Short-term rental regulations: what to track and why it changes by city

Short-term rental regulation is set almost entirely at the city or county level in the US, which means a portfolio spanning multiple markets is really managing several different rule sets at once, not one. What is legal and unrestricted in one city can require a permit, a cap on rental days, or be banned outright a few miles away.

The categories of rules that actually trip people up

Registration or permit requirements are the most common: the property needs to be registered with the city before it can legally be listed, often with an annual renewal. Occupancy and rental-day caps limit how many nights per year a property can be rented short-term in some markets. Zoning restrictions determine whether short-term rental is allowed in a given area at all, independent of any permit. And primary-residence requirements in some cities require the host to actually live in the property for part of the year.

Why permit renewal dates are the easiest thing to lose track of

A permit that needs annual renewal is easy to miss precisely because it only comes up once a year, and the consequence — a listing getting delisted or fined — is far enough removed from the renewal date that it does not feel urgent until it suddenly is. Treating permit renewal like a lease renewal date — something tracked on a calendar per property, not something someone remembers — is the difference between a routine renewal and a scramble.

Software will not do the legal research for you

No software product tracks every city's current short-term rental ordinance accurately enough to rely on it alone — rules change frequently, and enforcement varies. What software can do is give you a place to record the permit number, renewal date, and any occupancy cap once you have confirmed it, so the information does not live only in the memory of whoever handled the paperwork.

How the rules look in a few well-known markets

Examples make the variation concrete, though every one of these changes regularly and should be checked against the current ordinance before you rely on it. New York City requires hosts renting for fewer than 30 days to register with the city, and its law effectively limits most short stays to situations where the host is present. Barcelona requires a tourist licence number for tourist apartments, has not issued new licences for years, and has announced plans to phase out existing ones. Amsterdam caps whole-home holiday rental at a limited number of nights per year and requires registration and notification of each stay. Paris requires a registration number on every listing and caps how many nights a primary residence may be let each year — historically 120, and French law now allows cities to lower that to 90. Many US cities sit in between, with a permit, an annual fee, occupancy limits and a local tax account.

The pattern is consistent even when the details are not: a registration or permit number, a cap on nights or a primary-residence condition, tax collection, and safety or occupancy standards. A compliance process needs a field for each.

The EU short-term rental regulation (2024/1028)

In the European Union, a new layer applies on top of local rules. Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 on data collection and sharing for short-term accommodation rental services has applied since 20 May 2026. It does not ban or cap short-term rentals itself — that stays with national and local authorities — but it standardises how registration works where an authority requires it, and it makes platforms part of enforcement.

In practice that means four things for hosts and managers. Where a local or national authority has introduced a registration procedure, each unit gets a registration number, issued online and quickly, and that number must be displayed on every listing. Platforms must let hosts enter the number and make reasonable efforts to check it, and authorities can order listings without a valid number to be removed. Platforms share activity data — the unit, the number of nights and guests — with authorities monthly through a national single digital entry point. And authorities can suspend registration numbers for non-compliance, which in turn takes the listing down across platforms.

For a management company with units in several EU countries, the practical consequence is that the registration number becomes a hard requirement per unit and per listing, and the nights you report through the platforms are visible to the authorities. Records of nights, guests and registration status per property are no longer only good practice; they are what the authority will compare your listings against.

A compliance record per property

For every property, keep a short record that answers the questions an inspector, a platform or an owner might ask. Registration or permit number and the authority that issued it. Issue date and renewal date. Any cap on nights per year, and how many have been used so far this year. Maximum occupancy permitted. Tourist or occupancy tax registration, the rate, and whether the platform collects it or you do. Insurance covering short-term letting. Required safety items — smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, fire extinguisher, escape plan — and when they were last checked. Any building or HOA rules that restrict short-term letting. Stored once, this takes five minutes per property and saves hours when a renewal or inspection arrives.

Night caps: count them as you go

Where a city limits the number of nights per year, the cap is easy to breach by accident in a strong summer. Track booked nights per property per calendar year as bookings arrive, not at year end, and set an internal warning well before the limit — for example at 80% — so you can stop accepting new bookings, switch the property to mid-term lets or block dates in time. Some cities count nights booked, others nights occupied, and some count per host rather than per property; record which definition applies.

Tourist taxes and platform collection

Occupancy and tourist taxes are one of the most common sources of unintentional non-compliance. Airbnb and other platforms collect and remit tax automatically in many jurisdictions, but not all, and not always every tax that applies — a city tax might be collected while a regional tax is not. Direct bookings are never covered. For each property, record which taxes apply, which the platforms handle, and which you must charge and file yourself, and make sure your owner statements show the tax collected separately from revenue.

If you manage for owners

For a management company, compliance responsibility should be explicit in the management agreement. Typically the owner is responsible for holding the permit and for zoning, building and insurance requirements, while the manager is responsible for operating within the permit — respecting night caps and occupancy limits, displaying the registration number, and collecting and remitting tax where the manager handles bookings. Write down who renews what, and have the system remind the right person. An expired permit discovered by a platform delisting is a problem for both of you.

Before you buy a property for short-term rental

If you are expanding, check the rules before signing, not after. Confirm that short-term rental is allowed at the address under zoning, whether new permits are still being issued, whether the building or HOA permits it, whether a night cap would make the numbers work, and what the city is currently discussing — many markets have tightened rules with relatively short notice. If the plan only works at full short-term occupancy, consider whether it still works as a mid-term rental of 30 days or more, which many cities regulate differently.

The Property Tool keeps that kind of property-specific detail on the property record itself — the permit renewal date belongs alongside the same information as a lease date, visible to your team without a separate compliance spreadsheet to maintain. See short-term rental management software for how that fits alongside bookings and owner reporting.