New York City's short-term-rental market looks very different three years after the city began enforcing a registration law that put booking platforms in charge of rejecting unregistered stays. The Wall Street Journal reported that listings across the five boroughs fell by more than 90%, pushing most hosts off Airbnb and similar platforms.
For operators who remain, the rules provide two distinct legal paths. Registered hosts can accept stays of fewer than 30 days under strict conditions, while rentals lasting at least 30 consecutive days are exempt from the short-term registration requirement.
What New York's rules require
Local Law 18 did not create the city's underlying restrictions on short stays. It created a registration and verification system that made those rules much easier to enforce. Since Sept. 5, 2023, booking platforms have been barred from processing transactions for unregistered short-term rentals.
For stays of fewer than 30 days, NYC311 says the host must remain in the same apartment as the guests, may host no more than two people at once and must give them access to all parts of the dwelling and every exit. Entire apartments and homes generally cannot be rented to visitors for fewer than 30 days, even when the host owns the property.