Hudson County, New Jersey Short-Term Rental Regulations: A 2026 Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Hudson County, New Jersey, and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that the county itself won't stand in your way, because Hudson County has no short-term rental ordinance at all. In New Jersey that's a municipal job rather than a county one, and the state's own Division of Local Government Services says as much in Local Finance Notice 2026-09, issued April 7, 2026: "Rental of short-term transient accommodations is largely subject to municipal ordinance."

Which is where the bad news lives, because Hudson County is twelve separate municipalities and they've spent the last two years moving apart rather than together. Six of them now ban short-term rentals outright. Four issue permits, but only to an owner who actually lives in the property. Two, Hoboken and East Newark, still have no rule either way. Unfortunately for most people reading this, that means the plan almost everyone arrives with, buying a unit, furnishing it, and renting it whole at nightly rates, isn't legal anywhere in the county, at any price, under any structure.

So let's walk through what it actually takes to do this properly: which town you're in and what it allows, what a permit costs and how long it lasts, the documents you'll be chasing before you can apply, the four separate tax layers that can attach to one night, and how hard any of it gets enforced. Every figure below comes from a municipal ordinance, a town's own application form, or a New Jersey state publication, checked in July 2026, and where I couldn't reach a document I've said so instead of guessing. Assuming Hudson County turns out to be a dead end for your particular property, run the numbers through BNBCalc against a market that isn't before you commit to anything.

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

Because the rules are municipal, the first question isn't "what does Hudson County allow", it's "which side of a town line is my property on". That same Local Finance Notice quotes the enabling statute, N.J.S.A. 40:52-1(n), which authorises a municipality to 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". Note that word, though, because it's doing a lot of work: the statute authorises, so it doesn't require anything, doesn't cap anything, and says nothing at all about counties.

The county does surface in one place, and it's a small one. Bayonne's short-term rental ordinance takes effect only after "transmittal to the Hudson County Planning Board (if applicable)", which is the county's ordinary land-use review role rather than any power over your listing. There's no county lodging tax either, since the Division of Taxation's Municipal Occupancy Tax List carries a Hudson County header row with no rate in either column.

Town by town, here's where the twelve stood in July 2026.

Municipality	Position on short-term rentals	Governing law
Jersey City	Permit, owner-occupied, 60 unhosted nights a year	Municipal Code Ch. 255, amended by Ord. 25-059 (June 2025)
Bayonne	Permit, owner-occupied, 60 unhosted nights a year	Ch. 33 Art. XX, O-24-12 as amended by O-24-37 (2024)
Harrison	Permit, owner's principal residence	Ordinance No. 1550 (December 2025)
North Bergen	Permit, owner-occupied, 60 nights a year	Ordinance #706-26 (March 2026)
Union City	Banned, hosted or not	Code § 296-13 (2015, widened 2016)
West New York	Banned, hosted or not	Code Ch. 380A, Ord. No. 35/17 (2018)
Weehawken	Banned under 30 consecutive days	Ordinance 19-2022 (December 2022)
Secaucus	Banned	Board of Health Ch. 154, Ord. No. 2019-26
Guttenberg	Banned, hosted or not	Code Ch. 29, Ord. No. 16-2018
Kearny	Banned, all residential dwellings	Town Code § 15-4, Ord. 2026-7 (February 2026)
Hoboken	No short-term rental ordinance	none
East Newark	No short-term rental ordinance	none

What that table can't show you is that the definitions don't line up, which is what catches people. A short-term rental means 28 consecutive days or fewer in Jersey City, North Bergen and Harrison, and 30 days or fewer in the six ban towns. Then there's Bayonne, where the short-term rental ordinance sets the line at "sixty (60) days or fewer consecutive days", the widest definition in the county by a mile. So a two-month furnished let that's nobody's business in Jersey City is a permitted short-term rental in Bayonne, and you'll want to check your own town's threshold before assuming a longer booking sits outside the rules.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Hudson County

Once you've found your town on that list, the next thing to work out is whether what you had in mind is a business at all here, and for most readers it isn't. Every one of the four permit towns ties the permit to your own address. Jersey City's Chapter 255, as amended by Ordinance 25-059 and passed 9-0 on June 11, 2025, says no permit shall issue "except to applicants who are the owner and principal resident" of the property. Then it defines principal residence with a hard number attached: you have to live there at least 275 days in the calendar year. That's nine months in the building.

