North America
Airbnb restrictions in North America: Cities have responded to the growth of Airbnb with varied approaches, typically focusing on restricting non-primary residences and implementing night caps for short-term rentals.
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1. New York City, USA
Short-term rentals of an entire apartment for under 30 days are generally illegal in NYC unless the host is present and there are no more than two guests. A new 2023 law requires hosts to register and effectively bans most unhosted Airbnb stays (Airbnb called it a “de facto ban”). Thousands of illegal listings have been removed as the city enforces these rules, drastically shrinking NYC’s short-term rental market.
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2. Los Angeles, USA
LA’s Home Sharing Ordinance (2019) allows only primary residences to be rented short-term (hosts must live there ≥6 months/year). There is a 120-night annual cap unless a costly extended-home-sharing permit is obtained. Violations incur fines, and the city requires registration of all hosts. These rules have curbed the proliferation of investor-run rentals in LA neighborhoods.
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3. San Francisco, USA
SF permits short-term rentals only if the host is a full-time resident of the unit (at least 275 days/yr). An unhosted rental (entire home) is capped at 90 nights per year. Hosts must register and obtain a Short-Term Rental Certificate, and violations face fines around $484 per day. These restrictions, along with strict enforcement, removed many absentee-run rentals and returned some units to the long-term market.
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4. Santa Monica, USA
This beach city effectively banned vacation rentals of entire homes. Only “home-sharing” (host lives on-site during the guest’s stay) is allowed for stays under 30 days. Hosts must get a city permit and business license, and occupancy is limited. Santa Monica’s tough 2015 law wiped out ~80% of its Airbnb listings—by 2019 only a few hundred legal home-shares remained.
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5. Las Vegas, USA
In the City of Las Vegas, rentals of non-owner-occupied homes are banned and only owner-occupied rentals are allowed. Hosts must obtain a business license, carry $500,000 liability insurance, and comply with strict rules (max 3 bedrooms, 660-foot distance from any other STR). Party events are prohibited. Heavy fines are imposed for violations.
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6. Honolulu (Oahu), USA
Honolulu passed an ordinance in 2022 raising the minimum rental period for most areas from 30 days to 90 days, banning rentals shorter than 3 months in residential neighborhoods. Only certain resort districts can offer stays <90 days. The law also boosted penalties—fines up to $10,000 per day for illegal rentals.
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7. Maui (Hawaii), USA
Maui County requires short-term rentals to have permits and has strict caps by region. “Short-Term Rental Home” permits (for non-owner-occupied vacation houses) are limited in number (e.g. 100 in Kihei-Makena, 88 in West Maui), and new permits often face waitlists. Maui recently moved to phase out thousands of rentals in apartment-zoned areas by 2025.
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8. Boston, USA
Boston’s 2019 ordinance banned short-term rentals of investor-owned apartments. Only an owner’s primary residence (or a room in it) or an owner-adjacent unit in a 2–3 family home can be offered short-term. All other “investor units” are illegal to list. This eliminated about 2,000 Airbnb units from the market.
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9. Miami Beach, USA
Miami Beach prohibits rentals under 6 months in most residential areas. Short-term rentals are only allowed in certain tourist-zoned parts of the city. The city became infamous for its exorbitant fines – formerly $20,000 for a first offense of illegal renting (these were later reduced after court challenges).
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10. New Orleans, USA
Short-term rentals of whole homes in most residential areas are banned or heavily limited. Since 2019, STR in residential zones requires the owner occupy the property (homestead exemption), and only one rental is allowed per square block (a one-per-block rule adopted in 2023) to prevent clustering. STRs are entirely banned in the historic French Quarter and Garden District neighborhoods.
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11. Washington, D.C., USA
D.C.’s short-term rental law (effective 2022) allows only primary residences to be used for short stays. Hosts must obtain a two-year license. If the host is not present (vacation rental), rentals are capped at 90 nights per year. Renting second homes or any unit that is not the owner’s primary dwelling is illegal.
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12. Seattle, USA
Seattle passed regulations limiting hosts to no more than two short-term rental properties each. One of those must be the host’s primary residence. All hosts must obtain a STR operator license. These rules, aimed at preventing quasi-hotel businesses, took effect in 2019.
