Can I Airbnb a property in Western Australia?

Under the Short-Term Rental Accommodation Act 2024, every accommodation provider must register residential premises used as STRA (defined in s.4(1) of the Act as an arrangement providing occupation to the same person(s) for no more than a total of 3 months in a 12-month period) before offering or advertising them. The Register opened for voluntary sign-up on 1 July 2024 (free for Jul-Sep 2024) and registration became mandatory from 1 January 2025. Excludes hotels/motels, serviced apartments, caravan parks and purpose-built tourist developments. Applications must disclose whether the property is in a strata/community titles scheme and whether scheme by-laws prohibit STRA use. A public search tool lets anyone check if an address is registered (without revealing owner details).

Exceptions: Hotels, motels, serviced apartments, caravan/tourist parks and other purpose-built tourism accommodation are excluded from the definition of STRA and do not need to register.

The STRA Register (run by the Department of Local Government, Industry Regulation and Safety / Consumer Protection) charges a $250 initial registration fee per premises and a $100 annual renewal fee. Individual owners and businesses/property managers set up a WA 'My Account' (Individual or Business user) to register and manage listings online.

Under the Planning and Development (Local Planning Schemes) Amendment (Short-Term Rental Accommodation) Regulations 2024, an unhosted STRA property within the 30 named Perth metropolitan local government areas (confirmed list: Armadale, Bayswater, Belmont, Bassendean, Cambridge, Canning, Claremont, Cockburn, Cottesloe, East Fremantle, Fremantle, Gosnells, Joondalup, Kalamunda, Kwinana, Melville, Mosman Park, Mundaring, Nedlands, Peppermint Grove, Perth, Rockingham, Serpentine-Jarrahdale, South Perth, Stirling, Subiaco, Swan, Wanneroo, Victoria Park, Vincent) is exempt from needing development/planning approval only where it is let for 90 nights or fewer (non-consecutive) in a 12-month period. Beyond 90 nights, development approval from the local council is required before continuing to operate. Registration on the STRA Register remains mandatory regardless of the night count. The source page confirms the 90-night figure and council list verbatim but does not itself state a literal '1 January 2026' commencement sentence, the 1 Jan 2026 date is inferred from the page's own 'now in effect' wording combined with its 5 January 2026 last-updated stamp, so it should be treated as strongly corroborated rather than verbatim-confirmed. TIMING, corrected 25/07/2026: the requirement itself is not new for 2026. It was created by the Planning and Development (Local Planning Schemes) Amendment (Short-Term Rental Accommodation) Regulations 2024, SL 2024/194, published on the WA legislation website on 18 September 2024 and commencing the day after publication, so the 90-night trigger has applied since September 2024. What changed on 1 January 2026 is enforcement through the register: the WA Government's own announcement states that 'From 1 January 2026, STRA properties will be required to demonstrate they meet development approval requirements in order to remain registered', and a media statement of 24 August 2025 warned that metropolitan unhosted STRA operating more than 90 nights a year had to have lodged a development application by that date or the property could no longer operate. That deadline has now passed.

Exceptions: Hosted STRA is exempt from this trigger regardless of nights let. Councils outside the defined Perth metro area are not bound by the 90-night figure.

'Hosted' STRA, where the owner/operator resides on the property during the guest's stay, is exempt from development approval requirements across all of WA (but must still be registered). 'Unhosted' STRA, where guests have exclusive use of the whole dwelling, is subject to night-cap-based planning triggers that differ between the Perth metropolitan area and regional/other council areas.

No WA short-stay levy, bed tax or tourism levy exists: no Act, no bill, no discussion paper, no Treasury consultation and no ministerial announcement. Contrast Victoria, which has a short stay levy; Tasmania, which has a Short Stay Levy Bill 2026 before Parliament at 5%; and the ACT, which has one. Separately, the WA Short-Term Rental Accommodation Incentive Scheme, which paid $10,000 to convert a short-stay property to a 12-month tenancy, CLOSED EARLY on 28 February 2026 once funds were exhausted. Several host-facing sites still promote it.