North Bergen copied that 275-day test almost word for word when it adopted Ordinance #706-26 in March 2026, and Harrison's own short-term rental application form asks you to certify that the property "constitutes at least one Owner's principal residence". Bayonne's six permitted property classes are all owner-occupied too, or else tied to an association where the owner lives. So the buy-it, furnish-it, never-set-foot-in-it plan has nowhere to go here.

A few more doors close on top of that:

• Tenants can never host. Jersey City, Bayonne and North Bergen all bar a tenant from applying and from subletting short-term, and each ordinance says it overrides any lease clause that permits subletting. Enforcement then reaches the tenant, the owner, the agent and the responsible party together.
• Rent-regulated and subsidised units are out. Jersey City excludes any multiple dwelling where rent is set by HUD, a State agency, an owner-developer agreement, or its own rent control chapter. North Bergen and Harrison carry the same exclusion.
• You can hold two permits, and no more. Ordinance 25-059 added a ceiling of two short-term rental permits per person or entity in Jersey City, and it closes the obvious workaround by counting permits held through any entity you sit on the board of, direct, control, or hold an interest in. North Bergen's ceiling is two as well.
• Big buildings are off limits for unhosted stays. Neither Jersey City nor Bayonne permits an unhosted rental in a multiple dwelling of more than four separate units, and advertising one is itself a violation.

So what's left? If your numbers only worked at nightly rates, the realistic pivot is the one New York hosts made after 2023, which is the furnished mid-term market. A lease of at least 90 consecutive days falls outside New Jersey's transient accommodation tax entirely under Technical Bulletin TB-81R2, and at 30-plus nights you're outside every Hudson County short-term rental ordinance as well. Be aware that's a different business with different margins, though, so you'd be changing the model rather than tweaking it.

Our New Jersey statewide guide maps where in the state whole-unit nightly rentals are still genuinely available, and the Ocean County guide covers the shore market that most Hudson County owners end up looking at next.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirements in Hudson County

Assuming your property clears all of that and you're in one of the four towns that issue permits, the terms still differ enough between them to matter. Jersey City charges a $250 initial registration fee and $200 to renew each year, both non-refundable even if the application is denied, and the renewal falls due at least 30 days before the permit expires. Bayonne is four times as expensive, since its ordinance sets $1,000 for the initial registration and $750 to renew, while Harrison's own form puts its non-refundable initial fee at $250 and North Bergen's Ordinance #706-26 sets $500 both times. Those were the figures as of July 2026, so do check them against the town's current fee schedule before you write the cheque.

Whatever you pay, every one of these permits runs for one year from the date of issuance, and every one dies automatically the day the property changes hands. None of them transfers. Jersey City then gives the Division of Housing Preservation 30 days to issue or deny in writing, after which you get ten business days to appeal to the Business Administrator. Watch that second clock, because if the Administrator neither decides nor schedules a hearing inside 30 days, your appeal is automatically denied and your next stop is Superior Court. North Bergen runs the same two clocks through its Town Administrator.

The operating conditions are stricter than the paperwork suggests. In Jersey City a single unit is limited to three short-term rental contracts at a time, and while it's rented the owner or a named responsible party has to be reachable 24 hours a day and answer a complaint within two hours. The permit number belongs in every listing and advertisement, including any MLS entry, while signage on the building itself is banned outright. On top of that you have to keep a running log of every transient occupant, with names, ages and dates, ready for inspection. Harrison and North Bergen both want that same 24/7 responsible party, and Harrison goes further still by asking you to cap guests at one vehicle per two occupants and to write that into the rental agreement.