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13. San Diego, USA
San Diego in 2022 instituted a license system capping the number of whole-home vacation rentals. The city set a quota of 1% of housing units (about 5,416 licenses) for entire-home rentals citywide (with a separate cap for the Mission Beach area). All short-term rental operators must have a license, and unlicensed listings are illegal.
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14. Vancouver, Canada
Vancouver permits short-term rentals only in a host’s primary residence (the home they live in most of the year). Since 2018, all hosts must have a city business license and include the license number in listings. Renting secondary properties short-term is banned. Violations can incur fines up to $1,000 per day.
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15. Toronto, Canada
Toronto’s regulations (enforced since 2019) allow short-term rentals only at one’s principal residence. Hosts must register with the city. There’s a 180-night per year cap on renting an entire home short-term, though renting private rooms in your home has no annual limit. Secondary or investment properties cannot be used as short-term rentals at all.
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16. Montreal, Canada
Montreal (and the province of Quebec) require short-term rentals to be in designated tourist zones and registered. Outside approved zones, STR of entire homes is illegal. The city announced it will ban all short-term rentals outside a few central streets during most of the year (only allowing them in summer) to return units to locals.
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17. Chicago, USA
Chicago bans vacation rentals in properties that are not owner-occupied if the owner has multiple listings. Additionally, condo associations or buildings can opt out and forbid STRs entirely, and many have. Chicago also has an ordinance prohibiting single-night rentals and imposing nuisance rules (three strikes for noise/party issues and the unit’s license can be revoked).
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18. Nashville, USA
Starting 2017, Nashville banned any new non-owner-occupied STR permits in residential zones and chose to phase out existing ones by 2020. Now, only owner-occupied homes (or attached units with the owner on-site) can get permits in residential areas. STRs in certain commercial/tourist zones are still allowed but capped.
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19. Austin, USA
Since 2016, Austin prohibited new permits for non-owner-occupied STRs in residential zones, planning to phase them out entirely. By 2022, all remaining Type-2 STR permits in residential areas expired, effectively banning “whole house” rentals in residential neighborhoods. The city also uses enforcement tools like a dedicated STR code compliance team and fines up to $2,000 per offense.
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20. Philadelphia, USA
Hosts renting an entire home that is not their primary residence must obtain a “Limited Lodging Operator” license and a zoning variance – which is largely unattainable in residential areas. Effectively, this means short-term rentals in residentially zoned properties must be owner-occupied or owner-adjacent.
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21. Jersey City, USA
The city banned short-term rentals in properties where the owner is not on-site (except for certain multi-unit buildings), and it limited rentals in owner-occupied homes to 60 nights per year if the owner is away. Essentially, this eliminated unlimited Airbnb operations in luxury apartments and brownstones that investors were running.
Europe
European cities, particularly those facing overtourism, have implemented some of the world’s strictest short-term rental controls, ranging from night limits to outright bans in historic centers.
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22. London, UK
In Greater London, there is a 90-night yearly limit for short-term rentals of an entire home. Beyond 90 nights, the owner must obtain planning (zoning) permission, which is rarely granted. Platforms like Airbnb automatically enforce the 90-day cap by blocking bookings once reached.
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23. Paris, France
Paris imposes some of Europe’s strictest rules. Primary residences can be rented short-term up to 120 nights per year (and hosts must register with the city). Secondary apartments are essentially prohibited unless the owner officially converts the unit to commercial use and provides equivalent housing elsewhere (a costly swap that few do).
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24. Barcelona, Spain
Barcelona has progressively tightened rules to combat overtourism. All short-term rental apartments must have an official tourist license, and the city stopped issuing new licenses years ago. It even banned Airbnb-style rentals of private rooms in 2021. Most dramatically, Barcelona announced plans to phase out all tourist apartment rentals by 2029.
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25. Berlin, Germany
Berlin’s “Zweckentfremdungsverbot” law (2016) forbids short-term renting of apartments without city permission. Initially it was a near-ban on vacation apartments – only hosts sharing a room or with a hard-to-get permit could operate. Few permits were granted, with officials originally vowing to reject 95% of applications.