There is no WA equivalent of the NSW STRA Fire Safety Standard: no evacuation diagrams, no fire extinguisher or fire blanket requirement, no emergency information booklet. Extinguishers and escape maps appear only as recommended guest-manual contents in the Department's Good Host Pack. What WA did instead was amend two existing instruments to name short-term rental accommodation as a trigger. SMOKE ALARMS: Building Regulations 2012 reg 58(1)(b) applies where a dwelling is, or is made available as, short-term rental accommodation. Penalty $5,000, $1,000 infringement. reg 60(1)(ba) sets the relevant day as the day a guest is entitled to enter into occupation, so every guest arrival re-tests compliance. reg 62 maintenance duties (working order, mains or non-removable 10-year battery, not more than 10 years old) carry $5,000 each and are prosecution-only, with no infringement alternative. RCDs: Electricity Regulations 1947 rr 13(ba) and 14(ba) require at least 2 residual current devices to be properly installed before the premises are made available as short-term rental accommodation. Penalty $15,000 for an individual and $100,000 for a body corporate, stated expressly, with a $1,000 / $4,000 infringement. That is the single largest per-property safety exposure in the WA scheme and it sits in a 1947 electricity regulation, which is why almost nobody knows it. POOL BARRIERS: Building Regulations Part 8 Div 2, reg 50(2), $5,000, with council re-inspection within 4 years.

Nothing in the Short-Term Rental Accommodation Act 2024, the Short-Term Rental Accommodation Regulations 2024, or the registration information required by reg 10 imposes any insurance product or minimum cover. This is a confirmed absence read from the current consolidations, not an unconfirmed gap. Note the contrast with New South Wales, where Code of Conduct cl 2.4.3 does require a host to hold public liability cover.

Under the Short-Term Rental Accommodation Regulations 2024 (reg. 7, 'Suspension or cancellation of registration', and reg. 12, 'Disclosure of information: community titles schemes and strata titles schemes', both confirmed present in the official Regulations PDF), if a property is a lot within a strata scheme (Strata Titles Act 1985) or community titles scheme (Community Titles Act 2018) whose applicable by-laws prohibit use of the lot as STRA, the Commissioner may cancel or suspend that property's STRA registration on that ground. Registration applications must disclose whether the premises are in a strata/community scheme and whether the scheme by-laws prohibit STRA use. A state registration does not override a strata scheme's own by-law ban.

Short-Term Rental Accommodation Act 2024 s 49 is a bare regulation-making power for a code of conduct. It has not been exercised. Confirmed two ways from the current consolidations: the Regulations' contents list has no code, and the Act's subsidiary-legislation page shows the only subsidiary legislation in force is the Short-Term Rental Accommodation Regulations 2024 plus spent amendments. The mandatory code of conduct is a NEW SOUTH WALES instrument; it does not apply in WA. The nearest WA equivalents are advisory only: the Department's Good Host Pack suggested house rules, and WAPC guidance contemplating a management plan as a condition of development approval, which is a local government tool rather than a state code.

The STRA Act 2024 creates multiple $20,000 offences, confirmed verbatim against the Act text: an accommodation provider entering/seeking to enter an STRA arrangement for unregistered premises (s.9, 'a fine of $20 000'); publishing a 'prohibited advertisement' by a provider or agent (s.10), in a publication (s.11), on a booking platform (s.12), or failing to remove one (ss.13-14), each 'a fine of $20 000'; making false claims about registration (s.16, 'a fine of $20 000'); and providing false or misleading information to the Commissioner (s.40, 'a fine of $20 000'). Failing to notify the Commissioner of required events carries a $5,000 fine (s.28, confirmed verbatim); unauthorised disclosure of register information carries a $25,000 fine (s.39, confirmed verbatim). From 1 January 2026, booking platforms (e.g. Airbnb, Stayz) must verify WA listings appear on the Register and are prohibited from publishing/allowing bookings for unregistered properties, with the same $20,000 penalty regime applying to platforms and their agents. It is a defence if the accused shows the prohibited ad was removed as soon as practicable after becoming aware of the breach.

Exceptions: Defence available where the prohibited advertisement was removed as soon as practicable after the provider/platform became aware of the issue.