Registering a short-term rental in New South Wales

Who has to register

All short-term rental accommodation dwellings, hosted and non-hosted alike, must be registered before being advertised or let. There is no small-scale exemption and no threshold you sit under.

Registration is per dwelling, not per host, so a second property is a second registration.

What it costs

$65 to register initially and $25 a year to renew, confirmed on the NSW Government's own housing page.

For comparison, Western Australia charges $250 initially and $100 a year, and a discretionary visitor accommodation planning permit in the City of Hobart is $5,000 for a single application. New South Wales is not where the money goes.

The fire safety standard is the real work

Short-term rental dwellings must meet the STRA Fire Safety Standard. In practice that means interconnected smoke alarms, an evacuation plan based on AS3745, and, for dwellings in BCA class 1b or class 2 to 9 buildings, a current fire safety certificate or statement.

Interconnected is the word that costs money. Standalone battery alarms in each room do not satisfy it: the alarms have to trigger together. If your property has older single-point alarms, budget for an electrician before you budget for the registration fee.

Do this before you register rather than after. You are making a declaration when you register, and the standard is the most common thing a complaint-driven inspection actually checks.

The Code of Conduct comes with it

New South Wales has a mandatory statewide Code of Conduct binding hosts, guests, booking platforms and letting agents, administered by NSW Fair Trading. Breaching an offence provision carries fines up to 200 penalty units for an individual.

The obligation hosts most often miss is notification. If your property is in a strata scheme, you are expected to notify the owners corporation and neighbouring residents. It feels like a formality until a complaint arrives and the file shows you never did it.

The sanction that matters most is not the fine but the exclusion register. A person or property on it cannot participate through the platforms, which ends the business rather than taxing it.

Then check whether a cap applies to you

Registration does not tell you how many nights you can let. That comes from SEPP (Housing) 2021 and depends on where the dwelling is and whether the stay is hosted.

Hosted letting is uncapped anywhere in New South Wales. Non-hosted letting is capped at 180 days in a 365-day period in a prescribed area, and at 60 days in Byron Shire outside the mapped excluded land. Several regional councils, including Ballina, Blue Mountains, Clarence Valley and Muswellbrook, have their own position, and in two of those the cap applies only to specifically mapped land rather than the whole council area.

Do not assume 180 because you read it somewhere. Check the council, and in Clarence Valley and Muswellbrook check the lot against the map.

Sources: SEPP (Housing) 2021

Order of operations

Doing these in the wrong order is how people end up paying for approvals they did not need, or advertising before they were allowed to.

• Check whether your lot is in a strata scheme with a s137A by-law. If it is, and this is not your principal place of residence, stop here.
• Work out whether your intended letting is hosted or non-hosted, and find the applicable cap for the council.
• Bring the dwelling up to the STRA Fire Safety Standard, including interconnected alarms and an evacuation plan.
• Register on the STRA Register and pay the $65.
• Notify the owners corporation and neighbours if you are in strata.
• Start counting nights from day one, not from the first time someone asks.

Common questions

Related

• New South Wales state framework
• Greater Sydney and the 180 day cap
• Fire safety requirements compared
• What penalties apply