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26. Amsterdam, Netherlands
Amsterdam worked with Airbnb early on but later cracked down as listings grew. The city cut the annual rental cap to 30 nights for an entire home in 2018 (down from 60). Any rental of a whole home requires registering, and rentals beyond 30 nights or multiple guests without the host present are not allowed without a permit (which are limited).
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27. Madrid, Spain
Madrid’s 2019 rules make it virtually impossible for most apartments in the center to be legally rented short-term. The city requires that any apartment rented >90 days/year must have a tourism license, and to get that the unit must have a separate entrance exclusively for tourists. In practice, 95% of holiday flats cannot meet this separate-entry rule and are thus barred from getting permits.
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28. Valencia, Spain
Valencia has moved aggressively to protect housing in its historic center. In 2023 the city banned all new short-term rental permits in most of the Ciutat Vella (old town). No tourist apartments are allowed in that area to preserve it for local residents. The city also put a moratorium on new STR licenses citywide for at least one year.
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29. Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Palma (Mallorca’s capital) became the first Spanish city to outright ban apartment rentals to tourists. Since July 2018, short-term rentals in multi-family apartment buildings are illegal. Only single-family homes or duplexes in certain zones can be rented (and not if in protected rural land or near the airport).
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30. Florence, Italy
In 2023, Florence announced a ban on any new short-term rentals in its UNESCO-listed historic center. No additional Airbnb-style listings will be allowed in the old city. This was a response to an explosion of holiday rentals driving residents out. Florence already limits existing STRs via zoning and is pushing a national law to permit an absolute ban in art city centers.
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31. Edinburgh, UK
Edinburgh introduced a stringent licensing regime in 2022. All short-term let properties must obtain a license from the city by 2024, and crucially, any whole-home rental that is not the owner’s primary residence requires planning permission. The city has been rejecting about 90% of such planning applications for STR use.
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32. Lisbon, Portugal
In 2023, Portugal approved the “Mais Habitação” housing package, which includes a freeze on new short-term rental licenses in urban areas like Lisbon and Porto. New tourist accommodation registrations are prohibited (except in rural zones) to curb investor activity. Existing STR licenses in Lisbon are under review and may not be renewed in the future.
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33. Athens, Greece
The Greek government announced a ban on new short-term rental licenses in central Athens for at least one year (from Jan 2025). This moratorium covers three popular downtown districts. The state also increased taxes on STR income in peak season. By halting new entrants, Athens aims to prevent further loss of housing to tourists.
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34. Vienna, Austria
Starting in 2024, Vienna will cap short-term rentals to 90 nights per year for each home. Previously, certain inner districts already had such 90-day limits since 2018. The new rule ensures no apartment becomes a full-time Airbnb. Vienna’s policy recognizes only occasional hosting as acceptable and is meant to keep apartments from being diverted from long-term tenants.
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35. Dublin, Ireland
In Dublin (a designated Rent Pressure Zone), short-term rentals are heavily constrained. Since mid-2019, homeowners can only rent out their primary residence up to 90 days per year without special permission. Letting a second home or exceeding 90 days requires applying for change-of-use (which is seldom granted).
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36. Brussels, Belgium
Renting an entire dwelling to tourists is generally only allowed if it’s the host’s principal residence and with a limit of around 120 days per year. Moreover, hosts must register and get a tourist accommodation certificate. Brussels has fined hosts who didn’t live on-site or who exceeded time limits. The effect is that spare-room rentals are allowed with registration, but absentee landlord Airbnbs have been pushed out.
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37. San Sebastián, Spain
San Sebastián (Donosti) declared its central areas “saturated” with holiday rentals and moved in 2023 to stop any new Airbnb-style flats. The city government has prohibited the establishment of new short-term rental apartments and even new hotels in the most impacted central zones. The mayor explicitly announced an end to the “growth” of tourist accommodation.
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38. Reykjavik, Iceland
Iceland passed a law in 2017 limiting short-term rentals by unlicensed individuals to 90 nights per year with a revenue cap (ISK 2 million). Beyond 90 nights, the host must obtain a hospitality license and pay business taxes. In Reykjavík, hosts register with the city and cannot exceed that threshold or they’ll be considered an illegal hotel.
