How to Check If a Property Has a Short-Term Rental Permit

How to check whether a home has a short-term rental permit: free lookup, city registers, Florida and Wisconsin licenses, listing numbers and buyer checks.

Published Oct 23, 2026 · 29 min read · by Lead Mining Company

Most people who ask whether a house or condo has a short-term rental permit have a practical reason. A neighbor is tired of weekly turnover next door. A buyer is about to pay a premium for a "turnkey Airbnb." A condo board wants to know which units are renting by the night. A guest wants to be sure the booking will not be canceled by the city. A vendor wants to know whether a prospect is a real, licensed operator. The answer, in almost every case, sits in a public government record. This guide shows where those records are, how to read them, and what they can and cannot tell you.

We start with why permits exist and what a register entry proves. Then we cover the free STR permit lookup on this site, how to search a city's own register using real examples from New Orleans, Austin, San Diego, Seattle, Nashville, Denver, Miami Beach and Galveston, the two states that license rentals statewide, where a listing has to show its permit number, how to report a rental you think is operating without a permit, and what a buyer should check before closing on a property that is sold as a short-term rental.

A short note before we begin. Rules change, and this guide quotes official pages as they read in October 2026. It is not legal advice. When money or a legal dispute depends on the answer, confirm it with the agency that issues the permit, and with a lawyer if the stakes are high.

Why cities and states require short-term rental permits

A short-term rental permit is a local government's way of knowing who is renting a home to travelers, where, and under what conditions. The details vary by place, but the reasons fall into five groups. Knowing which reason drives a local program helps you guess what its register will contain.

Zoning and land use

Many cities treat renting a home by the night as a separate land use, allowed in some zones and not in others. New Orleans puts it plainly on its program page: "STR is a property use which is not legal without a permit." Honolulu's Department of Planning and Permitting says short-term rentals "are only permitted in resort-zoned areas and a couple of specific apartment-zoned areas." Miami Beach says vacation and short-term rentals are prohibited in all single-family homes and in many multi-family buildings in certain zoning districts. Bend, Oregon requires a land use permit for every short-term rental, on top of an operating license. In zoning-driven programs, the register usually shows the permit type and the address, because those are what the planning department tracks.

Taxes

Some registrations exist mainly so the government can collect lodging tax. The Texas Comptroller says state hotel occupancy tax "must be collected and remitted to the Comptroller's office for all short-term rentals in Texas," and that the tax covers condominiums, apartments and houses rented for less than 30 consecutive days. Hawaii's Department of Taxation requires a Transient Accommodations Tax certificate of registration for anyone renting a house, condominium or hotel room to a transient for fewer than 180 consecutive days. A tax registration tells you someone has signed up to pay tax. It is not the same as a land use permit, and in many places a rental needs both.

Primary residence and housing supply

Several cities only allow short-term rentals in the host's own home. Philadelphia's Limited Lodging Operator License is for a person who rents out their primary residence, or a room in it, for 30 consecutive days or less, and "only an owner or tenant living in the property as their primary residence is eligible." Asheville's homestay permit applies when the applicant lives in the dwelling full-time and rents one or two bedrooms for stays under 30 days. Seattle lets an operator run up to two dwelling units as short-term rentals, one of which must be the operator's primary residence. In these cities, the permit type on the register tells you a lot about who is allowed to operate.

Safety and accountability

Permits are also how a city makes sure someone answers the phone when a guest party gets out of hand. New Orleans asks neighbors to use the owner or operator named on the permit placard as the first contact, and to alert the city if "the placard is not visible, legible, or if no STR permit holder responds to contact." San Diego requires the license number on an exterior notice visible from the sidewalk. Sonoma County requires a certified vacation rental property manager as one of four conditions for a vacation rental.

Caps and enforcement

Finally, a permit system lets a city count, cap and penalize. San Diego's Tier 4 license for whole-home rentals in Mission Beach has a closed application period. El Dorado County, California fines operators found renting without a permit and bars them from applying for a permit, or joining the waitlist, for one year. Where a program has caps, a permit is a scarce asset, which matters a great deal to buyers (see the section on closing below).

