Short Stay RulesNational statistics
Australian short-stay regulation in numbers
We track 31 Australian jurisdictions — 8 states and territories, 7 metropolitan areas and 16 councils. Of those, 10 put a night limit on short-stay letting, 18 require a host or property to register, and 5 charge a levy.
Last verified 2026-09-10 against official sources. Every figure on this page is counted from the same records the jurisdiction pages render from, at build time. None of them is typed by hand, so none can drift. Every figure below links to where it comes from.
These counts exist because every jurisdiction here is verified against a primary source and dated. They are free to quote and republish under CC BY 4.0 — see how to cite this page. If you need the underlying rows, the JSON and CSV exports carry the same data.
How many Australian jurisdictions cap short-stay nights?
10 of the 31 jurisdictions we track put a number on short-stay nights. 7 of those are hard caps you can breach. 2 are approval thresholds, where exceeding the number means you need development approval rather than that you must stop. 1 is an exemption threshold, where staying under it avoids a planning trigger. The remaining 21 have no fixed cap and regulate by another lever entirely.
The tightest limit in the country is Byron Shire at 60 nights/yr for non-hosted properties.
| Jurisdiction | State | Limit | Kind | Counted over | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Byron Shire | NSW | 60 nights/yr | Hard cap | any 365-day period | 2026-09-10 |
| Noosa Shire Council | QLD | 60 nights before approval | Exemption threshold | calendar year | 2026-07-24 |
| Perth Metropolitan Area | WA | 90 nights, then approval | Approval threshold | your registration year, and each anniversary after it | 2026-09-10 |
| Western Australia | WA | 90 nights, then approval | Approval threshold | your registration year, and each anniversary after it | 2026-07-24 |
| Ballina Shire Council | NSW | 180 nights/yr | Hard cap | any 365-day period | 2026-07-24 |
| Blue Mountains City Council | NSW | 180 nights/yr | Hard cap | any 365-day period | 2026-07-24 |
| Clarence Valley Council | NSW | 180 nights/yr | Hard cap | any 365-day period | 2026-07-24 |
| Greater Sydney (Sydney Metro) | NSW | 180 nights/yr | Hard cap | any 365-day period | 2026-07-24 |
| Muswellbrook Shire Council | NSW | 180 nights/yr | Hard cap | any 365-day period | 2026-07-24 |
| New South Wales | NSW | 180 nights/yr | Hard cap | any 365-day period | 2026-07-24 |
Three different things appear in the Limit column and the difference decides whether you are breaking a rule or filling in a form. Every figure is recorded by hand from the cited source, never parsed out of a sentence. Full detail and sources: night caps compared.
How many require registration, and what does it cost?
18 of 31 jurisdictions require a host or property to register, hold a licence, or obtain an approval before letting short-stay. A further 6 have a registration obligation that falls on the platform or exists only for tax purposes, which is not the same thing and is counted separately. 7 have no registration or licensing scheme at all.
Of the 18, 8 are councils that inherit the requirement from their state rather than running a scheme of their own, and 2 reach only some premises (Douglas Shire Council (Port Douglas), Gold Coast (City of Gold Coast)). We publish that split because "18 jurisdictions require registration" and "18, of which 8 inherit it" are different claims, and only one of them is the whole truth.