Keep in mind that the unhosted night cap is where a Hudson County permit stops looking like a business. Jersey City and Bayonne both allow 60 total nights per calendar year when you aren't present, North Bergen allows 60 nights full stop, and all three treat every night over the limit as a separate violation rather than one offence. Sixty nights at a Jersey City rate is real money, though it isn't a mortgage, and that's the honest ceiling on the whole opportunity.

Required Documents for Hudson County Short-Term Rentals

Since those fees don't come back, it's worth getting the file right the first time, and the document lists are longer than the fee suggests. Jersey City's permit application checklist sends you round four separate offices before you can even submit, which is the part that surprises applicants most.

• A Zoning Compliance Certificate from the Division of Zoning Enforcement at 1 Jackson Square, which you have to request specifically for a short-term rental permit and by address including the unit number.
• A Municipal Court Compliance Certificate confirming no outstanding fines or penalties, and no noise violations under Chapter 222 in the last two years. New applications go through the Office of the Municipal Prosecutor at 365 Summit Avenue; renewals go through the Municipal Court itself.
• Written clearance from the Division of Collections at 280 Grove Street showing no outstanding taxes, water or sewer charges.
• Two utility bills less than 30 days old, proof of ownership, a driver's licence or State ID showing the property as your principal residence, and the master deed or bylaws if the unit sits in an association.
• Proof of general liability insurance of at least $500,000. Bayonne and North Bergen require the same $500,000 minimum.
• The Owner's Affidavit, the Short-term Rental Property Agent Certification and the Responsible Party Certification, each carrying seven-day, twenty-four-hour contact details.

Then come the inspections. Housing Preservation and the Fire Official run those once the paperwork clears, and the permit follows inside 30 days of a satisfactory result. Renewal applications repeat everything except those three certifications and the zoning letter, and the inspections themselves come round every three years rather than annually.

Harrison's list is shorter but has one item nobody expects, which is a smoke detector certification from Harrison Fire Prevention filed with the application rather than arranged afterwards. Alongside it you'll need identification for the owner and for the responsible party if they're different people, two utility bills under 30 days old, proof of ownership, proof of general liability insurance, and a copy of the proposed rental agreement carrying the one-vehicle-per-two-occupants clause. Anyone whose property was already operating as a non-owner-occupied short-term rental on December 16, 2025 can keep going, but only with proof that it was in use on that date and only if somebody living at the property is named as responsible.

North Bergen asks for eighteen items, and the one that trips owners up is the same letter Jersey City wants, a separate zoning determination that has to land before the application counts as complete. Don't forget that an open construction permit blocks a short-term rental permit in Jersey City, Bayonne and North Bergen alike. Close them out early.

Hudson County, New Jersey Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you manage to get a permit and are able to start hosting, there's still tax to deal with, and up to four layers can land on a single night. Two of them are the state's, one belongs to a regional district that happens to run through the middle of the county, and the fourth is municipal.

Charge	Rate	Where it applies	Collected by
New Jersey Sales Tax	6.625%	Statewide	NJ Division of Taxation
State Occupancy Fee	5%, reduced to 1% in Jersey City	Statewide	NJ Division of Taxation
Meadowlands Regional Hotel Use Assessment	3%	Jersey City, Kearny, North Bergen, Secaucus	NJ Division of Taxation
Municipal occupancy tax	6% Jersey City; 3% Guttenberg from 6/1/2026; 3% North Bergen from 9/1/2026	Those towns only	The municipality

TB-81R2 sets the first three, and it's worth reading its exclusions rather than its rates, because the exclusions decide whether you owe anything at all. The tax only attaches where the stay is booked through a transient space marketplace such as Airbnb or Vrbo, or where the unit is a "professionally managed unit". The bulletin defines that as a unit whose owner offers two or more other New Jersey units for rent that year. So a direct booking taken outside any marketplace by an owner with fewer than three New Jersey units isn't taxed, and neither is a stay of 90 consecutive days or more, or a rental executed entirely by a licensed New Jersey broker.