What a register entry proves and what it does not

A permit register is a list kept or published by the agency that issues the permit. Some are live databases. Some are open-data files refreshed daily. Some are maps. Some are spreadsheets updated when a clerk has time. Before you rely on one, know what a match tells you.

What a match proves

A filing exists. Someone applied for, or holds, a permit or license at that address, under the name shown.
The status the agency published. If the register shows a status (active, pending, expired, revoked, denied), that is the agency's own label as of its last update.
The permit type. Owner-occupied versus not, whole home versus rooms, commercial versus residential. In cities that cap one type, this is often the most important field.
A permit or license number that you can compare with a listing or ask the agency about.

What a match does not prove

That the permit is current today. Registers lag. A license that lapsed last week can still show as active on a file refreshed monthly.
That the listing you are looking at is the permitted unit. In a condo building, a permit for unit 4B says nothing about unit 7C.
That the rental follows every rule. Occupancy limits, parking, noise and minimum-stay rules are enforced separately from the permit itself.
That the person named still owns the home. Permits are often tied to the owner at the time of application. A sale can make the record stale.
That the rental is allowed under private rules. A city permit does not override a condo declaration or HOA covenant.

How much of a register is actually active

This is the point people miss most often. Many public registers keep every application they have ever received, including denied, withdrawn and expired ones. Across the 297,717 records in our dataset on October 22, 2026, the status breakdown was:

Status published by the register	Records	Share
Active	99,966	33.6%
No status published	91,418	30.7%
Ended (expired, revoked, closed, withdrawn)	64,668	21.7%
Other labels	28,284	9.5%
Refused or denied	8,721	2.9%
Pending	4,660	1.6%

Only about one record in three carried an active status. Nashville is a clear example. Its residential short-term rental permit register held 31,911 records on that date. By permit type:

Nashville permit type (as published)	Records	Active
Short Term Rental - Not Owner Occupied	16,782	8,152
Short Term Rental - Owner Occupied	11,732	3,715
Short Term Rental - Non-Owner Occupied	3,397	639

That is 12,506 active permits out of 31,911 records, or about 39%. If you find a Nashville address on the register and stop there, you have a better than even chance of looking at a permit that is no longer active. New Orleans works the same way: its "STR Permit Applications" file (28,104 records as of October 2026) holds every application, historical and current, while a separate file lists only current issued licenses (4,314 records). Always read the status field, and always check which file you are reading. Our guide to pending versus granted permits explains the status labels in more detail.

What a miss does not prove

Not finding an address is weaker evidence than finding one. A miss can mean the property is unpermitted. It can also mean the address is written differently on the register, the permit is filed under a parcel or unit number you did not type, the register is not published online at all, or the property sits in a town whose register you are not searching. Never treat a miss as proof that a rental is illegal. Treat it as a reason to check the official source or ask the agency.

Who checks permits and what each needs

The same register answers different questions for different people. Here is what each reader should look for.

Reader	The question	The fields that answer it
Neighbor	Is the rental next door permitted, and who do I call?	Status, permit number, owner or local contact, permit type
Home buyer	Can I keep renting this property after I buy it?	Status, permit type, holder name, expiration, transfer rules on the city page
HOA or condo board	Which units are registered as rentals?	Addresses with unit numbers, permit type, status
Guest	Will this booking be canceled by the city?	Permit number shown on the listing, status on the register
Investor	How many permits exist in this area, and can a new one be issued?	Counts by type and status, caps and waitlists on the city page
Vendor (cleaner, manager, insurer)	Is this prospect a licensed operator, and how long have they held the permit?	Status, filing date, holder name, number of permits under one name

Neighbors and HOA boards usually need one address at a time. Investors and vendors usually need a whole market. The free lookup covers the first case. The second is what our state and city data files are for, and we cover it briefly at the end.

