How many short-term rentals US cities have registered

Official counts by city

New York City had 3,338 active short-term rental registrations on 30 June 2026, according to the annual Local Law 18 report of the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement (OSE)¹. Los Angeles City Planning counted 4,057 active Home-Sharing registrations on 26 February 2024, the most recent citywide total Booked News could read in a City Planning report⁶. San Diego’s City Treasurer listed 8,432 short-term residential occupancy licences issued across four tiers as of 25 September 2026⁵.

This page collects official counts of registered, licensed or permitted short-term rentals from city reports and from registers that cities publish as open data. Each figure appears as the city published it, with the date it refers to. Where a register is open data, Booked News queried the city’s own database and reports what it listed on the day of the query. The counts measure different things, from hosts and operators to addresses and units, so each one is labelled with what it counts.

New York City registrations

New York adopted Local Law 18 on 9 January 2022. The law created a registration system so that hosts comply with longstanding city laws that limit short-term rentals in homes to 1 or 2 guests staying with the permanent resident. OSE began accepting registration applications on 6 March 2023 and began enforcing the requirement that booking services verify a registration before processing a booking on 5 September 2023¹. Listings for units in Class B multiple dwellings approved by the city for legal short-term occupancy are exempt, as are rentals of 30 consecutive days or more².

OSE reports two counts for each fiscal year. The first is the number of registrations active at the close of the year on 30 June. The second adds registrations that were active for part of the year and then expired, were revoked or were ended by the host¹.

• 30 June 2024: 2,290 active registrations³
• 30 June 2025: 2,952 active registrations, and 3,111 active at any time between 1 July 2024 and 30 June 2025²
• 30 June 2026: 3,338 active registrations, and 3,522 active at any time between 1 July 2025 and 30 June 2026¹

The fiscal 2026 report says over 3,500 hosts had active registrations during the year, including more than 460 new host registrations approved by OSE. Owners of the unit held 76% of active registrations, and 68% of registrations were located in 1- or 2-family homes¹. Council District 36 had the most active registrations on 30 June 2026, with 285¹. OSE received 1,187 applications in fiscal 2026, compared with 1,582 in fiscal 2025¹².

Los Angeles registrations and listings

Los Angeles requires hosts to register under its Home-Sharing Ordinance, which took effect on 1 July 2019; enforcement began on 1 November 2019⁶. In a letter to the City Council dated 29 March 2024, City Planning reported these figures, collected as of 26 February 2024⁶:

• 4,057 active Home-Sharing registrations, regular and extended, made up of 2,764 regular and 1,293 extended registrations⁶
• 16,122 registrations issued since 1 July 2019, to 8,405 dwelling units⁶
• 32,291 applications received since 1 July 2019⁶

The same letter counted 14,117 active short-term rental listings, advertising 5,278 dwelling units. City Planning classed 4,874 of the listings as compliant because they displayed a valid Home-Sharing registration number or a valid exemption, 8,196 as non-compliant and 1,047 as undetermined⁶. Comparing the 5,278 advertised units with the 4,057 units holding an active registration, City Planning concluded that the remaining 1,221 dwelling units, 23% of those advertised, were potentially illegal short-term rental units⁶.

Counts from city open-data registers

Booked News queried the open-data short-term rental registers of five cities on 8 October 2026. The counts below are what each register listed at that moment. Records are added, renewed and closed continually, so a later query will return different numbers.

