Bloomington, Minnesota Short Term Rental Regulation: A Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Bloomington and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Unfortunately, the honest answer is no, not in the way you're picturing it. Bloomington City Code § 14.577(b) bans "transient lodging," which the code defines as any lease or agreement for occupancy of a dwelling unit, or part of one, for fewer than 30 consecutive calendar days, and it names bed and breakfasts, resorts, vacation homes and "the like" as examples so nobody can argue a nightly Airbnb listing falls outside it.

That's the whole rule, and it doesn't bend for a spare bedroom, an accessory dwelling unit or a basement suite. The city's zoning use tables back it up: no residential, commercial or mixed-use district lists "transient lodging or bed and breakfast" as a permitted, conditional or accessory use anywhere in § 21.209, while a 30-day-or-longer rental is permitted in every one of them. The City Council studied the question in 2024 and reaffirmed the ban rather than loosen it, and a Twin Cities real estate agent has since sued the city over exactly this rule, so the debate isn't settled, even though the law is.

So this guide covers what's available here rather than a nightly-rental business plan: the 30-day-plus rental path that remains legal, the license that comes with it, the taxes that do and don't apply, how seriously the city enforces the ban, and who to call with questions. Every figure below comes from Bloomington's own code and city pages, or from Minnesota's Department of Revenue, checked in July 2026. If you're comparing a Bloomington property against a market where nightly stays are legal, run both through BNBCalc before you commit to either one.

What are short term rental (Airbnb, VRBO) regulations in Bloomington,Minnesota?

That ordinance is short, but it's worth reading slowly, because every clause is doing work. Section 14.577(b) says, "No person is allowed to lease, license or agree to allow the use of a dwelling unit, or portion thereof, for transient lodging unless the use is specifically approved by the City." Transient lodging, per § 14.568, means occupancy under a lease, license or other agreement lasting fewer than 30 consecutive calendar days. The code adds examples so nobody can argue around it. It covers, in the ordinance's own words, "bed and breakfasts, resorts, vacation homes, crash pads, hostels, and the like." Whether you call it an Airbnb, a Vrbo listing or a weekend rental, it fits that definition, and it's banned unless the city specifically approves it.

That "unless specifically approved" clause looks like a door left open, though the zoning code closes it in practice. Bloomington's use tables in § 21.209 lay out, district by district, what's permitted (P), conditional (C) or accessory (A) in every zone in the city. "Room or dwelling rental, 30 days or greater" carries a P across every residential district, tied back to Chapter 14, Article VIII, the rental housing code. "Transient lodging or bed and breakfast" and "transient lodging within a residential dwelling unit" carry no letter in any column. "Hotel/motel" is permitted, but only in specific commercial districts, and a hotel is a different, commercially zoned use, not a homeowner's spare room. Read the tables plainly and there's no district in Bloomington today where "specifically approved by the City" has anywhere to attach.

The city's Planning Division studied whether to change any of this. Bloomington's Planning Commission reviewed the question as a study item on August 15, 2024, and the City Council followed on August 26, 2024, deciding to keep the prohibition on lodgings under 30 days and directing staff to focus instead on housing production, affordability and availability. That's a deliberate, recent choice, not an old rule nobody's revisited. The city's own Environmental Health page states it plainly too: "transient lodging" is prohibited by the City Code, full stop.

Starting a Short Term Rental Business in Bloomington

Given that no zoning district gives it a path, there isn't a legitimate nightly-rental business to start here. If you bought a Bloomington property planning to furnish it and list it on Airbnb for weekend stays, that plan runs straight into § 14.577(b), and no permit, LLC structure or licensed property manager gets around it. Even a formally run bed and breakfast doesn't clear the bar: the definition of transient lodging names bed and breakfasts specifically, and the use tables show no district where one could be approved today.