Using the free STR permit lookup

The STR permit lookup is a free tool on this site. You type a street address and it checks whether that address appears on one of the public short-term rental registers we collect. As of October 2026 we read 64 government registers, listed with record counts on our register directory. A few of those are hotel, motel and bed-and-breakfast lodging lists rather than short-term rental permits; the lookup leaves those out and searches only the short-term rental registers. It matches the house number and the street name, and for each match it shows the permit type, the status as the register publishes it, the filing date where the register gives one, the date the record first appeared in our copy, and which register it came from. It does not show the owner's name, phone or email; it only says whether the register holds them.

What it searches

It searches the registers we collect and nothing else. That covers statewide files in Florida and Wisconsin, the Texas hotel occupancy tax roll, and city and county registers such as New Orleans, Nashville, Austin, San Diego, Seattle, Denver, Chicago, Honolulu, Philadelphia, Asheville and others on the directory. If the city a property sits in does not publish a register, or publishes one we do not collect, the lookup cannot find it.

How to read a match

When the lookup finds an address, note three things before you draw a conclusion:

Which register it came from. A match in a "permit applications" file is not the same as a match in an "active licenses" file. A match on the Texas hotel tax roll means the property is registered for tax, not that it has a city permit.
The status. Active, pending, expired, denied, or none published. See the table above for how often each appears.
The date of our last read. We re-read most registers every 24 hours and the Florida DBPR file every 4 hours, as of October 2026. The agency may update its own file less often than that, so a fresh read of a stale file is still stale.

Then confirm the result on the official source, using the steps in the next section. If a decision rides on the answer (a purchase, a complaint, a contract), the agency's own record is the one that counts.

How to read a miss

A miss from the lookup means the address did not match any record on a register we collect. It does not prove the property is unpermitted. Before you conclude anything, try these steps:

Search again with the street type spelled differently ("Street" or "St"), without the unit number, and with the unit number written as the county writes it.
Check whether the property's city or county appears on the register directory at all. If it does not, the lookup had nothing to search.
Check whether the home is in a city or in unincorporated county land. Many county programs only cover unincorporated areas, and many city programs stop at the city line. Fredericksburg, Texas, for example, requires a permit inside the city limits but not in its extra-territorial jurisdiction.
Search the agency's own register, using the steps in the next section.

Keep in mind that two states, Idaho and Iowa, bar local governments from requiring short-term rental permits, so there is no local register to search there. Our Idaho and Iowa guide explains the laws.

Searching a city's own register

Every serious check ends at the agency's own record. The good news is that many large markets publish their registers online. The bad news is that each one does it differently. Here is how eight cities show permits, based on their official pages as read in October 2026.

New Orleans

New Orleans runs one of the most open programs in the country. Its Short Term Rental Administration publishes a registry page that links to the full dataset of STR permit applications on the city's open data portal, a map of active short-term rentals, a map of all applications with active and expired licenses, and a map of non-commercial licenses. The registry page is the place to start. For a single address, the active-rental map is the fastest check. For anything involving history (has this address ever been denied?), use the applications dataset. On our side, the same files appear as the New Orleans applications register and the active licenses register.

Austin

Austin requires every short-term rental owner or operator to be licensed by the city, and its Development Services page says licenses are valid for two years. The Austin short-term rental page offers a Public Search for operating licenses in Austin Build + Connect, a "Short-Term Rental Locations" dataset on the city's open data portal, and a license history resource. The public search is the right tool for one address. The open dataset is the right tool for a street or a neighborhood. We read the same dataset as the Austin Short Term Rental Locations register (3,819 records as of October 2026).

San Diego

San Diego's Office of the City Treasurer says it has been unlawful to operate a short-term residential occupancy (STRO) without a license since May 1, 2023. The STRO page links to an Active STRO Licenses dataset and an Active STRO License Map. The open dataset lists the license ID, the full street address, the tier, the host or owner contact name and the local contact phone. San Diego licenses come in four tiers: Tier 1 for part-time rentals of 20 days or less a year, Tier 2 for home sharing, Tier 3 for whole-home rentals outside Mission Beach, and Tier 4 for whole-home rentals in Mission Beach. The tier tells you what kind of rental the city approved, which matters if the listing you are looking at is a whole home and the license is Tier 2.

