Erie County, New York Short-Term Rental Regulations: A 2026 Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Erie County, New York and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that you can, because nothing at the county level stops you. Erie County doesn't ban short-term rentals, doesn't zone your property, and doesn't issue or refuse any kind of rental licence. What it does instead is tax the stay, and since January 2024 it has wanted you registered before you take your first booking.

The catch is that the county is only one of the two governments you answer to, and the other one is the city, town or village your house actually sits in. That second government is where the real decision gets made, since New York leaves zoning and licensing entirely to the municipality. So the City of Buffalo can demand a special use permit and charge $1,000 for a first certificate, the Town of Amherst can charge $500 a year, and the Village of Hamburg can keep you out of single-family districts altogether, and all three of those sit inside Erie County. Unfortunately for anyone hoping for one clean rulebook covering Buffalo and its suburbs, there isn't one.

So let's walk through what it actually takes to do this properly in 2026: what the county's occupancy tax law demands, what the larger municipalities license and charge, the layers of tax that attach to a single night, how hard any of it gets enforced, and who to call when you get stuck. Everything below comes from Erie County's, New York State's, or the individual municipality's own pages, checked in July 2026, and where I couldn't confirm something I've said so plainly. Before you commit to a property, though, run it through BNBCalc first, because a $1,000 permit and a stacked tax bill move the math more than most first-time hosts expect.

What are Short-Term Rental (Airbnb, VRBO) Regulations in Erie County, New York?

Those two governments do genuinely different jobs, and separating them explains almost everything that confuses people here.

The county layer is a tax law and nothing else. Erie County Local Law No. 1 of 2024, formally titled the Occupancy Tax Modernization Act, repealed five local laws going back to 1974 and rewrote the county's hotel occupancy tax so that it reaches vacation rentals, after the Legislature passed it on December 7, 2023 and it was deemed duly adopted three weeks later.

Section 2(f) then does the heavy lifting in a single sentence, declaring that for the purposes of the law "the terms 'hotel' and 'short-term rental' shall be interchangeable." So your two-bedroom in North Buffalo is a hotel now, at least as far as the Comptroller is concerned.

Section 2(p) spells out what that catches, since a short-term rental includes a "home-sharing property or vacation rental, or similar hotel or motel type of accommodations by whatever name designated," and it reaches any furnished unit rented to somebody who isn't a permanent resident. It doesn't reach a month-to-month residential lease where the tenant lives there as a primary residence, though. A permanent resident, under Section 2(i), is anyone occupying the room for at least thirty consecutive days, whom Section 3(e) then exempts from the tax entirely.

What the county law never does is tell you where you may operate, how many guests you may take, or whether you need a licence. That's the municipality's job, and the New York Department of State's own guidance to local governments puts it bluntly, saying it's "up to each municipality to define, prohibit and/or regulate short term rentals as they choose." Cities, towns and villages keep their full zoning and permitting authority, and a good number of them in Erie County have used it.

So there's one thing you can safely stop worrying about, mind you, and it's the rule people arrive here most afraid of. New York City's ban on renting an entire apartment for fewer than thirty days comes from the Multiple Dwelling Law, and § 3 of that law limits the whole chapter to "all cities with a population of three hundred twenty-five thousand or more." No city in Erie County comes anywhere near that size. So the Class A thirty-day trap that shuts down whole-unit hosting in Manhattan and Brooklyn doesn't reach Buffalo or its suburbs, and whole-house short-term rentals are legal here. Our Bronx County short-term rental guide walks through the downstate regime that Erie County hosts are spared, and the contrast is worth seeing before you write off New York State as a market.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Erie County

Since the municipality is the one that can actually stop you, that's where you start, and doing these steps out of order is how people lose money.

Check zoning before you buy, before you furnish, and before you pay anybody a fee. In the City of Buffalo, Chapter 380 of the City Code allows owner-occupied short-term rentals as of right across most of the city, but excludes them from the N-4-30, N-4-50, D-IL, D-IH, D-OS, D-OG, D-ON and C-R districts. Non-owner-occupied rentals are a different animal entirely, because § 380-7A(2) says they're "not allowed without a special use permit," and that permit goes through the Planning Board for a recommendation before it reaches the Common Council. Chapter 380 also shuts short-term rentals out of apartment buildings, co-ops, condos and three-family properties, and caps any building at two short-term rental units.