Where a host or property must register
| Jurisdiction | State | What applies | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ballina Shire Council | NSW | The state scheme applies here. See NSW.source | 2026-07-24 |
| Blue Mountains City Council | NSW | The state scheme applies here. See NSW.source | 2026-07-24 |
| Byron Shire | NSW | The state scheme applies here. See NSW.source | 2026-09-10 |
| City of Cessnock (Hunter Valley) | NSW | The state scheme applies here. See NSW.source | 2026-07-24 |
| Clarence Valley Council | NSW | The state scheme applies here. See NSW.source | 2026-07-24 |
| Greater Sydney (Sydney Metro) | NSW | Every STRA dwelling in Greater Sydney must be on the NSW STRA Register, hosted or not.source | 2026-07-24 |
| Muswellbrook Shire Council | NSW | Every STRA dwelling must be on the NSW STRA Register before taking bookings.source | 2026-07-24 |
| New South Wales | NSW | Every STRA dwelling must be on the NSW STRA Register before it is advertised or let.source | 2026-07-24 |
| Shoalhaven | NSW | The state scheme applies here. See NSW.source | 2026-07-24 |
| Snowy Monaro Regional Council (Jindabyne) | NSW | The state scheme applies here. See NSW.source | 2026-07-24 |
| Douglas Shire Council (Port Douglas) (some premises only) | QLD | Only certain premises - shared-facility accommodation and anything with a guest-servicing pool - need a Local Law approval.source | 2026-07-24 |
| Gold Coast (City of Gold Coast) (some premises only) | QLD | Non-exempt short-term rental accommodation needs a Council licence under Local Law 16.source | 2026-09-10 |
| Noosa Shire Council | QLD | All short stay letting needs a one-off Local Law approval, renewed annually.source | 2026-07-24 |
| Mornington Peninsula Shire | VIC | Properties must be registered annually with the Shire before being used or advertised.source | 2026-07-24 |
| City of Busselton | WA | The state scheme applies here. See WA.source | 2026-07-24 |
| Perth Metropolitan Area | WA | Every STRA premises, hosted or unhosted, must be on the state STRA Register.source | 2026-09-10 |
| Shire of Augusta-Margaret River | WA | The mandatory WA state STRA Register applies, and unhosted Holiday Houses need Shire planning approval on top of it.source | 2026-07-24 |
| Western Australia | WA | Every STRA premises, hosted or unhosted, must be on the state STRA Register.source | 2026-07-24 |
What registration costs
13 published fees across the jurisdictions that require registration. Amounts are quoted exactly as the official source states them — several are set annually rather than published as a fixed figure, and we do not convert those into a number we cannot source.
| Jurisdiction | Fee | Amount | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| Greater Sydney (Sydney Metro) | STRA Register, initial registration (12 months) | $65 (one-off, non-refundable) source | 2026-07-24 |
| Greater Sydney (Sydney Metro) | STRA Register, annual renewal | $25/year (non-refundable) source | 2026-07-24 |
| Muswellbrook Shire Council | $65 one-off, non-refundable STRA Register registration fee covering the first 12 months. | $65 one-off, non-refundable STRA Register registration fee covering the first 12 months. source | 2026-07-24 |
| Muswellbrook Shire Council | $25 ongoing annual renewal fee for STRA Register registration. | $25 ongoing annual renewal fee for STRA Register registration. source | 2026-07-24 |
| New South Wales | STRA Register, initial registration | $65 (non-refundable) source | 2026-07-24 |
| New South Wales | STRA Register, annual renewal | $25 (non-refundable) source | 2026-07-24 |
| Noosa Shire Council | Change of approval | $273 (2026/27, from 1 July 2026) source | 2026-07-24 |
| Noosa Shire Council | Transfer of approval | $273 (2026/27, from 1 July 2026) source | 2026-07-24 |
| Mornington Peninsula Shire | Annual short stay rental registration fee | Not published as a specific dollar figure on any official Shire page sighted (fact sheet and registration page only refer to 'the prescribed fee' / 'registration fees are not refundable'). A figure of approximately $335/year circulates in real-estate-industry and secondary sources but could NOT be verified against a primary Shire fee schedule, mornpen.vic.gov.au blocks automated access (403) to its Budget/Fees-and-Charges PDFs, and this remained unresolved in this verification session too. Treat as unverified/indicative only; do not publish the $335 figure without a human confirming it against the Shire's adopted Fees & Charges schedule. source | 2026-07-24 |
| Perth Metropolitan Area | STRA Register, initial registration | $250 per premises source | 2026-09-10 |
| Perth Metropolitan Area | STRA Register, annual renewal | $100 per year source | 2026-09-10 |
| Western Australia | STRA Register initial registration fee | $250 per premises source | 2026-07-24 |
| Western Australia | STRA Register annual renewal fee | $100 per premises per year source | 2026-07-24 |
Which jurisdictions charge a short-stay levy, and at what rate?
5 jurisdictions have a short-stay levy in force, at 5% and 7.5%. 16 records state positively that no levy applies.
| Jurisdiction | State | Status | Rate | From | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| City of Melbourne | VIC | In force | 7.5% | 2025-01-01 | 2026-07-24 |
| Mornington Peninsula Shire | VIC | In force | 7.5% | 2025-01-01 | 2026-07-24 |
| Victoria | VIC | In force | 7.5% | 2025-01-01 | 2026-07-24 |
| Australian Capital Territory | ACT | In force | 5% | 2025-07-01 | 2026-09-10 |
| Canberra | ACT | In force | 5% | 2025-07-01 | 2026-09-10 |
Tasmania has no levy. The Short Stay Levy Bill 2026 was defeated in the Legislative Council in September 2026, yet it is still widely reported as commencing in 2027. That is the single most misreported fact in this table. Separately, 10 of our records do not address a levy either way. We count those as unrecorded rather than as "no levy", because we have not verified the absence — see what we do and do not claim.Full detail: short-stay levies explained.