Seattle

Seattle requires two things: a current Seattle business license tax certificate and a short-term rental regulatory license, also called the operator's license. The Seattle short-term rental page does not describe a public lookup tool, but the city publishes a short-term rental license dataset on its open data portal. The city's page offers STR@seattle.gov and 206-386-1267 for questions. Seattle's license number has a fixed format (STR-OPLI-##-######), which makes it easy to compare a listing with the register. Our copy of the dataset is the Seattle Short Term Rental License register (9,769 records as of October 2026).

Nashville

Metro Nashville Codes and Building Safety issues residential short-term rental permits. Its program page did not load for us when we prepared this guide, so we do not restate its wording here; check Metro Codes' short-term rental page directly for current rules. The permit records themselves are public, and our Nashville register page shows what the file contains: the property address and usually the holder's name, with no phone or email. As the table above shows, most Nashville records are not active permits, so the permit type and status fields carry most of the meaning.

Denver

Denver licenses short-term rentals through its Business Licensing office. The city's page refused our requests when we prepared this guide, so we link it rather than restate it: start at Denver's short-term rental licensing page. The license file we read covers licenses that are active or pending renewal; see our Denver register page (2,550 records as of October 2026) for the fields it publishes.

Miami Beach

Miami Beach is unusual because it publishes a lookup built for renters. The city's vacation rental page links to a tool where you can "verify if the unit you are renting is properly authorized for vacation/short-term rental," along with a zoning map and a list and map of apartment buildings authorized for short-term rental. Because the city bans short-term rentals in all single-family homes, a whole-house listing in Miami Beach is a warning sign on its own.

Galveston

Galveston requires every property used as a short-term rental to have a Galveston Vacation Rental (GVR) number, and its FAQ page says "a GVR # is required for all listings." The city links a Registered STRs Search Portal from the same page. If a Galveston listing shows no GVR number, that alone is worth a check.

When the register is a map, not a list

Many counties publish permits as a map layer rather than a downloadable file. Summit County, Colorado; San Bernardino County, California; Sonoma County, California; and Honolulu all publish short-term rental data as ArcGIS map layers, and our directory includes each of them. On a map, zoom to the parcel, click it, and read the attribute panel. If the panel shows a permit number and status, note both, with the date you checked. Map layers sometimes place a point at the center of a parcel rather than the building, so in dense areas make sure you clicked the right lot.

States with statewide licenses

In most of the country the permit is local. Two states license short-term rentals statewide, and they are the easiest places to check a property.

Florida: DBPR vacation rental licenses

Florida's Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR), through its Division of Hotels and Restaurants, licenses public lodging establishments, and vacation rentals are one class of them. Section 509.241 of the Florida Statutes says each public lodging establishment "shall obtain a license from the division," that the license "may not be transferred from one place or individual to another," and that operating without one is a misdemeanor of the second degree. You can check a license with the DBPR license search, which lets you search by name, license number, city or county, or license type.

The state file is large. Our copy of the Florida DBPR vacation rental register held 50,110 records as of October 2026, with an owner name on 50,107 of them. A state license is not the whole story in Florida, though. Many cities and counties add their own registration on top. Fort Lauderdale requires each vacation rental to be licensed with the state and county before the owner applies to the city. The City of Sarasota requires a vacation rental certificate of registration in its residential zones before a property is advertised or operated. Osceola County tells operators to confirm zoning, get the state license, and then register a local business tax receipt using the state license number. So in Florida, check the state license first, then the city or county. Our Florida vacation rental license guide covers the state file in more depth.

Wisconsin: DATCP tourist rooming house licenses

Wisconsin's Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) requires a lodging permit for lodging rented to a tourist or transient. Its lodging establishments page says: "If lodging is rented to a tourist or transient, it will require a permit." Most short-term rentals fall under the tourist rooming house category, which DATCP defines as any lodging place where sleeping accommodations are offered for pay to tourists or transients, other than a hotel, motel, bed and breakfast or private boarding house. Our Wisconsin tourist rooming house register held 12,919 records as of October 2026, and the Wisconsin guide explains the license in detail. Some Wisconsin cities, such as Green Bay, run their own permit as well.