The Meadowlands assessment is the layer people miss. The bulletin names the towns it covers plainly, and in Hudson County they're Jersey City, Kearny, North Bergen and Secaucus, two of which ban short-term rentals anyway. So in practice the 3% reaches Jersey City and North Bergen hosts.

On top of that, Jersey City runs its own tax. Ordinance 20-027 imposes a 6% tax on charges for the use or occupancy of transient accommodations, collected by whoever collects the occupancy charge and paid quarterly to the City's Chief Fiscal Officer. That's also why the state fee drops in Jersey City: TB-81R2 records that when the city extended its hotel tax to transient accommodations, effective December 1, 2021, the State Occupancy Fee there fell to 1%.

Add the four Jersey City layers as the state's own bulletin states them and you get 16.625%. Be aware that TB-81R2's own worked example says 13.625% for a Jersey City stay, counting sales tax, the city's 6% and the 1% fee, and leaving out the 3% Meadowlands assessment that the same bulletin says applies to Jersey City. I couldn't find anything in the document that exempts Jersey City from the assessment, so I'd budget for 16.625% and put the question to the Division of Taxation rather than trust either total.

Elsewhere the stack is simpler. A marketplace-booked stay in Bayonne or Harrison carries 6.625% plus the full 5% state fee and nothing else, so 11.625% all in, because neither town's municipal tax reaches transient accommodations. North Bergen sits at 14.625% today and then rises to 17.625% on September 1, 2026, when its own 3% transient accommodations rate takes effect. Guttenberg's new 3% rate started June 1, 2026, which is a curious thing for a town that bans residential short-term rentals to have adopted, though it presumably reaches the hotels and bed-and-breakfasts the town does approve.

Airbnb and Vrbo collect the state layers and pay them over for you. The municipal piece is the one to check, because the platforms lump local occupancy taxes into one generic bucket and tell hosts to confirm with the local finance department, so don't assume your Jersey City 6% is being handled.

New Jersey Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

Those tax layers are the closest thing New Jersey has to a statewide short-term rental regime, because the state regulates the money and then leaves everything else to the towns. There's no state licence, no state registry, and no preemption running in either direction, which means a municipality may ban short-term rentals completely, as six Hudson County towns have, and nothing in state law disturbs it.

The one state registration that can apply is Form NJ-REG, and it applies narrowly. TB-81R2 requires it at least 15 business days before renting, but only where the unit is professionally managed and the bookings don't all run through a marketplace that already collects the tax. Most single-property Hudson County hosts never touch it.

What makes 2026 genuinely odd is the direction of travel. Local Finance Notice 2026-09 was written to remind municipalities "of their authority to allow New Jersey residents to participate in the short-term rental market, helping them generate income while keeping tourism dollars within their communities", timed to the World Cup and the America 250 celebrations. Trenton spent the spring encouraging towns to open up. Hudson County spent the same spring doing the opposite, with Kearny banning everything in February and North Bergen writing a permit regime that caps hosting at 60 nights in March.

That divergence is the whole story of the state, really, and it plays out differently county by county. Bergen County, immediately north across the Meadowlands and home to MetLife Stadium, is worth reading alongside this one in the Bergen County guide, and the Monmouth County guide covers a shore market where whole-unit rentals are ordinary rather than exceptional.

Does Hudson County Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Trenton's encouragement doesn't reach the enforcement officers, and Hudson County's towns enforce hard on paper while conceding, sometimes out loud, that they struggle to enforce in practice. North Bergen put the gap in its own ordinance. The 2023 measure that banned short-term rentals recorded that "there are from 150 to 300 short-term rental properties available in North Bergen" based on internet advertisements, while "only about 60 short-term rental properties have been registered with the Township". That's a compliance rate somewhere between a fifth and two fifths, written down by the township itself.

