Fenville Short-Term Rental Regulation: A Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Fennville and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that Fennville allows it. This small city in Allegan County, Michigan, sitting about eleven miles inland from Saugatuck's Lake Michigan shoreline, treats short-term rentals as a normal, licensed use rather than something worth fighting over. The city's own fee schedule spells it out plainly: a dedicated Short-Term Rental Permit and Inspection, renewed every year for $75.

That said, don't take "Michigan protects short-term rentals" at face value if you read it somewhere else, because the state makes no such promise. Michigan has no statewide law that bans local restrictions on short-term rentals, no state registry, and nothing resembling the "Short-Term Rental Promotion Act" that keeps circulating online, so the actual rules sit entirely with Fennville's own zoning code. Parts of that code sit behind a codified-ordinance platform I could not fully read despite trying multiple official routes, specifically the sections spelling out which zoning districts allow a short-term rental outright versus which ones need extra sign-off. So I'm flagging that gap honestly rather than guessing at it.

So here's what this guide actually covers, verified against the city's own documents as of July 2026: what the permit costs and how it renews, the taxes that attach to a Fennville booking, how Michigan's hands-off state law shapes all of it, and exactly who at City Hall to call when your specific address raises a question this guide can't answer. Run the numbers on the property through BNBCalc first, because a $75 annual permit is a rounding error next to what the county's tourist season can actually pay you.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Fennville

That $75 figure is the clearest fact in Fennville's entire short-term rental framework, and it comes straight from the city's own 2025 fee schedule rather than a guess. Fennville is a compact city of roughly 1,745 residents, wedged between Manlius and Clyde Townships on M-89, close enough to the Saugatuck and Douglas tourist corridor that its housing stock draws real interest from vacation-rental buyers even though the city itself is quieter than the lakeshore towns nearby.

Short-term rentals live inside Fennville's Chapter 450, the Zoning Ordinance, which runs from §450-101 through §450-2507 and was reorganized into its current form in 2024. Chapter 304, Rental Property (§304-1 through §304-11), covers rental housing more broadly. That's where the city's general Rental Registration Form comes from, the same one listed on the city's business licenses page alongside building and zoning permits. Between the two chapters, the zoning code appears to carry a distinct "Short-Term Rental" use category, referenced under §450-1425 and cross-listed in at least the city's multi-family residential district and its downtown-edge commercial district, based on how the ordinance's own table of contents is organized.

I want to be upfront about a limit here. The underlying section text for Chapter 450 and Chapter 304 sits on a platform that blocked automated access every way I tried, including an archived copy. So I can confirm the categories exist and that a permit fee attaches to them, but not the full district-by-district detail. Don't skip a call to the City Administrator to confirm your address qualifies before you buy or convert a property with a short-term rental plan in mind.

What is fully confirmed is that Fennville does not ban the use. It doesn't require a special state license either, and prices the ongoing cost of doing this legally at $75 a year. That's a genuinely low bar compared to cities that run four-figure application fees or cap the number of licenses outright, and it's worth remembering as you weigh Fennville against pricier Michigan markets.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Fennville

That low bar is exactly why the licensing step deserves your full attention rather than a quick skim. The core requirement is the Short-Term Rental Permit and Inspection, which the city's fee schedule lists as an annual-renewal item at $75 per year, distinct from the one-time application fees attached to other zoning approvals. Annual renewal matters here. It means the city checks in on your property every single year rather than every three, which is the figure that keeps showing up in secondhand summaries elsewhere online. I could not confirm a three-year cycle anywhere in Fennville's own materials, so treat the annual number as the one to plan around.

Building inspections and zoning administration for Fennville are contracted out to Professional Code Inspections of Michigan (PCI), which runs the city's Dorr-area office rather than staffing Fennville directly. Expect your inspection to be scheduled through that arrangement rather than an in-house city inspector.

If your property sits in a zoning district where a short-term rental needs more than the base permit, Fennville's Special Land Use process applies: you file with the Zoning Administrator, staff reviews the application and forwards a recommendation to the Planning Commission, the City Clerk publishes public notice in a newspaper of general circulation, and the Planning Commission holds a hearing before approving, approving with conditions, or denying. That process runs $500 plus a $1,000 escrow deposit, per the city's own fee schedule, with unused escrow returned once the review closes. Whether your particular parcel needs that extra layer, on top of the $75 STR permit, is exactly the kind of address-specific question the Zoning Administrator can answer faster than any guide can.

Keep in mind that none of this replaces Michigan's own tax registration, which is a separate step covered further down. And don't assume a home occupation permit or a general rental registration substitutes for the short-term-rental-specific permit. They're listed as separate line items on the city's own fee schedule, which is a strong signal the city treats them as separate obligations.

Required Documents for Fennville Short-Term Rentals

Since the $75 doesn't buy you a second try if the paperwork's wrong, it's worth getting your documents together before you file rather than after a rejection. Fennville's business-licensing page lists a Rental Registration Form as part of its standard licensing set, which is the natural starting point for any rental property in the city, short-term or otherwise. Beyond that form, the exact attachments the city wants for the short-term-rental-specific permit weren't something I could pin down. That particular page loads its content through the city's website software in a way none of my research tools could get past. So I'm not going to guess at a checklist and present it as confirmed.