Statewide tax registrations

Texas and Hawaii have statewide registrations tied to tax rather than to land use. In Texas, every short-term rental must collect and remit state hotel occupancy tax, so the Comptroller's permit roll lists rentals across the state alongside hotels. In Hawaii, a Transient Accommodations Tax registration is required for rentals under 180 consecutive days. A match on either tells you the property is registered to pay tax. It does not tell you the city has approved the rental, and in Honolulu, for example, the city's own rules limit short-term rentals to certain zones. Our Texas hotel occupancy tax guide explains how to separate rentals from hotels in that file.

For a state-by-state summary of who issues what, see STR permit requirements by state.

Where a listing must show its permit number

In some places, the fastest check is the listing itself, because the law requires the permit or license number to appear in every advertisement. Only rely on this where an official source says so. Here is what the official pages we read say.

Place	What the official source says
Seattle	The operator's license "must be posted on every listing advertising or offering the short-term rental unit," in the format STR-OPLI-##-######. Platforms may remove listings with a wrongly formatted number.
Miami Beach	Under City Code Sec. 102-386, approved rentals must conspicuously display the city Business Tax Receipt number and the Resort Tax certificate number in every advertisement or listing.
Galveston	"A GVR # is required for all listings."
Austin	Platforms must have a license display field, and a property may not be advertised as a short-term rental unless it is licensed.
South Lake Tahoe	"A valid VHR permit is required to operate and/or advertise a short-term rental."
City of Sarasota	Covered dwellings in residential zones need a vacation rental certificate of registration "to advertise or operate as a vacation rental."
Chicago	Every shared housing unit needs an approved registration number to operate short-term rentals of 31 days or fewer.
New Orleans	The city advises owners to state their permit number prominently in advertising, and lists "advertising an illegal or unpermitted STR" among violations.
San Diego	The license number must appear on an exterior notice visible from the sidewalk, and hosting platforms may not process bookings for units without a valid license.

Two cautions. First, a number on a listing is a claim, not proof. Copy it and check it against the register. A number that belongs to a different address, a different unit, or an expired license is a real finding. Second, do not assume a rule exists where you have not read it. We found no listing-number requirement in Florida's lodging license statute (section 509.241), so we do not list Florida as a display state, although some Florida cities, such as Miami Beach, have their own rule.

Matching a listing to a register record

Guests, neighbors and HOA boards often start with a listing rather than an address. Listings usually show an approximate location rather than an exact address, so you have to work from what the listing shows. Here is a method that works in most cities.

Copy the permit number if the listing shows one. In display cities (see the table above), this is the fastest route. Search it on the official register.
Narrow the location. Use the neighborhood name, the map pin's approximate area, the building name for a condo, and photos of the view or street.
Use the property type and size. Bedrooms, whole home versus private room, and the stated maximum guests often line up with the permit type. A Tier 2 home-sharing license in San Diego or a homestay permit in Asheville covers room rentals in an occupied home, not a whole house.
Search the register by street. Most open-data registers let you filter by street name. Read every record on that street, with status.
Run the address through the STR permit lookup to see whether it appears on other registers too, such as a statewide license file or a tax roll.
Write down what you found and when. Register, record number, status, date checked. If you later report the rental or rely on the result in a deal, this note is your evidence.

If you cannot tie the listing to an address with confidence, stop there. Reporting the wrong house to a city wastes an inspector's time and can cause real trouble for a neighbor who has done nothing wrong.

When no register is published

Plenty of places run a permit program and publish nothing online. The records still exist and are generally public. You have three options.

Ask the program office

Most program pages list an email address or phone number. Seattle lists STR@seattle.gov. New Orleans lists str@nola.gov for its Short Term Rental Administration. Ask one short, specific question: "Does 123 Example Street, Unit 2, hold an active short-term rental permit, and what type?" A question about one address is far easier for an office to answer than a request for its whole list.

Check the general permit search

Some cities do not publish a short-term rental list but do run a general permit and violation search. New Orleans has a "Find Permits and Violations" tool alongside its rental maps. Austin's Build + Connect public search covers operating licenses. These tools often show code violations too, which a buyer will want to see.