How many changed their rules in the last 12 months?
34 material rule changes were recorded across 16 of the 31 jurisdictions in the 12 months to 2026-09-10. That is 51% of the jurisdictions we track changing something in a single year, which is the reason a database without dates on it is worse than no database.
A further 3 changes are already legislated but have not yet commenced, so they are deliberately excluded from the count above: Queensland (2027-01-01), Australian Capital Territory (2027-07-01), Canberra (2027-07-01).
| Date | Jurisdiction | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-10 | Western Australia | Source links only; no rule changed. legislation.wa.gov.au renumbered its pages and the three cited (Building Regulations 2012, Electricity Regulations 1947, and the Local Planning Schemes Regulations 2015 consolidation) were dead. Re-pointed at the instruments' home pages on the new site, and the STRA provisions re-read in the current consolidations: Building Regulations reg 58(1)(b), 60(1)(ba) and 62(1)(b) (consolidation of 23 Jul 2026) and Electricity Regulations rr 13(ba) and 14(ba) with the $15,000 / $100,000 penalty (consolidation of 14 May 2026) read exactly as recorded on 11/08/2026. The Local Planning Schemes Regulations are still at consolidation 00-s0-00 of 3 Nov 2024, the version the 90-night rule was read from. source |
| 2026-09-09 | City of Busselton | City reissued its Unhosted STRA FAQ as version 5 and rewrote the unhosted-STRA business page: 'non-preferred areas' replaced by a published map of where Additional Use A87 does not apply (unhosted STRA prohibited there); an Unhosted STRA differential rating category applies from the financial year after approval; renewal applications must be lodged at least 90 days before expiry; fee figures moved to the Planning Fees page (unchanged at $295 plus $142.80). source |
| 2026-09-09 | City of Hobart | Short Stay Levy Bill 2026 defeated in the Legislative Council: third reading negatived on 9 September 2026 after a 6-6 vote decided by the President's casting vote. The proposed 5% levy on platform bookings under 28 nights will not commence. Confirmed on the parliament's bill-status table (last updated 09 Sep 2026) and ABC News, both read 10/09/2026. source |
| 2026-09-09 | Tasmania | Short Stay Levy Bill 2026 defeated in the Legislative Council: third reading negatived on 9 September 2026 after a 6-6 vote decided by the President's casting vote. The proposed 5% levy on platform bookings under 28 nights will not commence. Confirmed on the parliament's bill-status table (last updated 09 Sep 2026) and ABC News, both read 10/09/2026. source |
| 2026-08-26 | City of Hobart | Next procedural step for draft amendment PSA-25-3 (Hobart Visitor Accommodation Specific Area Plan): the council's Current Planning Scheme amendments page, read 10/09/2026, says the Planning Authority Committee was to consider a report on the representations under section 40K of the Land Use Planning and Approvals Act 1993 at its meeting of 26 August 2026. The page still lists the amendment under 'Draft amendments under assessment' and does not record the outcome. Nothing is in force; existing permits and current applications are unaffected. source |
| 2026-08-11 | Western Australia | Four rules upgraded from low or medium confidence to confirmed, from a primary reading of the current consolidations. Code of conduct and insurance are now stated as confirmed NEGATIVES rather than unconfirmed gaps: s 49 authorises a code that has never been made, and no insurance requirement exists anywhere in the Act or Regulations. The fire safety rule previously cited a Consumer Protection page and omitted the RCD requirement entirely; it now cites the Building Regulations and Electricity Regulations directly and carries the $15,000 / $100,000 RCD penalty, which is the largest per-property exposure in the WA scheme. source |
| 2026-08-11 | Western Australia | Corrected from a primary-source reading of the current consolidations. The 90-night window was recorded as a rolling 12 months; cl 61(10) of the deemed provisions fixes it to the 12 months from the registration date and each anniversary after it. The scope note treated the 30-council list as the test; the test is the metropolitan region boundary in Planning and Development Act Schedule 3, and the exemption has four cumulative conditions rather than one. Added the two largest penalties in the regime, both previously absent: development approval breach at $200,000 plus $25,000 per day, and the RCD requirement at $15,000 individual / $100,000 body corporate. Added the Sentencing Act s.40(5) five-times multiplier for companies. source |