• Chicago. The city’s “Active Shared Housing Registrations” dataset holds registration data for shared housing units regulated by the Shared Housing Ordinance⁹. It listed 3,758 registrations, all with the status APPROVED⁸.
• Seattle. The “Short Term Rental License” dataset lists every operator licence and the units registered on it, one row per unit; licences are issued for one year¹². It listed 5,224 units with the status Active on licences with the status Active¹⁰. The same register listed 4,484 distinct licences with the status Active¹¹.
• New Orleans. The “Active Short-Term Rental Licenses” dataset covers commercial, non-commercial and operator licences, and also hotels, motels and bed and breakfasts that list on rental platforms but are exempt from short-term rental licensing¹⁴. It listed 1,297 “Short Term Rental Commercial Owner” licences, 1,226 “Non-Commercial Short Term Rental” licences, 1,576 “Short Term Rental Operator” licences and 223 entries labelled “Lodging Exempt from STR Regulation”¹³.
• Austin. The “Short Term Rental Locations” dataset gives the general location and type of active short-term rentals; licences are active for one year¹⁷. It listed 3,148 records¹⁵. By type, it listed 1,233 “Short Term Rental Type 2 Residential”, 853 “Short Term Rental Type 1”, 726 “Short Term Rental Type 3”, 209 “Short Term Rental Type 1-Secondary”, 100 “Short Term Rental Type 1-A” and 27 “Short Term Rental Type 2 Commercial” records¹⁶.
• Nashville. Metro Nashville’s open-data layer of residential short-term rental permits listed 7,015 permits with the status ISSUED¹⁸. By subtype, 2,004 were “Short Term Rental - Owner Occupied”, 335 “Short Term Rental - Non-Owner Occupied” and 4,676 “Short Term Rental – Not Owner Occupied”¹⁹.

For Scottsdale, the latest count Booked News could read is in a city news release. In July 2025 the city said it had 3,024 licensed short-term rental properties as of June 2025²⁰.

Caps and tiers

San Diego licenses short-term residential occupancy in four tiers. Tier 1 covers homes rented for an aggregate of 20 days or less per year, and the host does not need to live on site. Tier 2 covers renting a room or rooms for more than 20 days per year while the host lives on site. Tier 3 covers whole-home rentals for more than 20 days per year without the host on site, outside Mission Beach. Tier 4 covers whole homes in the Mission Beach Community Planning Area⁵.

The Treasurer lists the licences remaining in Tiers 1 and 2 as unlimited. Tier 3 licences “will not exceed 1% of San Diego’s total housing units” outside the Mission Beach Community Planning Area, and Tier 4 licences will not exceed 30% of the Mission Beach Community Planning Area. Both caps rest on SANDAG housing estimates last updated in March 2024⁵. On 25 September 2026 the Treasurer listed 4,854 Tier 3 licences issued with 807 remaining, and 1,099 Tier 4 licences issued with 0 remaining. Applications were open for Tiers 1, 2 and 3. The application period for the Tier 4 waitlist closed on 15 August 2025, and a random lottery sets waitlist positions⁵.

Other registers split their counts by category. Los Angeles distinguishes regular from extended Home-Sharing registrations⁶. New Orleans separates commercial owner licences from non-commercial licences¹³. Nashville’s permit subtypes record whether a permit is for an owner-occupied home¹⁹, and Austin’s register sorts licences into six types¹⁶.

Why registry counts differ from listing counts

A registration, licence or permit counts a host, an operator or an address. A listing counts an advertisement on a booking platform, and one home can appear in several. Los Angeles City Planning made the point in its March 2024 letter: multiple listings may advertise one dwelling unit, which is how 14,117 active listings advertised 5,278 dwelling units⁶.

City Planning used the same data to dispute a 2022 McGill University study commissioned by Better Neighbors LA. The study put the number of listings active in Los Angeles each day at 3,300 and the share of illegal listings at 45%. City Planning said its own data showed more than four times as many active listings, and that the 45% figure did not represent the number of dwelling units out of compliance, because several listings can advertise one unit⁶.

New York’s OSE compares its registrations with listing estimates from before the law took effect. When it released its fiscal 2025 report in September 2025, it cited an estimated 60,000 illegal listings on major booking platforms in 2018 and over 38,000 active listings on a single site at the beginning of 2023, against “just 3,000 active short-term rental registrations” at the time of the release⁴.

What one record stands for also varies. In Seattle an operator holds a licence and registers each unit on it, so the register lists units and licences separately¹². New Orleans keeps operator licences in the same register as licences for properties¹⁴. In Los Angeles a dwelling unit may hold more than one registration over time but only one active registration at once, so the 16,122 registrations issued since July 2019 went to 8,405 dwelling units⁶.

Monitoring has limits. City Planning told the Los Angeles council in November 2024 that its vendor contract required monitoring only of platforms with over 100 listings, and that some operators evaded monitoring with false exemptions, such as claiming a residential property is a hotel, or by using a different property’s registration number⁷.