Head out into the suburbs and the pattern changes rather than softens. The Village of Hamburg added § 250-23.22 to its code on May 19, 2025 by Local Law No. 2-2025. Helpfully, the village publishes the zoning answer as a plain table in its own short-term rental FAQ, where short-term rentals are not permitted at all in Single Family Residential, allowed by special permit only in Traditional Village Residential and Limited Commercial Residential, and permitted outright in the commercial districts. So buy a pretty village house on a single-family street there and you own a long-term rental, whatever you had in mind.

The Town of Amherst takes a third approach and regulates through its rental registry rather than through a bespoke short-term rental law. Chapter 44 of the Amherst Town Code requires every rental unit to be registered with the Building Department, and as of July 2026 the town charges $75 per unit for a long-term rental, $250 per unit for an owner-occupied short-term rental, and $500 per unit for a non-owner-occupied one.

Once you know your municipality will have you, there's still the county step, and it's the same one no matter which town you're in. Make sure you file it on time, because Section 6(a) of the county law gives you only three days after commencing business to get your Certification of Registration to the Comptroller. Three days is not long.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirements in Erie County

That three-day window is worth taking seriously, and it helps to understand that the county isn't licensing you at all when you file it.

What you get back is a Certificate of Authority. Section 6(b) requires the Comptroller to issue it free of charge within five business days of a properly completed registration, and it empowers you to collect the tax, so long as it stays "prominently displayed by the operator in such manner that it may be seen and come to the notice of all occupants." Lose it and a replacement costs $50. Sell the property and it's non-transferable, which means it goes straight back to the Comptroller.

Short-term rental registrations run through the county's short-term rental portal rather than by mail, and the Comptroller's hotel tax page says those registrations "must be renewed biannually." That word is doing a lot of unexplained work, since it can mean twice a year or once every two years, and neither the page nor Local Law 1-2024 defines it anywhere. The state framework that the county association's implementation memo describes runs on a two-year registration period, so that's my reading, but do confirm it with the Hotel Tax Division rather than guessing.

The municipal licence is the one that costs real money and takes real time. Here's how the three best-documented municipalities compared as of July 2026.

Municipality	First certificate	Annual renewal	Term
City of Buffalo, owner-occupied	$500	$200	1 year
City of Buffalo, non-owner-occupied	$1,000	$400	1 year
Town of Amherst, owner-occupied	$250	$250	1 year
Town of Amherst, non-owner-occupied	$500	$500	1 year
Village of Hamburg	$250	$150	expires May 31

Buffalo's conditions under § 380-9 are the most demanding set in the county, and they're worth reading before you apply, because failing any one of them stops the certificate:

• The property passes an interior and exterior inspection by the Department of Permit and Inspection Services.
• Carbon monoxide and smoke detectors go in per the state fire code.
• Basements, attics, sun porches and garages can't be used for occupancy.
• No public assembly, which the code words as "Party Houses are not permitted."
• Exit diagrams get posted on the interior of every bedroom door.
• Emergency contact numbers stay live, posted on the premises and filed with the department.
• You supply working fire extinguishers, and a shovel for emergencies.
• Non-owner-occupied rentals keep a two-night minimum stay.
• Occupancy is capped at two adults and one child per room.

On top of all that, § 380-11(B)(5) makes an owner living outside Erie or Niagara County appoint an agent whose home or principal place of business sits inside Erie County.

The Village of Hamburg's operating standards run along similar lines, though they lean harder on the neighbours. Quiet hours run from 10:00 p.m. to 7:30 a.m., occupancy is two per bedroom capped at eight, and parking has to be on site at 1.5 cars per bedroom, with street spaces excluded from the count. Exterior signs advertising the property as a short-term rental are prohibited, and so are parties, weddings, catered events and tailgating. Your 24/7 contact has to answer within thirty minutes, and because their details have to be handed to every residential property within 100 feet of your boundary, the whole street knows who to ring. Remember too that the Chief of Police can independently recommend revocation or non-renewal if the house becomes a nuisance, which in practice means frequent calls for service.

Buffalo certificates expire one year after issuance under § 380-8, and you're expected to apply for renewal in the 60 days before that date. Village of Hamburg certificates all expire on May 31 regardless of when you started, though a registrant who begins between December 1 and May 30 pays only half the annual fee for that stub period.