File a public records request

If the office will not answer informally, a records request under the state's public records law is the formal route. Ask for the specific record (the permit file for one address) rather than the whole database; it is a smaller request to fill. Expect it to take longer than a phone call.

How to report a suspected unpermitted rental

If you believe a property is renting without a permit, report it to the agency that enforces the rules, through its official channel. Do not confront guests or the owner, and do not post accusations online. Cities investigate; your job is to give them facts they can act on.

What to collect first

The address, and the unit number if it is a condo or multi-unit building.
The listing link or a screenshot, with the date.
Whether the listing shows a permit number, and whether that number matched the register when you checked.
For nuisance problems, dates and times, and photos or video taken from public space or your own property.

Official complaint channels in eight places

Place	Where to report (official sources)
New Orleans	The city's Report an STR violation page links to an online complaint form and a 24/7 line, (504) 788-2008, and accepts evidence such as screenshots, photos and booking statements. Contact the STR Office if the permit placard is missing or no permit holder responds.
Austin	Call 311 or file a code complaint online or through the Austin 311 app, as listed on the city's short-term rental page.
San Diego	Report a potential STRO violation through Get It Done, or contact the enforcement team at 619-533-6489. For nuisance problems, call the local contact first, then report if there is no reply within an hour.
Seattle	Submit a service request, choosing "Business Related Complaint" and then "Short-term rental," or email STR@seattle.gov.
Miami Beach	Use the city's online form to report an illegal vacation or short-term rental, or call Code Compliance at 305.673.7555.
Galveston	A 24/7 monitored short-term rental hotline, 409-247-8160, and a complaint page linked from the city's FAQ.
Wisconsin (statewide)	DATCP's lodging page links a "File a Complaint" page and lists (608) 224-5012.
Florida (statewide)	DBPR licenses vacation rentals, and section 509.241 says local law enforcement "shall provide immediate assistance in pursuing an illegally operating establishment." For local registration rules, contact the city or county that runs the local program.

For Nashville and Denver, use the complaint channels listed on each city's own short-term rental page linked above. In other cities, search the city's website for "short-term rental complaint" and use only a government site (.gov or the city's own domain). Some cities use outside vendors to host complaint forms; New Orleans, for example, links to a form on a vendor's domain from its official page. Follow the link from the city's page rather than a search result, so you know it is the real one.

What happens next

Expect the agency to review your report against its own records. How long that takes, and how much you are told about the outcome, varies by city. If the problem is an emergency (a fire, a fight, a medical issue), call 911, not the permit office.

What buyers of an STR property should check before closing

A listing that says "turnkey short-term rental" or "permitted Airbnb" is selling income. Whether that income survives the sale depends on rules most buyers read too late. Here is what to check, in order.

1. Whether the permit transfers to you

In many places it does not. Austin's page says: "Short-Term Rental Operating Licenses are non-transferable. You must apply for a new license." San Diego's page says STRO licenses "are not transferrable from host to host or property location." Florida's statute says a DBPR license may not be transferred from one place or individual to another. Seattle's page says the operator's license must be in the owner's name. In each of these, a new owner must apply in their own name, so the real question is whether you can get a new permit, not whether the seller has one.

2. Whether a new permit can be issued to you

This turns on the local rules:

Primary-residence rules. In Philadelphia, only an owner or tenant living in the home as their primary residence can hold the license. In Asheville, the homestay permit requires the applicant to live in the dwelling full-time. In Seattle, one of the two units an operator may run must be the operator's primary residence. An investor buying a second home in these cities may not qualify at all.
Zoning. In Honolulu, short-term rentals are allowed only in resort-zoned areas and a few apartment-zoned areas. In Miami Beach, they are banned in all single-family homes.
Caps, closed periods and waitlists. San Diego's Tier 4 application period in Mission Beach is closed. El Dorado County runs a waitlist and bars operators caught renting without a permit from joining it for a year.
Multiple-unit rules. Chicago requires a Shared Housing Unit Operator License for a host approved for more than one registration.

