Englewood Short-Term Rental Regulations: A 2026 Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a house or a condo in Englewood, New Jersey, and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, unfortunately, the answer here is no. Englewood is a small city in Bergen County, about fifteen minutes from MetLife Stadium, and it banned paid stays of 31 days or less back in 2023.

The ban runs wider than most owners expect, mind you. Ordinance 23-09, which added Article IX to Chapter 325 of the city code, makes it unlawful to take any consideration for letting someone occupy a dwelling unit for 31 days or less. Advertising one is separately unlawful. So is renting out your swimming pool by the day. And every day the rental continues counts as a fresh violation, at up to $1,250 each.

So let's walk through what that leaves you with: what the ordinance says word for word, why there's no permit to apply for, what a 32-night floor does to the numbers, the taxes on a legal long stay, how hard the city pushes, and who to call. Every figure below comes from Englewood's or New Jersey's own pages, checked in July 2026. Assuming you're weighing this address against a market where nightly rentals are legal, run both through BNBCalc first.

What are Short-Term Rental (Airbnb, VRBO) Regulations in Englewood, New Jersey?

One ordinance does nearly all the work here, and it's short enough to read over a coffee.

Englewood's Mayor and Council passed Ordinance 23-09 on first reading on May 2, 2023, held the public hearing and second reading on May 16, 2023, and codified the result as Article IX of Chapter 325. Section 325-62 states the purpose in plain terms: to "regulate, control and/or prohibit" short-term rentals of residential homes and dwelling units. Englewood landed on prohibit.

The operative line is § 325-64(A). It's unlawful for an owner, lessor, sublessor or anyone else with possessory or use rights, along with their agents and employees, to "receive or obtain actual or anticipated consideration for soliciting, advertising, offering, and/or permitting, allowing or failing to discontinue the use or occupancy of any dwelling unit... for a period of thirty-one (31) days or less."

Two defined words carry the weight of that sentence.

Consideration is drawn as broadly as the drafters could manage. Section 325-63 defines it as soliciting, charging, demanding, receiving or accepting any legally recognized form of consideration, including a promise or benefit, rent, fees, any other form of payment, or a "thing of value." A discounted stay for a friend of a friend is still consideration.

Dwelling unit sweeps in far more than a whole house. The same section reaches an apartment, a house, a carriage house, a condominium, a cooperative, a converted space, "or portions thereof." A spare bedroom counts. A finished basement with its own entrance counts.

Three things stay lawful, and they're narrower than they sound:

• Stays longer than 31 days. Section 325-64(C) preserves "an otherwise lawful occupancy of a dwelling unit for a rental period of more than thirty-one (31) days," which puts the legal floor at 32 nights.
• Unpaid house guests. Under § 325-65, someone who is part of the owner's housekeeping unit may occupy for 31 days or less without consideration. Money is the trigger, not the length of stay.
• Bona fide non-residential not-for-profit organizations, which § 325-62 carves out of the article entirely.

Two more prohibitions sit alongside the main one, and hosts miss both. Section 325-64(B) makes it unlawful to take money for the use of a private swimming pool or other recreational facility on an hourly, daily, weekly or seasonal basis, so the Swimply-style side hustle is out as well. And § 325-66 makes it unlawful to "advertise, solicit or promote by any means" anything the article prohibits, which means the listing itself is a violation before a single guest arrives.

One structural note that matters if a lawyer ever gets involved. Section 325-69 says the article supersedes any contrary provision of the city code, while expressly not altering the Zoning Code. So you can't go hunting for a friendlier zoning district and argue your way around Chapter 325. New Jersey lets towns write exactly this kind of rule: the Division of Local Government Services told municipalities in Local Finance Notice 2026-09 that short-term transient accommodations are "largely subject to municipal ordinance."

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Englewood

Trenton hands that decision to the town, and Englewood used it to say no, so there's no nightly-rental business to start here. Unfortunately for anyone who bought on a spreadsheet full of $300 nights, no fee, no structure and no LLC changes that. The prohibition attaches to the transaction rather than to the applicant, which means there's nobody to apply to.

What survives is the mid-term rental, and it isn't nothing.

At 32 nights and up you're outside Article IX and back under ordinary landlord and tenant law. That market runs on traveling nurses, relocating families, insurance placements and people renovating a house two towns over.

Englewood sits on the eastern edge of Bergen County with a straight run into Manhattan, which is the demand that holds up month to month. Do check the underwriting before you assume it works, though. A 32-night minimum kills weekend pricing, cuts your turnovers to roughly eleven a year at best, and pushes your effective nightly rate closer to a furnished lease than to a hotel.