What is confirmed, and worth preparing regardless, is the paperwork behind Fennville's other zoning processes, since a property that needs Special Land Use approval will be asked for a full site plan. That site plan has to include, among other things, the property's dimensions and its relationship to abutting lots, parking layout with a parking calculation, a landscaping plan, and a lighting plan with fixture details, all reviewed by the Planning Commission before a decision is made. Most straightforward, single-property short-term rentals in an already-residential zone likely won't need the full site-plan package, but you won't know for certain until the Zoning Administrator confirms it against your address and your district.

Make sure you also have your Michigan Treasury Online registration ready if you're taking direct bookings or listing on a platform other than Airbnb, since that account is what lets you file and remit the state's use tax yourself. The next section covers exactly when you need it.

Fennville Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you get through the permit and are able to start hosting, there's still tax to sort out, and this part of Fennville's picture is genuinely simple compared to what a lot of bigger cities layer on top of a booking.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
Michigan use tax	6% of the rental price	Michigan Department of Treasury
City or county lodging tax	None confirmed	N/A

Michigan taxes short-term lodging under its Use Tax Act rather than a separate hotel tax, and the rate is a flat 6% on stays of 30 days or fewer, per MCL 205.93a. Airbnb's own Michigan tax page confirms it collects and remits that 6% automatically on Fennville bookings, so hosts who only list on Airbnb generally don't have to file it themselves. Vrbo doesn't extend the same courtesy here: Michigan is absent from Vrbo's own list of states where it collects and remits stay taxes, so a Vrbo host, or anyone taking direct bookings, needs to register and file through Michigan Treasury Online themselves. Registration itself is free, per the Department of Treasury's own use tax page.

Above the state layer, I didn't find evidence that Allegan County or the City of Fennville levies its own accommodations tax. Michigan does let counties add one under the Excise Tax on Business of Providing Accommodations Act, and a few Michigan counties use it (Kent County runs an 8% hotel-motel tax, for instance), but Allegan County doesn't appear on the list of counties that have adopted one. Treat that as the honest current answer rather than a permanent guarantee, since a package of bills (HB 5138, HB 5139 and HB 5140 of 2025) sitting in a House committee as of this research would let local governments put a voter-approved lodging tax on the ballot. Nothing has passed yet, so don't budget for a local lodging tax until one actually exists.

Michigan Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

That absence of a county tax fits a pattern you'll see everywhere in Michigan. The state simply doesn't step in on short-term rentals the way some other states do. Michigan has no statewide preemption statute governing short-term rental zoning, licensing, or caps, and the Michigan Zoning Enabling Act contains no short-term-rental provision at all, which leaves cities and townships free to ban, cap, license, or leave the whole thing alone as they see fit. A bill that would have changed that, House Bill 4722 of 2021, passed the state House 55 to 48 and then died without a Senate vote. It never became law, and no replacement has passed since.

There's also no statewide short-term-rental registry or license. The only state-level step that applies everywhere is the 6% use tax described above, run through Michigan Treasury Online, and that's true whether you're hosting in Fennville, Ann Arbor, or anywhere else in the state. Our Michigan statewide guide walks through that framework in more depth if you're comparing Fennville against a market in a different part of the state.

What this means in practice is that Fennville's own ordinance is the entire ballgame here. There's no state floor protecting your right to host and no state ceiling capping what the city can demand, which is exactly why the local permit, the local zoning district, and the local fee schedule matter more in Michigan than they would in a state with real preemption.

Does Fennville Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Since Fennville itself sets the whole framework, how seriously it enforces that framework is worth knowing before you assume a permit is a formality. Since I last checked, I couldn't find a published enforcement case, fine, or news story specific to a Fennville short-term rental. That likely reflects the city's size more than any lack of will to act. The clearest enforcement mechanism that is documented is the annual renewal itself. Because the permit renews every year rather than sitting dormant for three, a lapsed inspection or an unpaid fee shows up on the city's radar annually rather than getting forgotten.

Zoom out to the wider lakeshore corridor around Fennville and the picture gets more serious. Saugatuck, about eleven miles away, adopted its own dedicated Short-Term Rental Licensing Ordinance (Ordinance No. 240229-B) at a February 29, 2024 City Council meeting, building out a full Chapter 99.5 in its city code with license suspension and revocation procedures, though it does grandfather in short-term rentals that were already operating under the old rules. That's a meaningfully heavier regulatory posture than Fennville's straightforward annual-permit system, and it tells you something about the direction West Michigan lakeshore communities have been moving as tourism pressure grows. Fennville hasn't followed Saugatuck down that path, at least not yet, but don't assume it never will.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Fennville

Given that gap between what's confirmed and what still needs a phone call, working through the steps in order will save you both time and the $75 fee if your property turns out not to qualify.