Kearny's council said much the same thing while voting for its ban. Reporting the February 2026 vote, Hudson County View quoted Councilwoman Eileen Eckel saying that "if we can't enforce that rule or that law, it's just … politics at its best". Another councilman asked whether a short-staffed construction department could keep up, and officials answered that a hiring freeze made monitoring impossible. Councilman Fred Esteves argued the real lever isn't inspectors at all: notify the platforms, because "99 percent of short-term leases are done through the internet", then sue them if Kearny listings don't come down.

The penalties are not soft, mind you. Kearny's Ordinance 2026-7 sets $750 a day and up to 10 days in jail for a first violation, rising to $1,200 a day and 20 days for a second, then $2,000 a day and 30 days for a third. Since each day counts separately, the unpaid fines end up as a lien on the property. Secaucus runs $500 to $2,000 per diem or up to 90 days in jail, while Weehawken's ladder was reported at $1,000, $1,500 and $2,000 with the same 90-day exposure when the township adopted it in December 2022. Jersey City is the gentlest of them at up to $2,000 per violation, though its $100-a-day floor keeps running until you fix the problem. At least it gives you 30 days to cure it.

Still, two features of these ordinances do more work than the fines do. The first is that advertising is itself the offence, since West New York's Chapter 380A bars anyone, "including any hosting platform operator", from aiding, facilitating or advertising a non-compliant vacation rental, and Secaucus likewise makes listing a property a violation whether or not a guest ever arrives. And the second is that the town takes the money back. West New York and Guttenberg both order a convicted violator to cover the town's full investigative costs and to hand over all illegally obtained rental revenue, which turns a profitable year into a negative one instead of a fine you can price in.

Jersey City is the one place with a track record long enough to judge. Voters upheld the restrictions at a referendum on November 5, 2019 after Airbnb spent at least $4.2 million campaigning against them, and operators who sued lost: in Nekrilov v. City of Jersey City, a precedential opinion filed August 16, 2022, the Third Circuit affirmed dismissal of Takings, Contract Clause and Due Process challenges with prejudice. Watch out for the quieter mechanism, though, which is revocation rather than litigation. Three substantiated complaints force the Division of Housing Preservation to revoke a Jersey City permit and bar a new application on that property for a year, and one complaint can do it at the Director's discretion.

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

Given that a revocation costs you a year and the fee still doesn't come back, the order of the steps below matters more than it looks. The early ones tell you whether the later ones are worth attempting at all.

1. Find your municipality, not your county. Confirm the town from your tax bill or deed rather than your mailing address, since ZIP codes cross town lines here. If it's Union City, West New York, Weehawken, Secaucus, Guttenberg or Kearny, stop: there is no permit to apply for.
2. Check that you actually live there. Jersey City and North Bergen both require 275 days a year at the property, evidenced by two of a state ID, motor vehicle registration, tax documents or a utility bill. Harrison and Bayonne require it to be your principal residence too.
3. Rule out the categorical exclusions. Rent-controlled, HUD-subsidised, State-agency and affordable-housing units are excluded everywhere, tenants can't apply anywhere, and unhosted stays are barred in buildings over four units in Jersey City and Bayonne.
4. Clear your record before you spend anything. All municipal taxes, water and sewer current, all code violations abated, all construction permits closed, no municipal court fines outstanding, and no recent noise violations.
5. Get the zoning letter first. The Zoning Compliance Certificate in Jersey City and the Zoning Determination Letter in North Bergen and Harrison each take their own turnaround, and the application isn't complete without them.
6. Buy the insurance. At least $500,000 of general liability cover in Jersey City, Bayonne and North Bergen; Harrison requires proof of general liability insurance without naming a figure.
7. Name a responsible party and mean it. Somebody has to answer the phone 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and in Jersey City respond to a complaint within two hours.
8. Apply and pay. $250 in Jersey City and Harrison, $500 in North Bergen, $1,000 in Bayonne, all non-refundable. Jersey City runs its applications through the Tyler self-service portal; Harrison's go through the Town Clerk's office.
9. Pass the inspections, which in Jersey City means Housing Preservation and the Fire Official, and in Harrison starts with a smoke detector certification from Fire Prevention.
10. Set up the permit number, the log and the tax before your first guest. The permit number belongs in every advertisement, the occupant log starts on night one, and you'll want the municipal occupancy tax question settled with your platform rather than discovered at a quarterly filing.
11. Diarise the renewal. One year from issuance, with Jersey City's renewal due 30 days before expiry, and remember the permit dies the day the property changes hands.