Then there's the World Cup, which is the version of this question most owners are asking in 2026. Eight matches are being played at MetLife Stadium, the final among them, and Englewood is about fifteen minutes away.

Gothamist reported in March 2026 that Airbnb offered $750 bonuses to first-time hosts in Englewood's ZIP code to get properties listed for the tournament. New Jersey Digest found a three-bedroom Englewood home listed at roughly $1,000 a night, marketed as a retreat fifteen minutes from the stadium. Its verdict on that listing was two words: "It shouldn't be."

Keep in mind that a platform bonus is not a permission slip. Airbnb didn't screen those ZIP codes against municipal ordinances, and the fine lands on you rather than on the platform.

Owners who want nightly rates in New Jersey generally have to move down the shore, where the whole regulatory posture flips. The Ocean County guide and the Monmouth County guide cover the vacation-rental belt where towns license short-term rentals instead of banning them, and the Bergen County guide shows how many of Englewood's neighbors went the same way it did.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Englewood

Plenty of owners reach that point and start hunting for the permit that makes the problem go away. There isn't one, and that's the single most misunderstood fact about this city.

Article IX contains no license, no permit, no registration, no inspection regime and no fee schedule, because a prohibition doesn't need any of that machinery. Going through the city's own applications, forms and permits page in July 2026, I found a Certificate of Rental Occupancy, a Certificate of Continued Occupancy, a landlord registration form, lead paint paperwork and a vacant-property registration. There's no short-term rental application anywhere on it.

Be aware that several aggregator sites still describe an Englewood short-term rental license costing $250 up front with a $200 annual renewal, sometimes with an occupancy cap of four guests in a two-bedroom. I could not find any of those figures in Ordinance 23-09 or on any City of Englewood page, and no such license appears to exist. If you've been budgeting around that $250, delete the line.

New Jersey did give Englewood the option of licensing rather than banning. Under N.J.S.A. 40:52-1(n), quoted in the state's own Local Finance Notice 2026-09, a municipality may license the "rental of real property for a term less than 175 consecutive days for residential purposes by a person having a permanent place of residence elsewhere." Englewood didn't take it. Some Bergen County towns did, which is why two municipalities ten minutes apart can sit at opposite ends of this question.

The one certificate you will need for a legal rental is the Certificate of Rental Occupancy, and it applies to ordinary tenancies rather than to anything short-term. The city requires an inspection of each residential rental unit before occupancy to check for violations of local and state housing and property maintenance rules.

The city's own application form prints the fee at $125.00 as of July 2026. It also warns that a third inspection which finds previously noticed violations still unabated draws an extra fee equal to the certificate fee, under Chapter 191-14, and another for every inspection after that until the violations are cleared.

Remember that the meter runs on repeat visits, so fix everything before the re-inspection rather than most of it.

Required Documents for Englewood Short-Term Rentals

No short-term rental file exists to open, yet there's still paperwork, and what follows is what a legal 32-night-plus tenancy in Englewood actually takes. Assemble it before you advertise, not after a tenant has signed.

• The Certificate of Rental Occupancy application, with the $125 fee, the rental address and unit number, the tenant's name and move-in date, and owner contact details. The form also asks for an emergency contact, superintendent or agent with a name, address, email and phone, which is Englewood's version of the local-contact rule other cities impose on hosts.
• A landlord registration, filed on the city's landlord registration form. New Jersey requires this statewide: under N.J.S.A. 46:8-28, a certificate of registration goes to the municipal clerk for a one-unit rental or a non-owner-occupied two-unit property, and to the DCA Bureau of Housing Inspection for a multiple dwelling. Skipping it has teeth beyond the fine, since an unregistered landlord runs into trouble obtaining a judgment for possession.
• Lead-based paint compliance, if the building predates 1978. New Jersey's lead-based paint inspection law, P.L. 2021 c.182 and N.J.A.C. 5:28A, requires inspection of single-family, two-family and multiple rental dwellings every three years or on tenant turnover, whichever comes first, unless you hold a valid lead-safe certificate, which lasts two years. There's a carve-out for seasonal rentals of under six months a year without consecutive renewals, though whether a repeating 32-night furnished tenancy sits inside it is genuinely unclear. Ask Building & Code Enforcement rather than assuming.
• A written lease of more than 31 days. Section 325-64(C) is the whole basis on which your rental is lawful, so the document that proves the term is the document that keeps you out of municipal court.

