Short-term rental rules by state

Australian Capital Territory Restricted

Short-term letting is legal ACT-wide with no statewide night cap currently identified, but a 5% Short-Term Rental Accommodation Levy applies to bookings of 28 days or fewer made through booking platforms from 1 July 2025 (rising to 7.5% from 1 July 2027). The levy falls on "booking service providers", not directly on hosts; hosted stays (owner on-site) and direct bookings made without a platform are excluded. A booking service provider that fails to register faces a maximum penalty of 250 penalty units (currently $40,000 for an individual / $202,500 for a corporation). Whether a specific unhosted rental also needs planning/lease approval depends on the property's individual Crown Lease and Territory Plan zoning, this has not been confirmed against a dedicated ACT planning source and should be treated as unconfirmed general inference, not a settled rule.

New South Wales Restricted

STR is permitted statewide via a planning "exempt development" pathway, but every dwelling must be registered on the state STRA Register and comply with the Fire Safety Standard and mandatory Code of Conduct. Hosted letting (host present) has no day limit anywhere in NSW; non-hosted (whole-home, no host present) letting is capped at 180 days/year in Greater Sydney, Ballina LGA, and mapped parts of Clarence Valley and Muswellbrook, and at 60 days/year in Byron Shire outside two excluded/unrestricted precincts, elsewhere in NSW there is no state-imposed day cap on non-hosted STR.

Northern Territory Unclear

The Northern Territory has no dedicated short-term rental/Airbnb legislation, no territory-wide registration scheme, and no night caps, hosted and non-hosted stays are treated the same because the law draws no distinction. What still applies is general law: the NT Planning Scheme 2020 for any commercial-scale "tourist accommodation"/"serviced apartments" use, the Unit Title Schemes Act 2009 for body corporate by-laws in strata buildings (confirmed: s95, Schedule 2), and the general Building Act/Fire and Emergency Act for any residential building, none of which are STR-specific. Note: the absence-of-registration/night-cap/levy claims are corroborated by an exhaustive search (no NT registration scheme, night cap or accommodation levy turns up anywhere, including in independent Australia-wide STR-regulation trackers) but could not be positively confirmed against a directly-read primary source, because nt.gov.au, treasury.nt.gov.au, agd.nt.gov.au and consumeraffairs.nt.gov.au all block automated fetches (HTTP 403) site-wide. Treat these specific absence claims as well-corroborated but not primary-source-verified; everything else in this record (RTA exclusion, Unit Title Schemes Act by-law mechanism, Planning Act penalties, penalty-unit dollar value, Planning Scheme land-use definitions) was confirmed directly from primary legislative or government text.

Queensland Restricted

Queensland has no state-wide STR register, levy, or night cap, the government reviewed the sector (UQ-authored report, released 2023) and left regulation to individual councils, though the report itself recommended a centralised registration system that has not been legislated. Whether hosted or non-hosted short-stay letting is permitted, capped, or fee-bearing depends entirely on which council area the property is in (Noosa and, until May 2026, Brisbane were the most active regulators); a state-wide interconnected smoke alarm requirement applies to all dwellings regardless of use from 1 January 2027. Body corporate by-laws banning short-term letting are, on the weight of QCAT appeal authority, unlawful in the ~99% of schemes governed by the BCCM Act, this is the opposite of what an earlier draft of this record stated and was corrected during verification.

South Australia Unclear

South Australia has no state-wide STR/STRA registration scheme, night cap, or levy currently in force, a 2021 private member's bill lapsed without passing, and a Legislative Council Select Committee on the Short Stay Accommodation Sector (submissions opened March 2025) subsequently concluded its inquiry and, per convergent SA media reporting not yet independently confirmed against a primary parliamentary document, tabled a report on 16 September 2025 (13 findings, 7 recommendations) recommending a state-wide registration scheme, an associated fee/levy, a mandatory code of conduct and mandatory platform data-sharing. No legislation implementing any of these recommendations has been found introduced or enacted as of 24 July 2026, so SA's operative regulatory position is unchanged. Letting a dwelling short-term technically requires development approval as "tourist accommodation" under the statewide Planning and Design Code, but the trigger is ambiguously defined and, per the City of Adelaide, rarely enforced. The only concrete regulatory action found is local: City of Adelaide reclassifies dwellings let 90+ days/year to a higher "Commercial" council rate from FY2024-25, and has publicly asked the state government to legislate a uniform scheme.

Tasmania Restricted

Short-term letting needs no planning permit only where the dwelling is the host's main residence, under the statewide 'home-sharing' exemption: either the dwelling is let to visitors only while the host is on vacation or temporarily absent, or no more than 4 bedrooms are let while the host is living there. This wording was confirmed on 24 July 2026 by directly opening the official Tasmanian Government page stateplanning.tas.gov.au/topics/housing in a browser. Any other visitor accommodation (investment properties, secondary dwellings not owner-occupied, or more than 4 bedrooms let with the host present) needs a council planning permit. Booking platforms must collect listing information and report it to the Director of Building Control every quarter under the Short Stay Accommodation Act 2019, confirmed directly on both stateplanning.tas.gov.au and cbos.tas.gov.au. There is no statewide numerical cap on nights let per year; no official Tasmanian Government source reviewed (including pages specifically covering short stay accommodation) mentions any such cap, though this is an absence-of-evidence conclusion rather than an explicit statement. A 5% guest-paid Short Stay Levy has been proposed via the Short Stay Levy Bill 2026. Checked directly on parliament.tas.gov.au on 24 July 2026: the Bill passed the House of Assembly on 7 May 2026 and had its first reading in the Legislative Council on 15 May 2026, and that official bill-status page (last updated 15 May 2026) shows no further progress, no Legislative Council passage, and no Royal Assent. The levy is therefore confirmed NOT yet enacted as at 24 July 2026, and its commencement date remains unstated by any primary source found; treat the levy as proposed only, not in force.

Victoria Restricted

Short-term rental (Airbnb/Stayz) is permitted statewide with no state-imposed night cap. From 1 January 2025 the Short Stay Levy Act 2024 imposes a 7.5% levy on bookings under 28 continuous days (principal-place-of-residence stays exempt) and separately amended the Owners Corporations Act to let owners corporations vote (75% special resolution) to ban short stays in their scheme. Victoria has no general statewide STR registration/licensing scheme or state night-cap regime as at July 2026, a council-level registration-plus-cap policy (e.g. City of Melbourne) remains a paused proposal, not law.

Western Australia Restricted

Short-term rental accommodation (STRA) is legal statewide but every property, hosted or unhosted, must be on the mandatory STRA Register since 1 January 2025. Hosted STRA is exempt from planning approval everywhere; unhosted STRA in the 30 Perth-metro local governments is exempt from development approval only up to 90 nights per year (from 1 January 2026), beyond which approval is required, while regional/outside-Perth councils set their own thresholds.

Short-term rental rules across Australia