What's available is a pivot to the 30-day-plus furnished rental market, which sits outside this ban entirely and under ordinary Minnesota landlord-tenant law instead. It's a real market. Bloomington's own use tables permit "room or dwelling rental, 30 days or greater" in every residential zone, and it's licensed through the city's regular rental housing program rather than anything STR-specific. The revenue math is different from a nightly listing, mind you, since you're pricing a month at a time rather than a weekend, so don't assume the numbers translate directly from a market where nightly stays are legal.

The ban isn't going unchallenged, and it's worth knowing that before you plan around it changing. Connie Toupin, an Apple Valley real estate agent, filed twin federal lawsuits against Bloomington and Apple Valley in June 2025, arguing their short-term rental bans amount to an uncompensated taking under the Fifth Amendment. She'd spent roughly $35,000 remodeling a Bloomington duplex she says she could rent for $350 to $400 a night short-term against $250 to $300 for a longer-term lease. Bloomington officials declined to comment on the suit, and as of my last check in July 2026, I found no ruling or dismissal reported. Don't plan a purchase around that lawsuit succeeding. A pending Fifth Amendment claim in federal court is not a change in the law, and it may be years before it is one either way.

If nightly stays are the whole point of the property for you, the more useful move is comparing Bloomington against nearby Hennepin County suburbs where the calculus differs. Our Hennepin County guide breaks down how the rules vary city by city across the county Bloomington sits in, and it's a mixed bag: some neighbors are stricter, others aren't.

Short Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Bloomington

Since there's no zoning path for a nightly rental, there's also no short-term rental license to apply for, and that's worth sitting with for a second: Bloomington doesn't have a lighter-touch STR permit sitting next to a strict full license the way some cities do. It simply doesn't issue one. What it does license is the 30-day-plus alternative, through the same rental housing program that covers every long-term landlord in the city.

Under § 14.569, "no person is permitted to allow to be occupied, let or offered to let to another for occupancy, any dwelling unit or group housing unless the owner has first obtained a license" under Chapter 14, Article VIII. Section 14.571 spells out the mechanics. Any owner renting a single dwelling unit, a unit in a multi-family building, group housing or an accessory dwelling unit must get the license before renting, and once granted it's issued annually and expires exactly one year from the date it's issued. Miss the renewal deadline and a late fee applies on top of the regular fee. The fee itself is set by the city's fee schedule in City Code Appendix A rather than a flat number in the ordinance text, and I couldn't confirm a specific current dollar amount from an official page during this research, so don't take a number you see elsewhere as gospel. Call the Business Licensing Division directly before you budget for it.

Approval isn't just paperwork, either. The Environmental Health Division inspects a property before the license is issued, and licensed rentals get re-inspected on an ongoing basis after that, with at least 10% of multi-family units inspected every year and complaint-driven inspections layered on top. Keep that in mind if the property needs work: an inspection failure delays the license, and the license is what makes the rental legal in the first place.

Required Documents for Bloomington Short Term Rentals

Since that license doesn't come free and doesn't come fast if something's wrong with the property, it's worth getting the paperwork right the first time even though it's for a 30-day-plus rental rather than a nightly one. The rental housing application itself is filed with the City Clerk's Business Licensing Division, by mail, email or in person at the counter inside Bloomington Civic Plaza, and the city cancels an application automatically if the license fee hasn't been received within 60 calendar days of submission.

What the application and the process around it typically require:

• A completed rental housing license application, identifying the owner, the property and every dwelling unit or accessory dwelling unit being rented.
• The license fee, paid at submission. Confirm the current amount with Business Licensing before you apply, since it's set by the city's fee schedule rather than fixed in the ordinance text.
• A clean initial inspection, or a plan to fix what an Environmental Health inspector flags before the license is issued.
• Renewal paperwork filed before the one-year expiration date, since a late submission triggers a late fee automatically under § 14.571.

Do check your zoning designation before you file anything, particularly if the property is a duplex, an accessory dwelling unit or part of a larger building, because the rental housing code treats each of those slightly differently and the wrong assumption there can cost you a resubmission.