Don't forget the smoke, carbon monoxide and fire extinguisher certification that New Jersey requires on a change of occupancy either. That inspection sits with the Fire Official, who is also one of the officers Article IX names as an enforcer.

Englewood Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you get the certificate and are able to start renting on a 32-night floor, there's still tax to deal with, and the thresholds don't line up with the city's. Englewood's rule turns on 31 days. New Jersey's turns on 90.

Here's how the layers stack for a furnished Englewood rental in 2026.

Charge	Rate	Collected by	Applies to
New Jersey Sales Tax	6.625%	Airbnb, Vrbo or other marketplace	Stays under 90 consecutive days booked through a platform
State Occupancy Fee	5%	Airbnb, Vrbo or other marketplace	Same
Englewood municipal occupancy tax	3%	City of Englewood	Hotel and motel occupancies only
Meadowlands Regional Hotel Use Assessment	3%	Division of Taxation	Not applicable in Englewood

The state layer comes from Technical Bulletin TB-81R2, which the Division of Taxation uses to explain how transient accommodations are taxed. Sales Tax runs at 6.625% and the State Occupancy Fee at 5%, for 11.625% combined.

Both apply only where the accommodation gets booked through a transient space marketplace, or where it's a "professionally managed unit," meaning the owner or controller offers two or more other New Jersey units that year.

The exemption that matters here is the length one. TB-81R2 excludes "leases of real property with a term of at least 90 consecutive days" from the definition of a transient accommodation altogether. Read that against Englewood's 32-night floor and a gap opens up: a stay of 32 to 89 nights is perfectly legal in Englewood and still fully taxable by the state, while a 90-night lease is legal and untaxed. Make sure you know which side of 90 your lease falls on before you quote a tenant a number.

Marketplaces handle the remitting. TB-81R2 requires a platform such as Airbnb or Vrbo to collect and remit Sales Tax, the State Occupancy Fee and any applicable local tax on the state's behalf, and Airbnb's own New Jersey occupancy tax page confirms it does so automatically on stays of 89 nights or shorter. Rent directly as a professionally managed unit and the obligation flips to you, along with a Form NJ-REG business registration filed at least 15 business days before you rent.

Englewood's own 3% is narrower than it looks. On the Division of Taxation's municipal occupancy tax list, Englewood City shows a 3% hotel and motel tax effective January 1, 2007, while its transient accommodations column sits empty. So the city taxes hotel rooms and has never extended that 3% to residential transient accommodations, which is consistent with a town that decided not to have any.

The 3% Meadowlands Regional Hotel Use Assessment doesn't reach here either. TB-81R2 lists the ten Bergen County towns it covers, from Carlstadt and East Rutherford through to South Hackensack and Teterboro, and Englewood is not among them.

New Jersey Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

That patchwork is not an accident of Bergen County. It's how New Jersey has chosen to run the whole state.

New Jersey does not preempt local short-term rental regulation, which is the single most important thing to understand about hosting anywhere in the state. The Division of Local Government Services says so in as many words in Local Finance Notice 2026-09: short-term transient accommodations are "largely subject to municipal ordinance." That notice went out on April 7, 2026, timed to the World Cup and the America 250 events, and it reminded towns of powers they already had.

So there's no statewide short-term rental license, no state registry, and no state law that overrides a town's decision to ban.

The statutes above the city are enabling rather than restrictive. N.J.S.A. 40:52-1(n) lets a municipality license sub-175-day rentals by owners living elsewhere, and N.J.S.A. 40:48F-1 through -7 lets most municipalities adopt an occupancy tax of up to 3%, effective 90 days after the ordinance reaches the Division of Taxation. Newark, Elizabeth, Jersey City, Paterson, Atlantic City and the three Wildwoods sit outside that authority because they already run their own hotel tax regimes.

The taxes themselves came from two laws worth knowing by date. P.L. 2018 c.49 first applied Sales Tax, the State Occupancy Fee and the Meadowlands assessment to transient accommodations from October 1, 2018, and P.L. 2019 c.235 narrowed them from August 9, 2019 so they only bite where a marketplace or a professionally managed unit is involved. That second amendment is why a direct booking by an owner with fewer than three New Jersey units escapes state tax entirely, per TB-81R2.

Practically speaking, the town line is the whole ballgame in this state. Our New Jersey statewide guide maps the general picture, and the Passaic County guide covers the next county over, where the answers again differ municipality by municipality.

Does Englewood Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

The town line only means something if somebody polices it, and Englewood spent 2026 demonstrating that it intends to.