What enforcement changed

New York’s count of active registrations rose each year after booking services began verifying registrations in September 2023, from 2,290 on 30 June 2024 to 2,952 on 30 June 2025 and 3,338 on 30 June 2026¹²³. OSE began revoking registrations in fiscal 2026. At the close of the year 17 registrations had been revoked and 15 were the subject of a revocation action, focused primarily on hosts who made false statements in their applications and then engaged in patterns of illegal rentals¹. Approximately 82% (613 of 749) of the applications denied in fiscal 2026 were denied after applicants declined to correct them, despite specific guidance from OSE and at least 90 days to do so¹.

In Los Angeles, the Department of Building and Safety and the Housing Department issued 1,085 administrative Home-Sharing citations between November 2019 and February 2024 and collected $360,764.09 in fines⁶. City Planning’s software vendor stopped courtesy warning letters on 8 May 2024, so that violations could be referred for citation more quickly. A regular registration may be suspended after two sustained citations and revoked after three or more; an extended registration can be revoked after two or more⁷.

Registers also record the permits that enforcement and expiry remove. On 8 October 2026 Nashville’s register listed 164 permits with the status REVOKED, 2,262 CANCELLED and 8,021 EXPIRED, alongside the 7,015 ISSUED¹⁸. Scottsdale said in July 2025 that its licensing numbers had grown since 2022 while unlicensed properties had decreased; it gave no unlicensed figure²⁰.

Common questions

Sources

1. New York City Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement, Short-Term Rental Registration Report, July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026 (Local Law 18 annual report, FY26) (2026-09-01). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
2. New York City Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement, Short-Term Rental Registration Report, July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025 (Local Law 18 annual report, FY25). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
3. New York City Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement, Short-Term Rental Registration Report (Local Law 18 annual report, FY24). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
4. New York City Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement, New Report Sheds Fresh Light on How Local Law 18 and Office of Special Enforcement Have Eliminated Tens of Thousands of Illegal Rentals in New York City (2025-09-04). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
5. City of San Diego, Office of the City Treasurer, Short-Term Residential Occupancy (2026-09-25). Primary source, read 2026-10-09.
6. Los Angeles Department of City Planning, Short-Term Rental (STR) Study / McGill University / Regulatory Compliance / Multiple Listings / Home Sharing Program Ordinance; CF 22-1506 (letter to the City Council) (2024-03-29). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
7. Los Angeles Department of City Planning, Second Supplemental Report, Home-Sharing Vendor Evaluation, Process Enhancements, and Compliance Strategies (CF 14-1635-S10) (2024-11-01). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
8. City of Chicago, Active Shared Housing Registrations, count by status (open-data query) (2026-10-08). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
9. City of Chicago, Active Shared Housing Registrations, dataset metadata (2026-10-07). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
10. City of Seattle, Short Term Rental License, count by licence and unit status (open-data query) (2026-10-08). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
11. City of Seattle, Short Term Rental License, distinct active licences (open-data query) (2026-10-08). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
12. City of Seattle, Department of Finance and Administrative Services, Short Term Rental License, dataset metadata (2026-10-08). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
13. City of New Orleans, Active Short-Term Rental Licenses, count by licence type (open-data query) (2026-10-08). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
14. City of New Orleans, Department of Safety and Permits, Active Short-Term Rental Licenses, dataset metadata (2026-10-08). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
15. City of Austin, Short Term Rental Locations, record count (open-data query) (2026-10-08). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
16. City of Austin, Short Term Rental Locations, count by type (open-data query) (2026-10-08). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
17. City of Austin, Short Term Rental Locations, dataset metadata (2026-10-08). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
18. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Residential Short Term Rental Permits, count by permit status (open-data query) (2026-10-08). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
19. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Residential Short Term Rental Permits with status ISSUED, count by subtype (open-data query) (2026-10-08). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
20. City of Scottsdale, Scottsdale strengthens strategy to manage short term rentals and protect neighborhoods (2025-07-03). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.
21. City of Chicago, Active Shared Housing Registrations, earliest and latest expiration dates (open-data query) (2026-10-08). Primary source, read 2026-10-08.