Short-term rental rules in New York

New York is the state where owners are most likely to be told something confidently wrong about the law. There is no single statewide short-term rental permit, one city runs a registration regime strict enough to have reshaped its market, a 2024 state statute added a county-and-tax layer, and everything else is written town by town. This page separates those four things, cites what it can, and is explicit about what it will not reprint.

Is there a statewide short-term rental law in New York?

There is a statewide framework, but not a statewide permit. The relevant statute is S.885C / A.4130C, signed December 21, 2024, amended by the chapter amendment Chapter 99 of the Laws of 2025 (S.820 / A.5686), signed in February 2025. According to the New York State Association of Counties, it does two things:

• County registries, at the county’s option. Counties have discretionary authority to establish a county-wide short-term rental registry. Participating counties must amend local law to allow collection of occupancy-tax revenue from short-term rentals; counties that opt out may use voluntary collection agreements or other local mechanisms.
• Platform tax collection. Booking platforms must collect and remit the state’s 4% sales tax plus local sales tax. For counties that already had lodging-tax authority the obligation ran from March 1, 2025; for others it starts when local law is amended or a new registry launches and the tax is levied.

Registry data covers address locations, lengths of stay and guest numbers. What the statute does not do is grant or deny you permission to operate — that stays with your municipality.

What does New York City's Local Law 18 require?

Registration with the city, a host present, and no more than two paying guests. Local Law 18 of 2022 — the Short-Term Rental Registration Law — was signed on January 9, 2022 and has been enforced since September 5, 2023. Its mechanics are simple and severe:

• Hosts must register the rental with the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement.
• Booking platforms are prohibited from processing transactions for unregistered listings, which is what gives the law its teeth.
• Registered short stays must meet the host-present requirement and the city’s occupancy limit of two paying guests.

The practical consequence for owners: an unhosted, whole-apartment stay of under 30 nights is not a lawful product in the five boroughs. Our New York City, Brooklyn and Queens pages are written on that basis rather than around it.

So who decides whether my listing is legal?

Your municipality, then your building, then the state and county layers. In that order of practical importance:

• Town, village or city code: permits, registration, occupancy caps, minimum stays, zoning, owner-occupancy conditions. This is where a listing is actually allowed or not.
• Private agreements: co-op and condo bylaws, homeowners-association rules and residential leases routinely prohibit short stays. No public registration overrides a private contract.
• County: registry participation and occupancy tax under the 2024 statute.
• State: the framework above, plus the sales tax the platform now collects on your behalf.

Why won't this page list my town's rules?

Because that list would be wrong within months, and a wrong answer here costs real money. New York has more than a thousand municipalities, and short-term rental rules are amended at village boards and town meetings on their own timetables — especially in the Catskills, the Adirondacks, the East End and the college towns. Any site that publishes a table of current local requirements is publishing a snapshot and hoping you do not check the date. We would rather be useful: read the code that applies to your address, from the municipality, and date-stamp what you find.

In plain English: think of it like a building’s certificate of occupancy. The state can set standards and the county can collect a tax, but whether this particular address may host paying guests is a local determination, recorded locally.

What should you ask a manager about compliance?

Four questions, and vague answers are the answer:

• Which filings do you make on my behalf, and which stay mine? Get it in the contract, not the sales call.
• Who pays a fine caused by a filing you missed? If the contract is silent, the owner of record pays.
• What is your process when my town changes its rules? A company managing in a regulated market should have one.
• How do you verify occupancy limits and stay lengths at booking? Especially anywhere the legal product is narrow.

Myths about New York short-term rental rules

Myth: New York City banned Airbnb.

Reality: It did not ban the platform. It requires registration, host presence and a two-guest limit, and it stopped platforms from processing unregistered bookings — which removed the unhosted whole-apartment product in practice.

Myth: The 2024 state law legalised short-term rentals statewide.

Reality: It created a county-registry option and platform tax collection. Permission to operate remains municipal.

Myth: If the platform collects the tax, my tax obligations are handled.

Reality: Platform collection covers specified sales taxes. Income tax, and any local occupancy tax that sits outside the arrangement, remain yours. Ask an accountant, not a dashboard.

Mistakes New York owners make about the rules

• Buying first, reading the code second. In several New York markets the answer to “can this be a short-term rental?” is no, and it was no before you made the offer.
• Confusing state activity with local permission. A headline about Albany rarely changes what your village allows.
• Ignoring the building. Bylaws and leases end more short-term rental plans in New York than municipal codes do.
• Trusting an out-of-state manager’s summary. Ask which filings they actually make in your municipality, by name.

Sources we used, so you can check them

Nothing on this page is our interpretation of a statute we have not read about. The state framework comes from the New York State Association of Counties’ short-term rental issue page, which sets out the bill numbers, the chapter amendment, the county options and the platform tax timetable. The city requirements come from the New York City Office of Special Enforcement’s registration-law material and its registration portal, which is also where a city host registers. Where those sources are silent, this page says so rather than filling the gap — the same rule that governs every fee figure in our management ranking. For how these rules land market by market, start at the New York hub; for what a manager should be doing about them, read the property-management file.