Bloomington Short Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you clear all of that and get a legitimate 30-day-plus rental licensed, there's still tax to think about, even though it's a lighter lift than a short-term host would face. A rental running 30 days or longer is ordinary residential tenancy under Minnesota law, so it isn't subject to the state's sales tax on lodging or to any local lodging tax. The rent is just taxable income to you, the way any landlord's rent is.

That changes completely the moment a stay drops under 30 days, which is exactly why the city won't let one happen legally. Minnesota law treats a residential short-term rental as a taxable "sale" of lodging under Minn. Stat. § 297A.61, subd. 3(g) and Revenue Notice #17-06, meaning the state's general sales tax rate of 6.875% plus any local sales and lodging tax would apply, and the host or the booking platform would need to register as a retailer to collect it. Other Minnesota cities where short-term rentals are legal run on exactly that framework. In Bloomington it's a moot point for compliant hosts, since there's no legal short-term rental for it to attach to, though it's exactly the exposure an illegal listing would carry on top of the city code violation.

Bloomington does levy its own lodging tax, and it's worth knowing what it covers so you don't assume it touches you. The city has imposed a combined 7% lodging tax under its own charter since 1970, built up from three separate additions the state legislature approved over the decades, per the Minnesota House Research Department's history of local lodging taxes.

Portion	Rate	Purpose
General lodging tax	3.0%	Tourism promotion, general fund
Metropolitan Stadium-area tax	2.0%	Improvements near the former stadium site
Convention Bureau tax	2.0%	Bloomington Convention Bureau, tourism marketing
Total	7.0%	Combined charter-based lodging tax

That 7% applies to licensed hotels and motels, the accommodations Bloomington's zoning code permits for transient stays. It has nothing to collect from residential short-term rentals, because none exist legally. That lines up with what the city's own rental housing page says outright, that it "does not collect a short-term rental license fee or a host-paid lodging tax on STRs." If you're pricing out a legal 30-day-plus rental elsewhere in the county for comparison, the Minnesota statewide guide walks through how the tax picture shifts once nightly stays become legal.

Bloomington wide Short Term Rental Rules

That state layer sits underneath everything the city does locally, so it's worth separating the two before assuming Bloomington is typical. Minnesota has no statewide law that requires cities to allow short-term rentals, and none that caps how far a city can go the other direction either. Regulation here defaults to local control, under the general zoning authority Minnesota Statute § 462.357 gives every city, and I found no bill in the 2025-2026 legislative session that would change that. Most Minnesota cities and suburbs allow nightly rentals subject to their own local rules. Bloomington isn't following the regional norm; it's an outlier that chose the strictest option available to it.

Inside the city, the ban doesn't vary by neighborhood, property type or how the unit is used. It applies the same way to a single-family house, a duplex unit, an accessory dwelling unit and a condo, and the use tables in § 21.209 make no district-by-district exception anywhere in the city. A property near the Mall of America and a property in a quiet residential pocket of Bloomington are treated identically under § 14.577(b). Both need 30 consecutive days or more to be a legal rental, and neither gets there through a permit, a variance or a conditional use application, since the zoning code doesn't offer that pathway today.

If you're weighing a Bloomington property against ones elsewhere in the Twin Cities suburbs, the picture varies from city to city, even among close neighbors. Our Plymouth guide and Brooklyn Park guide cover two other Twin Cities-area suburbs with their own distinct rules, and comparing them side by side is a faster way to find where nightly stays might pencil out than assuming any one suburb's answer applies to the next one over.

Does Bloomington strictly enforce STR rules?" Is Bloomington Airbnb friendly?

No, and the city has been consistent about it rather than just strict on paper. Enforcement here runs through the Environmental Health Division, which takes complaints by phone or email, lets a complainant stay anonymous, and typically sends an inspector to the property within a few days. If a violation turns up, the owner gets a notice and a window to correct it, generally ranging from ten days to several months depending on what's wrong, though an unlicensed transient-lodging listing itself isn't something an owner can "correct" short of taking it down entirely.