Required Documents for Erie County Short-Term Rentals

Since a Buffalo certificate costs $500 or $1,000 before anyone has looked at your house, it pays to have the paperwork assembled before you file rather than after.

Buffalo's § 380-11(B) sets out what the application has to carry:

• Your name, principal residence address, principal business address and telephone number.
• For an owner-occupied certificate, a driver's licence plus two forms of official mail addressed to you at the property itself.
• Every owner or general partner named individually where the property is held by an association, partnership, joint tenancy or tenancy in common, and every officer, director and managing agent where it's held by a corporation.
• Your Erie County agent's details, if you live outside Erie or Niagara County.
• The address where you want violation notices and invoices sent, which cannot be a post office box.
• A lead certification, if the property was built before 1978, confirming you know the disclosure rules and the lead-safe work practices.

On top of that, § 380-12 requires an affidavit of compliance sworn under penalty of perjury. The questions are all about lead and health citations. Did any renovation, repair or painting in the past three years trigger lead-safe work practices, and if so, who did the work and did they hold EPA or Erie County Department of Health accreditation? Are there open Erie County Sanitary Code citations, or live lead-based paint citations? Be aware that anything arising after you file has to be disclosed within 30 calendar days, and that failing to supply any of it is grounds for denial on its own.

The Village of Hamburg asks for a different bundle. It wants a site plan and a floor plan delineating every bedroom, bathroom, common room and kitchen, plus copies of any leases or contracts tied to the rental and copies of every permit and certificate of occupancy for the building. It also wants contact details for whoever is available around the clock, along with a written set of house rules that gets displayed inside the unit and that must at minimum prohibit fighting, violence, threatening behaviour, unreasonable noise and abusive language.

The county's own filing is the shortest of the lot. It's a Certification of Registration in the form the Comptroller prescribes, and if you run more than one short-term rental you file for the principal place of business and attach a list of every other Erie County location with the same information, which gets you a duplicate Certificate of Authority for each address.

Erie County Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you clear the licensing and are able to start hosting, there's still tax to deal with, and it arrives in two pieces from two different governments.

The county piece is the occupancy tax. Section 3(a) of Local Law 1-2024 imposes three percent of the rent on every occupancy, and Section 3(b) raises that to five percent only where the rental capacity of the premises exceeds thirty rooms, which no ordinary house does. The Comptroller's own page states the same split for short-term rentals directly. Watch out for how the base is calculated, though, because § 3(c) puts room, board and cleaning fees inside the taxable rent while leaving out charges that are separately stated and incurred at the occupant's option. Then § 3(d) adds the sting: if you don't separate them, the entire charge is taxable.

The state piece is sales tax, and it's newer than most Erie County hosts realise. New York State extended sales tax to short-term rental unit occupancy effective March 1, 2025, wherever the rate is more than $2.00 per unit per day. Publication 718, the state's rate schedule dated February 2025, puts Erie County's combined state and local rate at 8¾ percent.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
Erie County hotel occupancy tax	3%	Erie County Comptroller
Erie County occupancy tax, over 30 rooms	5%	Erie County Comptroller
Combined state and local sales tax	8.75%	NYS Dept of Taxation and Finance

Who actually hands the money over depends on your platform, and this is the part people get wrong. Sections 7(f) to 7(h) of the county law let a hosting platform sign a voluntary collection agreement, after which the platform is "solely responsible and liable" for the tax on its own bookings and you are not, and Airbnb announced exactly such an agreement with Erie County effective August 1, 2024. But § 7(h) is the mirror image: where your platform has no agreement with the county, "such operator shall be liable for the collection and remittance of the tax." Direct bookings taken off your own website are always yours to handle. And a July 2025 memo from the New York State Association of Counties notes that Airbnb collects occupancy tax only where a voluntary agreement exists, so do check your own platform's status rather than assuming it matches Airbnb's.

Sales tax works the other way round by default. The state makes booking services register as vendors and collect, which relieves you of collecting it yourself so long as all your sales run through one, and so long as you hold Form ST-155 or the platform's publicly available collection agreement. Keep that documentation somewhere you can find it, because it's your evidence. Anyone renting three days or fewer a year without using a booking service doesn't have to register at all, and a guest who stays 90 consecutive days becomes a permanent resident and stops paying sales tax from that point on.