The enforcement architecture is unusually broad for a small city. Section 325-67 names the Building Code Official, the Fire Official, the Health Department, other subcode or code officials and the Englewood Police Department as enforcers, and adds the city's legal counsel and anyone else Council designates. Any of them can issue a municipal civil infraction or file a civil complaint. That's five separate offices with standing to act on the same listing.

The penalty structure is where the pain sits. A violation is declared a public nuisance and "a nuisance per se," liability attaches "without regard to intent or knowledge," and the civil penalty runs up to $1,250.

Then comes the line that changes everything: "Each day of such violation shall be a new and separate violation of this Chapter." A ten-night World Cup booking is not one $1,250 exposure. It's potentially ten of them.

On top of that, § 325-67(D) preserves every other remedy, including eviction proceedings, injunctions and reasonable attorney's fees, in Municipal Court or the Superior Court of New Jersey, Bergen County.

Now the honest caveat, because the listings haven't disappeared. Gothamist counted at least 28 Englewood properties available on Airbnb for a three-day window in mid-June 2026, every one of them in violation of town law. So enforcement here is reactive rather than automated. Nobody is blocking the transaction at checkout the way New York City does, which means an illegal listing can go live, take bookings and collect money until somebody notices.

What the city has said about noticing is unambiguous. Mayor Michael Wildes told Gothamist: "When you have a game played in your backyard, you want to be hospitable. Those who violate the law will be prosecuted." Englewood also warned it would pursue platforms offering cash incentives that encourage violations, not only the hosts who accept them. New Jersey Digest summarized the posture in March 2026 as a town that "isn't blinking".

Watch out for the asymmetry in that arrangement. Because the ordinance treats advertising as its own violation, a screenshot of your listing is most of a case, and because the fine compounds daily, a host who gets caught late is worse off than one who gets caught early. Neighbors in a dense residential city are the most likely trigger, and Englewood publishes a property maintenance and housing complaint line at 201-871-6692 for exactly that purpose.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Englewood

Given all of that, the honest sequence starts with a decision rather than an application, because the first two steps decide whether the rest is worth bothering with.

1. Accept the 32-night floor, or leave. Section 325-64 admits no exception for owner-occupied stays, single rooms, weekends or special events. Anything at 31 nights or under, for money, is unlawful.
2. Run the mid-term numbers before you furnish anything. Roughly eleven turnovers a year at a furnished-lease rate is a genuinely different business from nightly hosting, and it either clears your mortgage or it doesn't. Set that against the New Jersey market numbers, where plenty of towns still permit nightly rentals, before you spend a dollar on furniture.
3. Confirm your zoning and your building rules. Article IX doesn't alter the Zoning Code, and a condo association or co-op board can impose a longer minimum than the city does.
4. Book the Certificate of Rental Occupancy inspection. Budget the $125, fix everything the inspector flags the first time, and note the emergency contact you list on the form.
5. File your landlord registration with the City Clerk, or with the DCA Bureau of Housing Inspection if the property is a multiple dwelling.
6. Sort lead paint compliance if the building predates 1978, and diarize the two-year certificate or the three-year inspection cycle.
7. Write the lease for 32 nights or more, in writing, with the term stated plainly. That document is your defense.
8. Decide which side of 90 nights you're selling. Under 90 and booked through a platform, expect 11.625% in state tax collected at checkout. At 90 or more, the lease falls outside the transient accommodation definition entirely.
9. Take the listing down if it advertises anything shorter. Under § 325-66 the advertisement is itself the offence, whether or not a guest ever books.

Who to Contact in Englewood about Short-Term Rental Regulations and Zoning?

Whichever of those steps you get stuck on, the city runs almost all of it out of one building, so the question is which floor rather than which agency.

City Hall sits at 2-10 North Van Brunt Street, Englewood, NJ 07631, open Monday to Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. excluding holidays, on a main line of 201-871-6637.

Zoning, code enforcement and rental certificates

Building & Code Enforcement occupies the second floor of City Hall and administers zoning, building and property maintenance codes. This is the first call on Article IX, on a Certificate of Rental Occupancy, and on whether a specific plan crosses the line.

• Phone: 201-871-6642, fax 201-816-8018
• Zoning Official: Tyree Balmer, [email protected], 201-871-6676
• Construction Official: Walter Deptuch, [email protected], 201-871-6649
• Property maintenance and housing complaints: 201-871-6692

Ordinances, landlord registration and public records

The City Clerk's Office holds the ordinance record and takes municipal landlord registrations.