| 2026-07-28 | Queensland | Re-cited the strata by-law rule from a law firm's blog to primary sources: s 180(3) BCCM Act on legislation.qld.gov.au, the Queensland Government's own by-laws page, and both judgments on Queensland Judgments. Three overstatements removed in the process, including the claim that a 'weight of QCAT appeal authority' supports it when there is one 2018 appeal decision. source |
| 2026-07-24 | Australian Capital Territory | Verification pass: confirmed the Short-Term Rental Accommodation Levy Act 2025's penalty provisions directly from its full legislative text (s16 offence for failure to register, max 250 penalty units; penalty unit = $160/$810). Re-checked night_cap and planning_approval flags, both remain unresolved after further searches and are kept at low confidence, excluded from status_summary as settled fact. source |
| 2026-07-24 | Ballina Shire Council | Verification re-pass: resolved effective_from date for the 180-day cap (2021-11-01), reconfirmed the 'Council has chosen to adopt 180 days' verbatim quote via a successful rendered-browser fetch of Council's page, added three new rule entries (council_role, strata_oc, code_of_conduct) mined from previously-unread accordion sections to clear the record's structural rule-count gap, and confirmed postcode 2479 (Brooklet) belongs to Ballina Shire via Wikipedia. Rates/DCP question remains unresolved (no primary source found either way). source |
| 2026-07-24 | City of Cessnock (Hunter Valley) | Re-verification pass: (1) confirmed NSW STRA Register fee ($65 initial / $25 annual renewal) via direct fetch of planning.nsw.gov.au and restored it to the 'other' rule's detail text with a proper source citation (previously removed for lack of verification); (2) re-confirmed night_cap and planning_approval (LEP cl 5.4, 3-bedroom cap) facts against primary sources, no changes needed; (3) made a fourth attempt to resolve zone-by-zone (RU2/RU3/RU4/RU5/C2/C3/C4) permissibility for tourist/farm-stay accommodation, still unresolved due to persistent 403s on legislation.nsw.gov.au and tooling-level domain blocks on austlii and council-hosted PDFs; left at low confidence, excluded from status_summary, documented in review_notes for human follow-up (council phone 02 4993 4100). |
| 2026-07-24 | Muswellbrook Shire Council | Verification/repair pass 1: confirmed night_cap and planning_approval rules against planning.nsw.gov.au (policy page + FAQ PDF); added registration, fire_safety and code_of_conduct rules plus fees[] and penalties[] entries, each independently sourced to planning.nsw.gov.au and nsw.gov.au (Fair Trading Code of Conduct), to meet the site's >=4-rules/>=2-sources publish gate. Attempted to resolve the exact STRA Area Map boundary and Muswellbrook's specific effective_from date via austlii and legislation.nsw.gov.au; both remained inaccessible to automated fetch (403 / JS-rendered SPA) and were carried forward as open items. |
| 2026-07-24 | Muswellbrook Shire Council | Verification/repair pass 2: opened legislation.nsw.gov.au (SEPP (Housing) 2021, epi-2021-0714) directly in an interactive browser, which the prior pass could not do via static fetch. Confirmed s112(3)(e) verbatim: the 180-day non-hosted cap applies to land in the Muswellbrook LGA shown on the official Muswellbrook Short-term Rental Accommodation Area Map, not the whole shire; updated night_cap source_url to the primary legislative instrument and strengthened its detail/status_summary accordingly. Located the NSW Planning Portal Spatial Viewer URL as the correct live link for the map itself and folded it into the planning_approval rule. Attempted to trace the map's/clause's insertion date via a related ArcGIS REST layer; inconclusive within budget, so effective_from remains null on night_cap. Investigated a third-party postcode list surfaced by search; rejected it as unreliable and left postcodes unchanged. Removed all em dashes from record text per house style. |
| 2026-07-24 | Northern Territory | Verification pass: confirmed NT penalty-unit value ($189, FY2025-26) via agd.nt.gov.au and added indicative AUD conversions of the Planning Act s75 penalty figures; replaced the generic NT Planning Scheme overview-page citation on the planning_approval rule with the specific Schedule 2 (Definitions) and Part 4 (Zones and Assessment Tables) documents and confirmed the primary-text 'serviced apartments' definition; replaced the levy_tax rule's citation with the correctly-targeted Territory Revenue Office page. Re-attempted fetches of nt.gov.au, treasury.nt.gov.au, agd.nt.gov.au, consumeraffairs.nt.gov.au and dli.nt.gov.au, all returned HTTP 403 again, confirming site-wide bot-blocking rather than a page-specific issue. Corroborated (but did not primary-source-confirm) the registration/night-cap/levy/code-of-conduct absence claims via fresh WebSearch, including two independent Australia-wide STR-regulation trackers; confidence levels on those claims held at medium/low rather than upgraded. source |