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

Whichever of those steps you get stuck on, the office you want is municipal, because Hudson County's own government doesn't administer any of this. Its website blocked every automated request I made, so I've left out a county number rather than publish one I couldn't verify.

The four towns that issue permits

Jersey City, Division of Housing Preservation administers Chapter 255 and issues the permit.

• Address: Three Jackson Square, 342 Martin Luther King Drive, Jersey City, NJ 07305
• Phone: (201) 547-4821
• Hours: Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., last walk-in 3:30 p.m.
• Apply: the Tyler permitting and licensing portal
• Zoning certificate: Division of Zoning Enforcement, 1 Jackson Square, (201) 547-4832, [email protected]
• Tax, water and sewer clearance: Division of Collections, 280 Grove Street, Room 101, (201) 547-5124

Bayonne, Department of Planning, Zoning and Development issues the permit under Chapter 33.

• Address: City Hall, 630 Avenue C, Bayonne, NJ 07002
• Phone: (201) 858-6182
• City Clerk: (201) 858-6029

Harrison, Town Clerk's Office handles applications under Ordinance No. 1550.

• Address: 318 Harrison Avenue, Harrison, NJ 07029
• Phone: (973) 268-2442, or (973) 268-2425 for the main town line
• Forms: the Town's short-term rental page carries the application

North Bergen, Department of Community Improvements, at the Building Department in Town Hall.

• Address: 4233 Kennedy Boulevard, North Bergen, NJ 07047
• Phone: (201) 392-2000 for the township, (201) 392-2051 for Code Enforcement
• The township publishes no office hours I could find, so call ahead.

The towns that ban them, if you need to confirm or report

• Union City: Building Department (201) 348-5710, City Clerk (201) 348-5731, City Hall, 3715 Palisade Avenue, Union City, NJ 07087
• West New York: Code Enforcement (201) 295-5174, Town Clerk (201) 295-5093, Town Hall, 428 60th Street, West New York, NJ 07093
• Weehawken: Township offices, 400 Park Avenue, Weehawken, NJ 07086, (201) 319-6005
• Secaucus: Construction Department, Town Hall Annex, 20 Centre Avenue, first floor, Secaucus, NJ 07094, (201) 330-2027, Monday to Friday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• Guttenberg: Town Hall, 6808 Park Avenue, Guttenberg, NJ 07093
• Kearny: Town Hall, 402 Kearny Avenue, Kearny, NJ 07032, (201) 955-7400

State tax

Sales Tax, the State Occupancy Fee and the Meadowlands assessment belong to the New Jersey Division of Taxation, not to any town. Its Municipal Occupancy Tax List is the document to check before you set a rate, since it shows which municipality has extended a lodging tax to transient accommodations and from what date. Business registration through Form NJ-REG runs through the Division of Revenue and Enterprise Services.

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

Those phone numbers get called a lot less often than the listings suggest they should, which is roughly what hosts say themselves. What follows is my read of the public discussion rather than any kind of survey, and I haven't read Reddit, which blocks automated access, so nothing here is a claim about what any particular thread says.

