Method
How to read any city's short-term rental ordinance in 30 minutes
Start with the city's own page, then get to the code
Search "[city name] short term rental" plus "site:.gov". Almost every regulating city has a program page now, usually under the planning, codes, or finance department. The program page is the friendly summary; it will name the ordinance number and the code chapter. Then find the code itself, usually hosted on Municode, American Legal Publishing, or the city's own site. Read the summary first, but never stop there: program pages lag the code, and in our experience they sometimes contradict it, especially on fees.
The nine questions, in reading order
| Question | What to look for, and the trap |
|---|---|
| 1. What counts as a short-term rental? | The definitions section. Almost always "less than 30 consecutive days," sometimes 28 or 31, sometimes with a minimum stay too. The trap: some cities regulate renting any part of a dwelling, so renting one bedroom counts. |
| 2. Is a permit required, and when? | Usually "prior to listing," not prior to the first booking. The trap: some cities require two permits, one tied to the property owner and one to whoever operates it. |
| 3. Where is it allowed? | The zoning districts. This question kills more plans than any other: a permit type can exist citywide on paper and be unavailable on your parcel. Look up the parcel's zoning district before anything else about the property. |
| 4. Is there a cap or lottery? | Caps come in flavors: citywide percentage, per-neighborhood percentage, per-block counts, distance buffers between rentals. If there is a cap, find out how the queue works: lottery, waitlist, or first-come. |
| 5. Who can hold the permit? | Owner-occupancy requirements, natural-person requirements (some cities ban LLC ownership for residential permits), one-permit-per-person rules, and whether permits transfer on sale. They usually do not. |
| 6. What does operating require? | Occupancy formulas (often tied to bedroom count), local-contact response times, posted notices, permit numbers in advertisements, insurance minimums, safety equipment attestations, sometimes inspections. |
| 7. What taxes, paid to whom? | Lodging or occupancy tax rate, whether the platform remits it or you do, and per-night flat fees some cities add. The trap: zero-revenue months can still require a filing. |
| 8. How do you lose the permit? | The revocation triggers. Count the strikes and read what counts as one: in some cities, any ordinance violation (noise, trash) feeds the same counter as rental violations. Also check whether false application statements are independent grounds. |
| 9. When does it expire? | Fixed calendar date or 365 days from issuance. With caps, this question is existential: in some cities a lapsed permit goes back into the pool and you re-compete for your own address. |
The three traps that live between the sections
The advertisement clause. Cities enforce by scraping listings. If the ordinance requires the permit number in every ad, that is not bureaucratic decoration; it is the enforcement mechanism, and a listing without the number is a self-reporting violation.
The fee schedule lives somewhere else. Ordinances rarely contain dollar amounts; those sit in a separate fee resolution the council updates on its own schedule. This is why fee numbers on the internet, including on city pages, disagree so often. When two official numbers conflict, budget to the higher one and ask the department.
The amendment date. Check when the ordinance was last amended, then search the council's recent agendas for the ordinance number. STR codes are among the most frequently amended chapters in municipal law, and a guide written eighteen months ago, ours included, can be one council vote out of date. That is also why every city guide on this site carries a "sources checked" date and why we tell you to confirm with the city before filing.
Thirty minutes, honestly spent
Ten minutes on the program page and the definitions. Ten on zoning and caps against your actual parcel. Ten on the operating rules and revocation triggers. That is enough to know whether a property can legally operate and roughly what it costs, which is more than most buyers know at closing. For the cities we have already done this for, start with our guides to Nashville and Austin.
This guide is a method for reading public regulations, not legal advice.