Asia & Middle East
Asian cities often have the strictest regulations globally, with several implementing outright bans on short stays in residential properties or requiring hotel licenses that are nearly impossible to obtain.
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39. Singapore
Singapore has a blanket ban on short-term rentals (stays under 3 months) in private residential properties. Only hotels or serviced residences can offer short stays. For public government-built housing (HDB flats, home to most Singaporeans) the minimum stay is even longer (6 months). The city-state enforces these rules strictly with investigations and fines, effectively eliminating Airbnbs.
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40. Hong Kong
Under the Hotel and Guesthouse Accommodation Ordinance, it is unlawful to rent out accommodations for stays shorter than 28 days without a hotel/guesthouse license. Such licenses require safety and zoning compliance and are typically not granted in residential buildings. Only licensed guesthouses or serviced apartments can legally serve tourists.
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41. Tokyo, Japan
Japan’s 2018 “Minpaku” law legalized short-term rentals nationwide but imposed a 180 nights/year cap on each listing. Hosts must register with the government and comply with safety measures. In Tokyo, some wards have outlawed any Airbnb in residential zones or limited rentals to weekends only. After the law took effect, about 80% of Airbnb listings in Japan were removed.
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42. Kyoto, Japan
Kyoto adopted even stricter local rules on top of Japan’s national law. In Kyoto City’s residential districts, short-term rentals (minpaku) are only allowed during the low season winter months – specifically January 15 to March 15 each year. Rentals are banned during the rest of the year (peak tourism seasons) in those areas.
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43. Bangkok/Thailand
Thailand’s laws make most short-term rentals in condominiums technically illegal. The 2004 Hotel Act prohibits renting out residential properties for stays under 30 days without a hotel license. A Thai court affirmed that renting out a condo daily or weekly is illegal without a hotel license.
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44. Bali (Indonesia)
Indonesian law requires that anyone renting villas or houses to tourists obtain a rental villa license (a “Pondok Wisata”) and pay hotel taxes. The Bali government launched raids on illegal rentals and warned that unlicensed holiday rentals would be shut down. Certain regions set quotas and zoning for villa licenses.
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45. Penang, Malaysia
The popular tourist state of Penang has effectively banned short-term rentals in high-rise residential buildings. In 2023, local authorities ruled that STRs in apartments and condos are not allowed in Penang Island’s council area except in a few commercially-designated residences, and even there only for weekends. Hosts in Penang must register and can rent out for a maximum of 3 days/2 nights on weekends, with weekdays prohibited.
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46. Sydney (NSW, Australia)
In Greater Sydney, unhosted short-term rentals are capped at 180 nights per year. That means an investor who is not living on-site can only rent their property out half the year; beyond that, they must cease or face penalties. (Home-sharing where the host is present has no cap.) All STR properties across NSW must also be registered in a government portal.
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47. Queenstown, New Zealand
The Queenstown Lakes District requires owners to get a resource consent (permit) for any whole-home short-term rental beyond 90 nights per year. Renting up to 90 nights is permitted as of right, but from the 91st night onward it’s illegal without a special permission, which is subject to neighbor approval and strict limits in residential zones.
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48. Dubai, UAE
Dubai allows short-term rentals but under a strict permitting system. Home owners must obtain a holiday home license from the Dubai Tourism authority (DTCM) and comply with guidelines. Only approved homes can be listed, and hosts must pay fees and the tourism dirham tax. Owners in many cases must use a licensed holiday-home rental management company to host.
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49. Seoul, South Korea
Until recently, it was only legal to host foreigners in short-term rentals in South Korea – renting to Korean nationals was prohibited by law. Seoul has strict lodging laws that treated unlicensed home rentals as unlawful, with rare exceptions (like certified homestays for tourists). This meant a Korean homeowner could not legally offer their apartment on Airbnb to local guests at all.
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50. Melbourne, Australia
Melbourne has no citywide night cap, but it has taken steps to curb problematic short-term lets. The state of Victoria passed reforms allowing apartment building Owners Corporations to address STR issues. If a short-term rental repeatedly causes nuisance, the Owners Corp can seek an order from a tribunal to ban that host from short-term renting for up to 3 years and impose fines. Additionally, Victoria will allow apartment buildings to adopt rules outright forbidding short-stay accommodation in that building.