• City Clerk: Yancy Wazirmas, RMC, 201-510-8213, [email protected]

Health, and the wider administration

• Health Department: 201-568-3450, [email protected]. Named in § 325-67 as an enforcer of Article IX.
• City Manager: Robert Hoffmann, 201-510-8206, [email protected]

State taxes

Sales Tax, the State Occupancy Fee and municipal occupancy tax questions belong to the New Jersey Division of Taxation, not to the city. Its Stakeholder Relations Unit takes occupancy tax questions at 609-322-6779 or [email protected].

What Do Airbnb Hosts in Englewood on Reddit and Bigger Pockets Think about Local Regulations?

Those phone numbers get dialed a lot in Englewood, and the reason shows up in how owners talk about this city online. What follows is my read of the recurring themes rather than a survey, and I should say plainly that Reddit blocked automated access on this pass, so nothing below is sourced to a Reddit thread.

• The misinformation is the loudest complaint. Owners keep arriving at Englewood believing there's a $250 license to buy, because aggregator sites and AI summaries repeat it. Then they read Chapter 325 and discover the city banned the activity outright in 2023. That gap between what the internet says and what the ordinance says is doing real financial damage to people who bought first.
• Eastern Bergen County has a reputation among hosts, and it's earned. Investors discussing this stretch of the county on BiggerPockets consistently warn that Englewood Cliffs, Leonia, Fort Lee and their neighbors have been prohibiting or tightening short-term rentals for years, and that the area is not Airbnb-friendly. NJ.com was reporting the same wave back in 2016, when Palisades Park, Cresskill and Englewood Cliffs all moved to ban. Englewood joined late rather than early.
• The World Cup split the conversation in two. One camp treated $750 platform bonuses and $1,000 nightly rates as a risk worth pricing. The other did the compounding arithmetic on § 325-67 and concluded that a ten-night booking with a daily penalty attached isn't a calculated risk, it's a bad trade.
• Nobody I've read argues the rule is ambiguous. The debate is about whether the city will actually come after a two-week listing, not about what the ordinance says. That's a very different conversation from the one hosts have in cities where the rules are genuinely murky.

Take that last point seriously if you're tempted. An ordinance this plainly drafted gives you nothing to argue in municipal court, and the daily-violation clause means the argument you'd be having is about the size of the number, not about liability.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Airbnb legal in Englewood, New Jersey in 2026?

Not for short stays. Englewood's Chapter 325, Article IX, added by Ordinance 23-09 in May 2023, makes it unlawful to receive any consideration for letting someone occupy a dwelling unit for 31 days or less. Advertising such a rental is a separate violation. Rentals of 32 nights or longer remain lawful under § 325-64(C), so mid-term and long-term furnished rentals are the only legal way to rent a home in Englewood to a temporary occupant.

What is the fine for an illegal short-term rental in Englewood?

Up to $1,250 per violation, and § 325-67 of the Englewood city code states that each day of a violation counts as a new and separate violation. Liability attaches without regard to intent or knowledge. The city can also seek eviction proceedings, an injunction and reasonable attorney's fees, in Municipal Court or in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Bergen County. The ordinance also declares a violation a public nuisance per se.

Does Englewood, New Jersey issue short-term rental permits or licenses?

No. Ordinance 23-09 contains no license, permit, registration or fee provision, and the City of Englewood's applications and permits page lists no short-term rental application. Claims that Englewood charges a $250 permit fee with a $200 annual renewal appear on third-party sites but not in the city code or on any city page. The only rental certificate Englewood issues is the Certificate of Rental Occupancy, at $125, for ordinary tenancies.

What taxes apply to a legal long-term rental in Englewood?

A stay booked through Airbnb or Vrbo for under 90 consecutive days is a taxable transient accommodation in New Jersey: 6.625% Sales Tax plus a 5% State Occupancy Fee, collected and remitted by the platform. Leases of at least 90 consecutive days are excluded from that definition entirely. Englewood's own 3% occupancy tax applies to hotel and motel rooms, not to residential transient accommodations, and the Meadowlands assessment does not cover Englewood.

Can I rent out my pool or backyard in Englewood?

No. Section 325-64(B) of the city code makes it unlawful to obtain consideration for the use of a private swimming pool or other recreational facility on an hourly, daily, weekly or seasonal basis. That covers pool-sharing platforms and one-off paid event bookings alike, and it is enforced under the same penalty section as the short-term rental ban, meaning up to $1,250 for each day the offering continues.

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