1. Confirm your zoning district before anything else. Call the City Administrator's office to find out whether your address sits in a district where a short-term rental is allowed outright or needs Special Land Use approval on top of the base permit.
2. Budget for the right fee. A straightforward Short-Term Rental Permit and Inspection runs $75 a year. If your district requires Special Land Use approval, budget an additional $500 plus a $1,000 refundable escrow.
3. Complete the Rental Registration Form listed on the city's business-licensing page, and ask the City Administrator whether the short-term-rental-specific permit needs anything beyond it.
4. Schedule your inspection, which runs through Professional Code Inspections of Michigan's Dorr office rather than an in-house city inspector.
5. If a Special Land Use hearing applies, prepare a site plan (parking layout, dimensions, lighting) and expect the City Clerk to publish public notice before the Planning Commission votes.
6. Register with Michigan Treasury Online if you're using Vrbo or taking direct bookings, since Airbnb collects the state's 6% use tax for you but Vrbo doesn't.
7. Diarize your renewal date. The permit is annual, not a one-time approval, so build the $75 and the inspection into next year's calendar the moment this year's is done.

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

Every step above eventually runs through the same office, so it's worth having its details on hand before you start rather than after you get stuck.

• City of Fennville, City Administrator (Katie Beemer): 125 S Maple St., Fennville, MI 49408. Phone (269) 561-8321. Email [email protected]. Office hours 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. This is the right first call for zoning district questions, the Special Land Use process, and the Short-Term Rental Permit itself.
• Professional Code Inspections of Michigan (PCI), Dorr office: contracted by the city to handle building inspections and day-to-day zoning administration, including the inspection tied to your annual STR renewal.
• Allegan County Health Department, Environmental Health: (269) 673-5415. Worth a call if your property runs on a well or septic system, which is common outside Fennville's older, more built-up blocks.
• Michigan Department of Treasury: the Michigan Treasury Online portal handles use-tax registration and filing if you're not relying on Airbnb to collect it for you.

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

With those contacts in hand, there's still the honest question of what other hosts actually say about doing this in Fennville. Here I want to be upfront about a limit rather than invent a consensus. Reddit blocks automated research tools the same way it has for every guide in this project. A genuine search for Fennville-specific threads on Reddit or BiggerPockets turned up nothing I could actually read and quote, so I'm not going to pretend a lively local forum debate exists when I never found one. Fennville is small enough that host discussion tends to fold into broader conversations about the Saugatuck and Douglas lakeshore market rather than standing on its own.

That broader market does give you real numbers to weigh, though. As of May 2026, the Saugatuck market BNBCalc tracks shows 2,649 active listings, an average daily rate of $418, and 32% average occupancy, with the typical property clearing around $50,000 a year, ranging from $27,000 on the low end up to $100,000 for a top performer. Fennville sits inland from that exact market, cheaper to buy into and with a far lighter regulatory lift than Saugatuck's newer licensing ordinance, which is probably the honest reason it draws investor interest even without much chatter of its own. If you're also comparing bigger Michigan metros, our Kent County guide covers the Grand Rapids area and our Oakland County guide covers the Detroit suburbs, both useful if Fennville's small-town scale isn't quite what you're after.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Fennville, Michigan in 2026?

Yes. Fennville allows short-term rentals under a dedicated Short-Term Rental Permit and Inspection that the city's own 2025 fee schedule prices at $75 a year, renewed annually rather than banned or capped outright. Depending on your zoning district, you may also need Special Land Use approval from the Planning Commission, which carries its own $500 fee plus a $1,000 escrow. Confirm your specific address with the City Administrator's office before you commit to a purchase or a conversion.

How much does a Fennville short-term rental permit cost?

The Short-Term Rental Permit and Inspection costs $75 per year, and it renews annually rather than on a multi-year cycle. If your property's zoning district requires Special Land Use approval on top of that base permit, budget an additional $500 application fee plus a $1,000 refundable escrow deposit, which the city returns once the review process closes.

Does Michigan state law protect short-term rentals from a citywide ban?

No. Michigan has no statewide preemption law covering short-term rentals, so a city like Fennville is free to ban, cap, or license them however it chooses. A 2021 bill, House Bill 4722, would have barred outright bans statewide, but it died after passing only the House. Every Michigan short-term rental host operates under whatever their specific city or township has decided, not a statewide guarantee.

Do you have to pay tax on a Fennville, Michigan short-term rental?

Yes. Michigan's 6% use tax applies to short-term rental stays of 30 days or fewer. Airbnb collects and remits this automatically on Fennville bookings, so most Airbnb-only hosts don't file it themselves. Vrbo does not collect it in Michigan, so a Vrbo host or anyone taking direct bookings needs to register with Michigan Treasury Online and file it directly. No additional city or county lodging tax has been confirmed for Fennville or Allegan County.

What happens if you operate an unpermitted short-term rental in Fennville?

Operating without the city's Short-Term Rental Permit and Inspection puts you outside Fennville's zoning and rental-property ordinances, which exposes you to the city's standard municipal-code enforcement process rather than a short-term-rental-specific penalty schedule that's separately published online. Since the permit renews annually, the safer and cheaper path is simply keeping the $75 renewal current rather than risking a compliance case over what amounts to a modest yearly fee.

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