Returns are quarterly. Section 9 of the county law sets the periods as those ending the last day of February, May, August and November, then gives you twenty days after each one to file. The Comptroller publishes that as due dates of March 20, June 20, September 20 and December 20, and you file whether or not you collected anything. If your total for the four quarters ending May 31 comes in under $250 you may elect to file annually instead, with the annual return due June 20. Short-term rentals file online through the portal, although you can still mail the payment if you'd rather. Then Section 8 requires you to keep records of every occupancy and every dollar of rent for five years.

New York State-Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

Those platform agreements sit underneath a state framework that changed twice in fourteen months, so it's worth knowing which parts reach Erie County and which don't.

New York built its short-term rental registration system through two statutes, one amending the other. S885C became Chapter 672 of the Laws of 2024 when Governor Hochul signed it on December 21, 2024, and then S820 became Chapter 99 of the Laws of 2025 on February 28, 2025, restructuring the registry from a single state-run system into a county-level one. Those rules now live in Real Property Law Article 12-D, under which counties that fall inside the definition of a "covered jurisdiction" in RPL § 447-a have to run a registry, while a county can step outside that definition by passing a local law opting out.

For a county like this one, the subdivision that matters is RPL § 447-b(6). It grandfathers registration systems a municipality already ran before the article took effect, and lets that municipality keep managing, amending and enforcing them. Subdivision 7 then closes the door behind it, barring new local registries except in a city, town or village outside a covered jurisdiction. Erie County's Comptroller has been registering short-term rentals since January 2024, well ahead of the article.

Now, has Erie County formally opted in or out? Going through the county's own index of local laws, the answer is that it has done neither on paper. Not one of the eight local laws passed in 2025 or the two passed in 2026 touches short-term rentals or a registry, so the only county-level registration that exists in practice is still the Comptroller's. I couldn't find any Erie County statement resolving its status under Article 12-D, and I'd rather say that than invent a tidier answer.

Still, what the state law delivers either way is data, and it's granular. The NYSAC memo lists what booking platforms have to report to counties every January, April, July and October:

• The dates of each stay and the number of guests.
• The cost of each stay, with the sales and occupancy taxes itemised.
• The physical address, including any unit designation.
• The host's full legal name.
• The unit's registration number.

Keep in mind that this is why casual non-compliance is getting harder here, whatever your municipality does about inspections.

The rest of New York varies enormously, and if you're comparing markets it's worth reading across. Our New York statewide guide maps the overall picture, while the Monroe County guide covers Rochester and the Onondaga County guide covers Syracuse, both of which face the same county-registry question Erie does.

Does Erie County Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

The honest answer splits along the same seam as everything else here, because the county and the municipalities enforce completely different things.

At county level the tools are financial, and they're sharp. Section 6(e) sets the penalty for failing to register at one hundred dollars per day of non-registration, though the Comptroller may waive up to 75% of it on a showing of good cause, while Section 21(e) adds daily fines of up to five hundred dollars for each day an entity remains in violation. Then Section 21(d) allows a fine of up to ten thousand dollars for a list of failures that includes not filing a registration certificate, not displaying or surrendering the Certificate of Authority, not charging the tax, and not keeping the required records.

File a willfully false return and § 21(c) makes it a misdemeanor on top of that ten-thousand-dollar exposure, and lets the Comptroller refer the whole thing to the Erie County District Attorney. Late payment alone runs a 5% penalty plus 1% a month in interest. And if you simply don't pay, Section 16 lets the Comptroller issue a warrant directing the Sheriff to levy on and sell your property, with the amount docketed as a lien against it.

Whether all of that gets used aggressively is a different question, and I couldn't answer it from the county's own publications. The Comptroller's audits page carries hotel monitoring reports for individually named hotels and motels through 2025 but publishes no short-term rental collection totals or registration counts, so anyone quoting you an enforcement rate for Erie County short-term rentals is guessing.

Municipal enforcement is where hosts have actually felt pressure, and Buffalo is the clearest case, because the city didn't merely tighten its rules, it repriced them. Chapter 380 as the city publishes it strikes out the old fees and replaces them, so the owner-occupied figures went from $150 and $75 to $500 and $200, while the non-owner-occupied ones went from $250 and $150 to $1,000 and $400. The penalty section then backs that up with $500 per violation for operating without a certificate, $500 for exceeding capacity, and $500 for breaching any condition of the licence. Miss the renewal and § 380-19 doubles the annual fee after 30 days, then issues a summons with a further $500 fine at 60 days. More than three noise violations inside a licence year is grounds for revocation under § 380-17A(8), and where the third comes within four weeks of the second, the licence date stops mattering.