| 2026-07-24 | Northern Territory | First verification pass (superseded by the entry above on the same day): confirmed RTA 1999 s6 holiday-accommodation exclusion, Unit Title Schemes Act 2009 s95 by-law mechanism, and Planning Act 1999 s75 penalty figures (500/4 penalty units) by fetching and reading full primary legislative PDF text from legislation.nt.gov.au. source |
| 2026-07-24 | Perth Metropolitan Area | Second verification pass resolved 3 of 4 unresolved publish-gate flags from primary sources: confirmed the 1 Jan 2026 commencement date (WA Gov media statement), confirmed $20,000 and $5,000 penalty figures (direct fetch of legislation.wa.gov.au Act/Regulations text), and removed the unsupported claim that the STRA Register itself records smoke-alarm compliance. Postcode-list remainder remains an open, low-risk item. Confidence upgraded on night_cap, planning_approval, fire_safety and penalties rules. source |
| 2026-07-24 | Shoalhaven | |
| 2026-07-16 | City of Hobart | Public exhibition of draft amendment PSA-25-3 closed. The 28-day exhibition ran from 19 June 2026 to 16 July 2026 inclusive. Representations now go to the Tasmanian Planning Commission for assessment. The amendment is not in force and does not affect existing permits or current applications. source |
| 2026-07-01 | Shire of Augusta-Margaret River | Hosted STRA rating for the 2026-27 year (from 1 July 2026): the Shire's rates FAQ, re-read 10/09/2026, now shows a new 'Hosted STRA' differential rate category at $0.107617 in the dollar (minimum $1,788) for hosted properties identified from the state STRA Register, replacing the earlier plan to put them in the Commercial, Industrial and Tourism category ($0.128959, minimum $1,853). The page still describes the table as proposed and has not been reconciled with a rates notice. source |
| 2026-07-01 | Noosa Shire Council | Council's 2026/27 fees and charges took effect, setting the current Local Law application and annual renewal fee schedule for short stay letting and home hosted accommodation (e.g. house application $1,748 standard / $329 principal residence; house renewal $800 / $200). source |
Showing the 20 most recent. The full log, with RSS, is at what's changed.
Which are the tightest and loosest regimes in the country?
Byron Shire is the most heavily restricted jurisdiction we track, scoring 8 on a published rubric, and Snowy Monaro Regional Council (Jindabyne) is the least, at 1. The rubric is arithmetic, not opinion: points for regulatory status, for the tightness of any night cap, and one each for registration, planning approval, a levy and an enforceable code of conduct.
Tightest
- Byron Shire NSW · 8 pts · 60 nights/yr
- Western Australia WA · 8 pts · 90 nights, then approval
- Greater Sydney (Sydney Metro) NSW · 7 pts · 180 nights/yr
- Muswellbrook Shire Council NSW · 7 pts · 180 nights/yr
- New South Wales NSW · 7 pts · 180 nights/yr
Loosest
- Snowy Monaro Regional Council (Jindabyne) NSW · 1 pt · No fixed cap
- Sunshine Coast Council QLD · 3 pts · No fixed cap
- Cairns Region (Cairns Regional Council) QLD · 3 pts · No fixed cap
- Brisbane (City of Brisbane LGA / Brisbane City Council) QLD · 3 pts · No fixed cap
- City of Busselton WA · 4 pts · No fixed cap
The rubric lives in generate.py and is printed on the comparison page,
so anyone can recompute this from our own data. Every jurisdiction, with each score broken into its components:
strictest councils compared.
How these numbers are made
Each figure is computed at build time from the same verified records the jurisdiction pages render from, so this page cannot disagree with them. Nothing here is a hand-typed total, and nothing is derived by reading prose — counts come from explicit structured fields, because the first version of our national cap table derived numbers from sentences and was wrong in five places.
What these numbers do not mean: coverage is deliberately incomplete, and a jurisdiction we do not list is not a jurisdiction with no rules. Where we have not verified something, we count it as unrecorded rather than as an absence. The methodology page sets out the limits in full, including what last verified does and does not mean.
Checking one of these on deadline? Email us and we will send the primary source behind any figure on this page.
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