Australia's verified short-stay rules database
Can I legally short-term rent this property?
Night caps, registration, levies and penalties for every Australian state and the councils that write their own rules. Every fact is linked to its official source, with the date we last checked it.
Free to use. Sourced from legislation, government and council pages only. How we verify
19Jurisdictions covered
132Verified rules
FortnightlyRe-verification cycle
Browse by state and territory
Official sources onlyLegislation, state government, councils and regulators. Never blogs or hearsay.
Dates that mean something"Last verified" is the date we re-checked the source, not the date we touched the page.
Every change loggedCaps, levies and registers move constantly. We publish what changed, and when.
Recently changed rules
- 2027-01-01 Queensland: Final deadline for all existing Queensland dwellings (including those used for short-term letting) to have interconnected photoelectric smoke alarms installed in every bedroom, connecting hallway, and storey.
- 2026-07-01 Shire of Augusta-Margaret River: CORRECTED DATE (was 2026-01-01): proposal under discussion, to potentially take effect from the start of the 2026-27 rating year (1 July 2026), to expand the Commercial, Industrial and Tourism differential rate category to include hosted STRA properties (currently rated Residential since the 2024 reforms), using the state STRA Register to identify them. Confirmed via direct fetch of the Shire's rates FAQ page that this is described as a proposal under consideration, not confirmed as adopted at time of writing.
- 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).
- 2026-05-12 Brisbane (City of Brisbane LGA / Brisbane City Council): Council announced that the proposed Short Stay Accommodation Local Law 2025 (which would have required a council permit for short-stay letting) is 'not proceeding at this time', citing eased short-stay growth, improved host/property management, and non-tourism uses of short-term lets (DV survivors, insurance claimants, hospital patients). NOTE: this date and the commonly-reported Lord Mayoral personal attribution are NOT stated on the cited council status page and were not independently corroborated in this verification pass, flagged as unconfirmed pending a dated primary source (council media release or reputable news report).
- 2026-05-12 City of Busselton: Scheme Amendment No. 61 to Local Planning Scheme No. 21 gazetted (Minister approved 4 May 2026): unhosted STRA became an 'X' (prohibited) use in all zones by default, with new Additional Use 'A87' permitting it (as an 'A' use, application may be considered) only outside mapped 'non-preferred areas'. This converted what had been a policy preference (LPP 4.1, June 2025) into a binding statutory zoning prohibition in non-preferred areas.
- 2026-05-12 Queensland: Brisbane City Council formally withdrew ('not proceeding at this time') its Proposed Short Stay Accommodation Local Law 2025, which would have introduced a permit requirement from 1 July 2026. No permit is currently required to operate a short-term rental in Brisbane. Date corroborated by multiple independent 2026 secondary sources (Hometime, Lane Property) though not visible in the text extracted directly from the Brisbane City Council page itself in this session.
- 2026-01-01 Western Australia: Perth-metro (30 local governments) unhosted STRA planning exemption threshold of 90 nights/year took effect, beyond 90 nights, development approval is required. Booking platforms also became required to verify WA listings are on the Register and barred from advertising unregistered properties from this date.
- 2025-09-26 Noosa Shire Council: Noosa Plan 2020 Amendment No. 2 took effect, reclassifying frequent/ongoing whole-dwelling short-term letting beyond 4 occasions/60 nights a year as an 'inconsistent' use (impact assessable) in Low/Medium/High Density Residential and Rural/Rural Residential zones, while keeping it code-assessable in the Tourist Accommodation zone, and stating the change is not retrospective.
Why this site exists
Short-stay rules in Australia are set by three levels of government and they change constantly. Victoria added a 7.5% levy. WA made registration mandatory. Byron Shire cut its cap from 180 nights to 60. The sites that claim to track all this are out of date, and getting it wrong can cost a host five figures in fines.
We do one thing: verify every rule against its official source on a schedule, publish the date we checked, and log every change. No guesswork, no stale summaries, no legal-sounding waffle.