The remedy that should get an investor's attention, though, is § 380-19C(ii). In an enforcement action the Commissioner can ask the court for "an order to remove the property from all platforms on which it is listed and cancellation of any future reservations." That's the same lever New York City pulls through platform verification, arriving by a slower route, and it turns a compliance problem into a revenue problem overnight.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Erie County

Given how much of that lands on the municipality rather than the county, the sequence below is built to answer the cheap questions before you spend anything on the expensive ones.

1. Identify your municipality and pull its zoning answer first. Erie County's cities, towns and villages each decide this for themselves, and the answer ranges from as-of-right to flatly prohibited on your particular street. In Buffalo that means checking your zoning district against § 380-7A; in the Village of Hamburg it means the zoning table in the village FAQ.
2. Work out whether you'll be owner-occupied or not. It's the single biggest fork in the road. Non-owner-occupied hosting in Buffalo needs a special use permit through the Planning Board and Common Council on top of the certificate, and it doubles your fees.
3. Check the building type, not only the location. Buffalo bars short-term rentals from apartment buildings, co-ops, condos and three-family properties, and allows at most two short-term rental units in any building.
4. Line up your local contact. If you live outside Erie or Niagara County, Buffalo requires an agent based in Erie County. Amherst and the Village of Hamburg both want a named person who can respond, and Hamburg gives them thirty minutes.
5. Book the inspection and fix what it finds. Every one of these municipalities inspects before issuing and again at renewal, and in Buffalo a failed re-inspection costs $150, then $300, then $600 each time.
6. Register with the Erie County Comptroller within three days of opening, through the short-term rental portal, and display the Certificate of Authority when it arrives.
7. Sort out who collects which tax before your first guest. Confirm whether your platform holds a voluntary collection agreement with the county, and get Form ST-155 or the equivalent public agreement for state sales tax.
8. Set up the quarterly filing calendar and the record-keeping. March 20, June 20, September 20 and December 20, filed whether or not you collected anything, with five years of records behind them.
9. Diarise both expiry dates. The municipal certificate and the county registration renew on different clocks, and in Buffalo you're expected to file for renewal inside the 60 days before expiry.

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

Whichever of those steps you get stuck on, the office that owns your question depends on whether it's a tax question or a property question.

Registration and the occupancy tax

The Erie County Comptroller's Office, Hotel Tax Division administers registration, the Certificate of Authority, returns and payments.

• Address: Edward A. Rath County Office Building, 95 Franklin Street, Room 1100, Buffalo, NY 14202
• Phone: (716) 858-8400
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday to Friday
• Register and file: the short-term rental portal

County planning and zoning referrals

The Erie County Department of Environment and Planning handles county-level planning, including the referrals municipalities make on zoning actions. It does not license your rental.

• Address: Edward A. Rath County Office Building, 95 Franklin Street, 10th Floor, Buffalo, NY 14202
• Phone: (716) 858-8390
• Fax: (716) 858-7248
• Commissioner: Daniel R. Castle, AICP, per the New York Department of State's directory

City of Buffalo licensing and inspections

The Department of Permit and Inspection Services issues and inspects short-term rental certificates under Chapter 380.

• Address: 65 Niagara Square, Room 301, Buffalo, NY 14202
• Phone: 716-851-4972
• Permitting hours: Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., with Tuesdays and Thursdays by appointment since October 1, 2025
• Licensing hours: Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

I should say plainly that buffalony.gov blocks automated access, so those details come from an Internet Archive snapshot of the department's own page taken on July 9, 2026 rather than from a live read. Do ring ahead before you drive down.

Town of Amherst

The Amherst Building Department runs the Chapter 44 rental registry, including the short-term rental fees above.

• Address: 5583 Main Street, Williamsville, NY 14221
• Phone: (716) 631-7080
• Hours: 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Monday to Friday

Village of Hamburg

The Clerk/Treasurer's Office takes short-term rental applications and issues the certificate of registration.