3. Whether the seller's permit is what the listing says

Look the address up on the official register, read the status and permit type, and compare it with how the property is actually rented. A whole-home rental running on an owner-occupied permit is a problem the new owner inherits. Use the STR permit lookup to see whether the address appears on more than one register (for example, a state license and a city permit), then confirm each on the official source.

4. Open violations and complaints

Ask the seller for any notices of violation, and check the city's permit and violation search if it has one. A property with a history of complaints may face a harder renewal, or may already be in an enforcement process.

5. All the registrations, not just the permit

Many places require several things at once. Lexington requires a zoning compliance permit, a business license and a special fees license renewed every year. Sonoma County requires a certified property manager, a zoning permit, a transient occupancy tax number and a vacation rental license. Bend requires a land use permit and an operating license. Seattle requires a business license tax certificate and a regulatory license. List every item the city's page names and confirm each one.

6. Tax accounts

Lodging taxes follow the operator. In Texas, state hotel occupancy tax applies to every short-term rental; in Hawaii, a Transient Accommodations Tax registration is required. Ask the seller how taxes have been filed, and plan to open your own accounts.

7. Private restrictions

Read the HOA covenants or condo declaration, and the minutes of recent board meetings. A city permit does not override a private rule, and associations can change their rules.

8. Future bookings

If guests have booked stays after closing, decide in the contract who honors them and who keeps the money. If your new permit will not be issued by then, those bookings may have to be canceled.

9. A contingency in the contract

If the purchase price assumes short-term rental income, ask your agent and attorney about making the deal contingent on confirming that you can obtain a permit. That is a legal question for your own advisers, not something to settle from a listing description.

Real estate agents who work this niche may find our page for real estate agents useful; investors comparing markets can start with our investor page and the permit statistics study.

Guidance for HOA and condo boards

Boards often want a list of units registered as short-term rentals in their building. Here is a workable approach.

Start from the register, not from rumors. Search the building's street address on the city register and on the STR permit lookup. In open-data registers, filter by the street address and read the unit field.
Expect unit numbers to be messy. Registers write units as "#4B," "Unit 4B," "Apt 4-B" or leave them out. Read every record at the building address.
Separate permitted from listed. A unit on the register is registered. A unit seen on a listing site but missing from the register may be unpermitted, or may be registered in a way you have not matched yet. Do not act on that difference without checking with the city.
Use your own documents for enforcement. If the association's rules restrict rentals, enforce the association's rules through the association's process. The city enforces the city's rules.
Keep records. Note the date and source of every check, so the board can show what it relied on.

In Miami Beach, boards and residents can also use the city's list and map of apartment buildings authorized for short-term rental, linked from the city's vacation rental page.

Guidance for guests

A guest's risk is a booking canceled because the city shuts the rental down, or a stay in a home with no local contact. Four checks take a few minutes.

In cities that require the number on listings (Seattle, Miami Beach, Galveston and others in the table above), look for it. No number is a warning.
Check the number on the official register or the city's lookup. Miami Beach built a lookup for exactly this purpose.
Compare the rental type. A whole-house listing in Miami Beach, where single-family short-term rentals are banned, is a problem.
Book through a channel that refunds you if the host cancels, and keep the confirmation.

Guidance for vendors and investors working a whole market

Property managers, cleaners, insurers, furnishers and other vendors use permits differently from neighbors. They want every permitted operator in a market, with the newest filings first, because a new permit holder is setting up and choosing suppliers. Two points from the data matter here.

First, most of a register is history. With only about a third of records showing an active status, a vendor who works an entire file wastes effort on expired permits. Filter to active and pending, and sort by filing date where the register publishes one.

Second, contact details vary by register. Some publish a phone or email; many publish only an address and a name. Nashville, for example, publishes no phone or email. Where you do reach out to owners, remember that many are individuals: calls and texts are covered by the TCPA and the National Do Not Call Registry (no autodialers, prerecorded or artificial voices, and no texts without consent), email follows CAN-SPAM, and direct mail is the lowest-risk channel. Our guide on calling STR owners under TCPA and DNC rules goes through the details.

