Is short-term rental legal in New York City, NY?
A short-term rental is any rental under 30 days. Under the state Multiple Dwelling Law and Local Law 18, renting a whole apartment for under 30 days is barred in nearly all buildings — what the law leaves open is hosted home-sharing.
Rules checked October 2026
Run the New York City verdict on your facts
| What counts as a short-term rental | A short-term rental is any rental under 30 days. Under the state Multiple Dwelling Law and Local Law 18, renting a whole apartment for under 30 days is barred in nearly all buildings — what the law leaves open is hosted home-sharing. |
|---|---|
| Permit / license | Registration with the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement (OSE) — issued by NYC Office of Special Enforcement |
| Fee | $145 registration fee |
| Renewal | Registration lasts up to 4 years or until the lease ends, whichever comes first |
| Primary-residence rule | The host must be a permanent occupant of the unit and must be present during every stay. |
| Whole-home rental | Whole-unit rentals under 30 days are barred. The host stays in the unit with the guests. |
| Night cap | — |
| Guests / occupancy | Maximum 2 guests, whatever the unit size |
| Minimum stay | Hosted stays only; whole-unit stays under 30 days are not a lawful category |
| Zoning | The Prohibited Buildings List bars registration building-by-building, whatever the host's facts. |
| Density / scarcity | No density cap found in the current rules |
| Fines | Host fines of $100–$5,000 per violation, or up to 3× the revenue earned; platforms face $1,500 per unverified booking |
| Taxes | NYC hotel taxes apply; registration and tax accounts are separate. |
| Platform duties | Platforms may not process a booking for an unregistered unit — the listing itself is the enforcement point. |
| State layer | No general state STR statute — but the 2025 state law requires platforms to collect registration data and lets counties run their own registries; NYC's Local Law 18 is the country's strictest big-city regime and the state Multiple Dwelling Law independently bars most whole-unit rentals under 30 days. |
What trips hosts in New York City
- Roughly 3,000 registered listings remain of the ~38,000 short-term listings New York had before LL18.
- Renters: registration expires with your lease, and most NYC leases independently bar this — the lease gate comes before the city gate.
The private layer still applies
These are the city's rules. Your HOA, condo board, lease or mortgage can say no on top of them — that layer is printed as a warning in the checker, never merged into the city's verdict.
Sources: NYC Admin. Code §§ 26-3101 et seq. (Local Law 18 of 2022) · NY Multiple Dwelling Law § 4. Rules checked October 2026.