Airbnb & Short-Term Rentals in NYC: Local Law 18 Explained for Owners

Owners still ask whether they should put a unit on Airbnb instead of leasing it. In New York City, the honest answer for most buildings is that the option they are imagining does not legally exist.

By Richard, CEO & FounderUpdated 2026-08-17

The question comes up constantly, usually in the same form: the owner has a unit, they have seen what comparable apartments earn per night, and they want to know whether short-term renting beats a conventional lease.

For most New York City buildings, the arithmetic never gets a chance to matter. The arrangement the owner is picturing — an entire apartment rented to visitors for a few nights at a time — is not a permitted use in most of the city's residential housing stock, and has not been for years.

Local Law 18 is what made that restriction bite.

What was already true before Local Law 18

The core prohibition is older than the law most people name. New York State's Multiple Dwelling Law governs occupancy in Class A multiple dwellings — the category most conventional apartment buildings fall into — and it requires that such units be occupied as permanent residences. Renting an entire unit to transient guests for fewer than thirty days, with the permanent occupant absent, conflicts with that requirement.

That has been the legal position for a long time. What it lacked was practical enforcement. Violations were pursued complaint-by-complaint, listings were plentiful, and a great many owners and tenants operated on the assumption that the rule was theoretical.

What Local Law 18 changed

Local Law 18 approached the problem from the payment side rather than the listing side.

It established a registration requirement for short-term rentals, administered by the city's Office of Special Enforcement (OSE), and it required booking platforms to verify a valid registration before processing transactions for short-term stays.

That second piece is the whole design. Enforcing against thousands of individual hosts is slow and porous. Requiring the platforms to check registration before taking payment moves enforcement to a chokepoint that a host cannot route around. Since enforcement began, the supply of unregistered whole-unit short-term listings in New York City has contracted sharply — not because the underlying rule changed, but because the mechanism for ignoring it closed.

What remains permitted

The law did not ban all short-term hosting. In broad terms, hosting is contemplated where the permanent occupant remains present during the stay, with a limited number of guests, and without locked interior doors separating host from guest — subject to registration.

Separately, stays of thirty days or more fall outside the short-term framework altogether. This is why some owners have shifted toward furnished medium-term rentals, which occupy a different legal position, though they carry their own considerations around lease structure, tenancy rights, and how a corporate or relocation tenancy is documented.

For current registration requirements, eligibility conditions, and forms, go to the Office of Special Enforcement's official materials. Requirements in this area have been actively administered and are not something to take from a third-party summary, including this one.

Why this rarely works for rental building owners

Set aside a homeowner renting a spare room. For an owner of rental units, the short-term proposition tends to fail on several fronts at once:

The permitted form does not match the use. Hosting with the permanent occupant present is not what an owner of a vacant investment unit is proposing to do.

The building's own rules frequently prohibit it. Condominium and co-op documents commonly restrict transient occupancy or impose minimum lease terms, and many buildings amended their documents specifically in response to short-term rental pressure. Public law aside, your building may simply forbid it.

Certificate of occupancy questions surface. Transient use raises the question of what the building is legally approved for, and that is not a question most owners want examined. See our certificate of occupancy explainer.

Regulated units add exposure. Short-term rental of a rent-stabilized unit creates problems under the rent-stabilization framework entirely independent of Local Law 18.

Insurance may not respond. Standard landlord policies contemplate conventional tenancies. Transient occupancy can fall outside coverage, which is a problem that only reveals itself at the worst moment.

The version of this that actually affects most owners

For the majority of the owners we work with, the operative issue is not whether they should short-term rent. It is whether a tenant is doing it without permission.

Unauthorized short-term subletting is a genuine and recurring problem. It exposes the building, generates complaints from other residents, invites official attention, produces wear that a conventional tenancy does not, and in a rent-stabilized unit raises additional complications. Most standard leases prohibit it, which means the owner has a remedy — but a remedy is only useful if someone notices the conduct.

Absentee owners are structurally worse positioned to notice. This is one of the more concrete arguments for active local management: the person who hears from other tenants, sees the traffic, and reads the complaints is the person who can act while acting is still simple.

What we tell owners who ask

Start from the use, not the revenue. Establish what your building and your unit are legally permitted to do, what your building's own governing documents allow, and what your insurance actually covers. If the permitted use turns out to be a conventional lease — which it usually does — then the productive question becomes how to maximize what a conventional lease earns: correct pricing against current comparables, fast lease-up, and low turnover.

That is unglamorous next to a nightly rate, but it is the return that is actually available, and it is available without regulatory risk.

Yak Management runs conventional tenancies across close to 400 units in Brooklyn, with vacancies typically filled in under seven days. We are property managers rather than attorneys, and questions about whether a specific use is lawful for a specific building belong with counsel. See legal and regulatory compliance, or start with a property consultation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Airbnb illegal in New York City?

Not as a platform, and not in every form. What is heavily restricted is the specific arrangement most owners have in mind: renting an entire apartment to visitors for fewer than thirty days while the permanent occupant is absent. That has been unlawful in most of the city's residential buildings under state law for years, and Local Law 18 added a registration and enforcement layer that made it practically much harder to do quietly.

What did Local Law 18 actually change?

It created a registration requirement administered by the city's Office of Special Enforcement, and — critically — it obligated booking platforms to verify registration before processing transactions for short-term stays. The underlying prohibitions largely predate it. What changed was enforceability: the restriction moved from something enforced complaint-by-complaint against individual hosts to something enforced at the platform's payment layer.

What is still permitted?

Broadly, hosting where the permanent occupant remains present in the home during the stay, with a small number of guests and without locked interior doors separating them, subject to registration. Stays of thirty days or longer sit outside the short-term framework entirely. The precise conditions are set by the city and are worth reading in the official materials rather than relying on a summary.

Can I list a whole apartment in my building for a week?

In most residential buildings, no. That is the arrangement the law is aimed at. Beyond the city rules, an entire-unit short-term rental with the permanent occupant absent runs into the state Multiple Dwelling Law's occupancy requirements, which is why this restriction predates Local Law 18 and does not depend on it.

How do I register, and should I?

Registration runs through the city's Office of Special Enforcement, and eligibility depends on your building type, your unit, and whether the intended use fits what the law permits. Start with the official OSE materials for current requirements and forms. For most owners of rental buildings the more useful question is prior: whether the use they want is permitted at all, because registration does not make a prohibited arrangement lawful.

My building is rent-stabilized. Does that change anything?

It adds exposure rather than removing it. Short-term rental of a rent-stabilized unit raises problems under the rent-stabilization framework independent of Local Law 18, and a tenant subletting a stabilized unit on a short-term platform creates issues for both that tenant and the owner. If you own a stabilized building, the practical priority is knowing whether your tenants are doing this, not whether you should.

My condo bylaws are silent on short-term rentals. Can I do it?

Silence in your bylaws does not override city and state law, so the public-law analysis comes first. And bylaws are frequently less silent than owners assume — leasing restrictions, minimum lease terms, and house rules on transient occupancy often address it indirectly. Read the declaration, bylaws, and house rules together, and note that many buildings have amended them specifically in response to this issue.

What if a tenant is short-term renting without my knowledge?

It is a real risk and worth monitoring. Unauthorized short-term subletting can expose the owner and the building, generate complaints and violations, and in a rent-stabilized unit raise further complications. Most standard leases prohibit it, which makes it a lease violation the owner can act on — but only if someone notices. This is one of the practical arguments for active management rather than absentee ownership.

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