• Address: 100 Main Street, Hamburg, NY 14075
• Phone: (716) 649-0200

State sales tax

Sales tax registration, Form ST-155 and vendor questions belong to the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, not to the county. Its short-term rental occupancy page carries the current rules for both hosts and booking services.

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

Those offices only tell you the official version, of course, and hosts talk about a slightly different set of problems.

Before I summarise any of it, one caveat you're entitled to. Reddit blocks automated access and its platform terms don't permit the kind of commercial use this guide would need, so I haven't read any Reddit thread and I'm not going to tell you what's in one. BiggerPockets is reachable and I opened the Buffalo and Erie County threads I could find there, but they turned out to be about long-term multifamily rather than short-term rentals, which is itself the most informative thing about this market. What follows is my read of the recurring themes rather than a survey, so weigh it accordingly.

• The investment conversation about Buffalo is a long-term rental conversation. Ask about Erie County on an investor forum and the replies come back about two-to-four-unit properties, vacancy assumptions and CapEx. Nightly-rate strategies come up far less often here than they do for Hudson Valley or Adirondack markets, and the licensing cost is part of why.
• The owner-occupancy line is what people argue about. Buffalo's split between as-of-right owner-occupied hosting and permit-gated non-owner-occupied hosting sorts hosts into two groups with almost nothing in common. Resident hosts describe an administrative process. Investors describe a moving target.
• Fee increases land harder than the tax does. A 3% occupancy tax that Airbnb collects for you is invisible in practice. A first certificate going from $250 to $1,000, plus $400 a year after that, plus re-inspection fees, is not.
• The suburbs get underestimated. Hosts who assumed the county rules were the whole story tend to discover the village or town layer late, and by then they've usually bought the house.

Take that last point seriously if you're shopping. Erie County itself will happily register and tax a rental that your village has already decided it doesn't want, since those two offices don't talk to each other and neither one is checking the other's work. Before you make an offer anywhere in the Buffalo suburbs, ring the village or town clerk and ask them directly whether your zoning district permits a short-term rental. It's a five-minute call that occasionally saves an entire purchase.

Once the rules are clear, the question left is whether the numbers justify the paperwork, and our rankings for the New York market will answer that quickly enough: either a Buffalo permit is worth chasing, or your money does better three hours east.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Erie County, New York in 2026?

Yes. Erie County has no ban on short-term rentals and does no zoning of its own, so whole-house hosting is legal here in a way it isn't in New York City. Two things are required. You register with the Erie County Comptroller within three days of opening and collect a 3% occupancy tax, and you obtain whatever licence or permit your specific city, town or village requires. That second requirement varies enormously, and in some districts the answer is no.

How much does the Erie County short-term rental occupancy tax cost?

The rate is 3% of the rent for a short-term rental with thirty or fewer rooms, rising to 5% only above thirty rooms, under Erie County Local Law No. 1 of 2024. Room, board and cleaning fees sit inside the taxable base, while separately stated optional charges do not. Registration itself is free and the Certificate of Authority is issued within five business days. Guests staying thirty consecutive days or more count as permanent residents and pay no occupancy tax.

Does Airbnb collect the Erie County occupancy tax automatically?

Airbnb does, under a voluntary collection agreement with the county that took effect on August 1, 2024, and where a platform holds such an agreement the county law makes that platform solely liable for the tax on its own bookings. Other platforms are a different matter. Where your booking service has no agreement with Erie County, the county law puts the liability for collecting and remitting straight back on you, and direct bookings taken outside any platform are always your responsibility.

What does a short-term rental licence cost in the City of Buffalo?

Under Chapter 380 of the Buffalo City Code, an owner-occupied short-term rental pays $500 for a first certificate and $200 a year afterwards, while a non-owner-occupied rental pays $1,000 and then $400 a year. Non-owner-occupied rentals also need a special use permit through the Planning Board and Common Council. Certificates run one year, an annual inspection is required, and failed re-inspections cost $150, then $300, then $600.

Do Erie County towns and villages have their own short-term rental rules?

They do, and they differ sharply. The Town of Amherst charges $250 a year per unit for owner-occupied short-term rentals and $500 for non-owner-occupied ones through its Chapter 44 rental registry. The Village of Hamburg adopted its own short-term rental law in May 2025, charging $250 initially and $150 to renew, capping occupancy at eight, requiring on-site parking, and prohibiting short-term rentals outright in Single Family Residential districts. Always check the municipality, not only the county.

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