Violations of the city code, including an illegal transient-lodging listing, are prosecuted as a misdemeanor or petty misdemeanor under Minnesota law through the city's Ordinance Violations Bureau, following the Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure. I couldn't confirm a specific dollar fine from an official source for this particular violation, so treat any number you see elsewhere with real skepticism and confirm it with the city directly before assuming it's current.

The clearest sign of how seriously this gets taken isn't a fine schedule anyway. It's the fact that a real estate agent found the ban costly enough to sue over. Toupin's federal lawsuits against Bloomington and Apple Valley exist precisely because the city hasn't budged, not even after a formal 2024 study process and public pressure to reconsider. A city that was quietly winking at violations wouldn't be defending a Fifth Amendment case over the policy. So no, Bloomington isn't Airbnb friendly, and there's no realistic reading of the current code, the zoning tables or the council's own 2024 decision that points the other way.

How to Start a Short Term Rental Business in Bloomington

Given all of that, "starting a short-term rental business" isn't the right frame for Bloomington. What follows is the order that makes the most sense if you own or are considering a Bloomington property and want to run something legal there, whether that's a 30-day-plus rental now or a nightly listing somewhere else entirely.

1. Confirm the ban still applies to your specific plan. Check § 14.577(b) and § 14.568 yourself, and if your property is a duplex, ADU or part of a larger building, verify how the use tables in § 21.209 treat that specific configuration.
2. Decide whether the 30-day-plus market works for you. Price a monthly furnished rental against a 30-day-plus lease for the same unit, since the revenue model is genuinely different from a nightly Airbnb and shouldn't be assumed to translate.
3. Contact Business Licensing before you spend on renovations. Confirm the current rental housing license fee and any inspection requirements specific to your unit type, since a licensing surprise after a remodel is expensive to unwind.
4. Schedule the Environmental Health inspection early. Get ahead of anything that could delay approval, particularly on an older property, so the license isn't held up by fixable maintenance items.
5. File the license application through the City Clerk's counter, mail or email, and diarize the renewal date exactly one year out so you don't trigger a late fee.
6. Keep basic income records from day one. Even a legal 30-day-plus rental generates taxable income, so track it the way you would any other landlord income.
7. If nightly stays are the whole point, look outside Bloomington. Run the comparison through BNBCalc Markets, which shows how the numbers shift between markets where nightly stays are legal and one where they aren't, before you commit capital to a Bloomington property expecting an Airbnb income stream.

Who to contact in Bloomington about Short Term Rental Regulations and Zoning?

Whichever step you're stuck on, three city offices split the work between them, and knowing which one owns your question saves a round of transfers.

Zoning questions and the 2024 short-term rental study

The Planning Division handles zoning classification questions and ran the 2024 study that reaffirmed the ban.

• Address: 1800 West Old Shakopee Road, Bloomington, MN 55431
• Phone: (952) 563-8920
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
• Staff contact for the STR study specifically: Nick Johnson, Senior Planner, (952) 563-8925, [email protected]

Rental housing licensing, inspections and complaints

The Environmental Health Division issues rental housing licenses for the 30-day-plus market, inspects licensed properties, and takes complaints about illegal transient lodging.

• Address: 1800 West Old Shakopee Road, Bloomington, MN 55431-3027
• Phone: 952-563-8934
• Email: [email protected]

License applications and fees

The City Clerk's Business Licensing Division processes the actual rental housing license application and fee payment.

• Address: 1800 West Old Shakopee Road, Bloomington, MN 55431-3027 (City Clerk counter, first floor, Bloomington Civic Plaza)
• Phone: 952-563-8728
• Email: [email protected]

General city information

For anything that doesn't obviously fit one of the three above, the city's main line will route you correctly.

• Phone: 952-563-8700
• Email: [email protected]

What do Airbnb hosts in Bloomington on Reddit and Bigger Pockets think about local regulations?

