2025, WMBF, February 2026, Code 6-300, IPMC section 404, Code 6-400, fines, business license FAQ, SC Code 27-40, HUD on language rules, the residence hall, sponsor list, Post and Courier. Read September 1, 2026. Educational only, not legal advice. Confirm the lawful bed count for a specific house with its building department.

Talk to us before you buy a house for J-1 tenants.

One call. The lawful bed count, the license, the zoning, and the season against a yearly lease.