Mistakes to avoid

Treating a match as proof of a current permit. Read the status and the file name. An application file is not a license file.
Treating a miss as proof of an illegal rental. Check the spelling, the unit, the jurisdiction and the official register first.
Confusing a tax registration with a permit. A Texas hotel tax permit or a Hawaii TAT registration is not a city approval.
Assuming the seller's permit becomes yours. In Austin, San Diego, Florida and other places, it does not.
Assuming a listing-number rule exists everywhere. Rely only on what the official source says.
Reporting from a guess. If you cannot tie a listing to an address, do not report the address.
Forgetting the date. Every check is a snapshot. Write down when you looked.

A five-minute permit check, step by step

Type the address into the STR permit lookup. Note any register, status and date shown.
Find the city or county program page (search "[city] short-term rental permit" and use only a government site).
Open the official register, map or lookup the page links to, and search the address and street.
Read the status, permit type, holder name and number. Compare them with how the property is rented.
In a statewide-license state, check the state license too: DBPR license search in Florida, DATCP in Wisconsin.
If a listing is involved, compare the listing's number with the register, where the city requires one.
If nothing is published, email or call the program office with the exact address.
Write down what you found, the source and the date.

Where our data fits

The lookup is free and meant for one address at a time. For businesses that need whole markets, PermitPulse sells the same public register records as files and feeds: a one-state subscription at $99 a month (up to 10,000 rows a month), national at $299 a month (up to 50,000 rows), or a one-time download at $149 for one state or $499 for all states. Anyone can see a free 25-row sample of any register after a free sign-up. Pricing details are on the pricing page, and the full list of sources is on the register directory. As of October 2026 the dataset held 283,611 records, of which 127,924 carry a phone number or email published by the register.

Whatever you use, the rule is the same: the agency's own record is the final word. Use the lookup to find where to look, and the official register to confirm.

Questions and answers

How do I find out if a house has a short-term rental permit?

Start with a free address search on our STR permit lookup, which checks the public registers we collect. Then confirm on the official source: the city or county short-term rental page usually links to a register, map or lookup (New Orleans, Austin, San Diego and Miami Beach all do). In Florida, also check the state license with the DBPR license search. If nothing is published, email or call the program office with the exact address and unit number.

If the lookup finds no match, is the rental illegal?

No. A miss only means the address did not match a record on a register we collect. The address may be written differently, the permit may be filed under a unit or parcel number, the city may not publish its register online, or the property may sit in a jurisdiction we do not cover. Check the official register or ask the agency before drawing any conclusion, and never report a property on the strength of a miss alone.

Does a short-term rental permit transfer when the house is sold?

Often it does not. Austin says its operating licenses are non-transferable and a new owner must apply. San Diego says STRO licenses are not transferable from host to host or property location. Florida's statute says a DBPR license may not be transferred from one place or individual to another. Seattle requires the operator's license to be in the owner's name. A buyer should confirm with the issuing agency whether a new permit can be issued to them before closing. This is not legal advice.

Which places require the permit number on Airbnb or Vrbo listings?

Among the official pages we read in October 2026: Seattle requires the operator's license number on every listing; Miami Beach requires the Business Tax Receipt and Resort Tax certificate numbers in every advertisement; Galveston requires a GVR number on all listings; Austin requires platforms to have a license display field and bars advertising unlicensed rentals. Rules change, so check the city's own page.

Which states license short-term rentals statewide?

Florida and Wisconsin. Florida's Department of Business and Professional Regulation licenses vacation rentals as public lodging establishments, and you can search licenses by name, number, city or county. Wisconsin's DATCP requires a permit for lodging rented to tourists or transients, which covers most short-term rentals as tourist rooming houses. Texas and Hawaii have statewide tax registrations, which are not land use permits.

How do I report a short-term rental I think is unpermitted?

Use the official channel of the agency that runs the program. Examples: New Orleans has a Report an STR violation page with a 24/7 line and online form; Austin takes complaints through 311; San Diego uses Get It Done; Seattle takes service requests and email at STR@seattle.gov; Miami Beach has an online form and Code Compliance line. Include the address and unit, the listing link or screenshot with the date, and what you found on the register.