Sentiment here is thinner than in markets where hosts operate, and that's itself the finding rather than a gap in the research. I didn't survey Reddit for this guide (its terms bar the kind of commercial data use this pipeline would require), and BiggerPockets doesn't carry a meaningful thread specifically on Bloomington's ban either, which tracks with a market where there's no legal nightly-rental business left to discuss.

What public data there is corroborates the code rather than contradicting it. AirROI's 2026 market data for Bloomington shows only a small number of active listings, skewed heavily toward private-room stays rather than whole-home listings, at modest average annual revenue. From what I can tell, that pattern is consistent with a mix of non-compliant listings and platform-mislabeled longer stays rather than a functioning legal market, though I can't verify individual listings' actual lease lengths from the outside, so take that as a read rather than a fact.

Investor-facing commentary elsewhere frames Bloomington as an exception to the regional norm rather than the rule. A widely cited investor blog post on Minnesota short-term rental rules describes short-term rentals as "still allowed almost everywhere but Minneapolis and a few suburbs," and Bloomington is one of those suburbs. The clearest real-world signal, though, is the lawsuit. Connie Toupin's decision to sue rather than sell the property and move on tells you this isn't a rule investors shrug off. It's a rule serious enough to fight in federal court, and that's a different sentiment than the "annoying but survivable" tone you'd hear about a licensing hurdle in a city that allows the business.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Bloomington, Minnesota in 2026?

No. Bloomington City Code § 14.577(b) bans transient lodging, defined as any rental under 30 consecutive days, and the city's zoning use tables confirm no district permits the use, whether residential, commercial or mixed. There's no license, permit or conditional use approval available for a nightly Airbnb or Vrbo listing anywhere in the city. The only legal option is a rental of 30 consecutive days or longer, licensed through Bloomington's ordinary rental housing program instead.

What happens if you run a short-term rental in Bloomington without approval?

The city treats it as a code violation under § 14.577(b), enforced through the Environmental Health Division's complaint-driven inspection process and prosecuted as a misdemeanor or petty misdemeanor under Minnesota law through the city's Ordinance Violations Bureau. A specific dollar fine amount for this particular violation couldn't be confirmed from an official source, so don't rely on a figure you see elsewhere. The practical risk is being ordered to stop operating entirely, since there's no license to fall back on if the listing is flagged.

Can you rent a Bloomington property for 30 days or longer?

Yes, and it's the only legal rental path in the city short of selling. A stay of 30 consecutive days or more isn't "transient lodging" under Bloomington's code, so it falls under the city's ordinary rental housing licensing program rather than any short-term rental rule. You'll still need the standard rental housing license from the City Clerk's Business Licensing Division, an initial inspection from Environmental Health, and annual renewal, but there's no lodging tax and no STR-specific hurdle attached to a lease of that length.

Does Minnesota state law override Bloomington's short-term rental ban?

No. Minnesota has no statewide law requiring cities to permit short-term rentals, and short-term rental regulation defaults to local control under the general zoning authority granted by Minnesota Statute § 462.357. Most Minnesota cities and suburbs do allow nightly rentals under their own rules, which makes Bloomington's outright ban a local policy choice rather than something state law compels. A pending federal lawsuit challenges the ban on constitutional grounds, but as of July 2026 it hasn't changed the law.

Is there any way to get a bed and breakfast approved in Bloomington?

Not currently. Bloomington's definition of "transient lodging" specifically names bed and breakfasts as a banned use under § 14.577(b), and the zoning use tables in § 21.209 show no residential or commercial district where a bed and breakfast is listed as a permitted, conditional or accessory use. The ordinance's "unless specifically approved by the City" language exists in theory, but nothing in the current zoning code gives that approval a district to attach to, so it isn't a realistic path today.

Last verified: July 2026. Every ordinance, tax rate, state law, and contact detail in this guide links to or comes from its official source.