• The gap between the rule and the listings is the recurring theme. On BiggerPockets, an investor looking at Union City as a strategy wrote in May 2023 that "there is an ordinance prohibiting <30 day rentals" and yet "when I go on AirBnB I see literally >1000 short term rentals in Union City NJ", then asked whether anyone had experience of the city actually enforcing its ban. Nobody in the thread answered that question, which is itself the answer most owners come away with.
• Officials describe the same gap from the other side. Kearny's deputy mayor counted 35 to 50 weekly listings across multi-family buildings in a town that had banned them in single-family homes since 2017, and North Bergen wrote its own compliance gap straight into an ordinance.
• Investors have largely stopped treating Hudson County as an Airbnb market. The threads that stay here move to house-hacking questions, spare-room arrangements and mid-term furnished rentals rather than whole-unit nightly plans, which tracks with rules that only ever permitted the owner-occupied version.
• The Hoboken exception draws the most attention. Gothamist reported in April 2026 that Hoboken "lacks any rules pertaining to short-term listings" while its neighbours locked theirs down, with Councilmember Joe Quintero warning that "if we don't have clear rules set, it will be the Wild West". Take that as a snapshot rather than a plan, because a town with no ordinance is a town that can write one at any meeting.

The thing worth holding onto is that a visible listing proves nothing about legality here. Six of these twelve towns treat the advertisement itself as the violation, so a page full of Union City rentals is evidence of an enforcement backlog, not of permission. If you're comparing what a legal Hudson County room-share might clear against places where a whole unit can go on the platform, the New Jersey market data is the place to start on the revenue side before the legal side narrows your options.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Hudson County, New Jersey in 2026?

Only in four of the county's twelve municipalities, and only as an owner who lives in the property. Jersey City, Bayonne, Harrison and North Bergen issue annual short-term rental permits tied to the applicant's principal residence. Union City, West New York, Weehawken, Secaucus, Guttenberg and Kearny prohibit short-term rentals outright, and Hoboken and East Newark have no short-term rental ordinance in either direction. No Hudson County town permits a new non-owner-occupied whole-unit rental at nightly rates.

How much does a Hudson County short-term rental permit cost?

It depends on the town. Jersey City charges $250 for an initial permit and $200 to renew each year. Harrison charges a $250 non-refundable initial registration fee. North Bergen charges $500 initially and $500 to renew. Bayonne is the most expensive at $1,000 initially and $750 to renew. Every one of these fees is non-refundable even if the application is denied, and every permit runs for one year from the date it's issued.

What taxes apply to a short-term rental in Hudson County?

New Jersey Sales Tax of 6.625% and a State Occupancy Fee of 5% apply to marketplace-booked stays, with the fee reduced to 1% in Jersey City. A 3% Meadowlands Regional Hotel Use Assessment applies in Jersey City, Kearny, North Bergen and Secaucus. Jersey City adds a 6% municipal occupancy tax of its own, and North Bergen adds 3% from September 1, 2026. Bookings taken directly outside any platform by an owner with fewer than three New Jersey units aren't taxed at all.

Does Hudson County have its own short-term rental ordinance?

No. New Jersey gives regulation of short-term rentals to municipalities rather than counties, and the state's April 2026 Local Finance Notice says the rental of short-term transient accommodations is largely subject to municipal ordinance. Hudson County has no lodging tax either. Its only involvement is ordinary land-use review through the County Planning Board, which is why Bayonne's short-term rental ordinance took effect after transmittal to that board.

Can you rent a property in Hudson County for 30 days or more?

Yes, and it's the main route left for anyone with a whole unit. Every Hudson County definition tops out at 30 days, except Bayonne's, which reaches 60 days or fewer, so a stay above your town's threshold falls under ordinary landlord and tenant law instead. At 90 consecutive days or more, New Jersey's transient accommodation taxes drop away too.

Zoning maps and permit fees change on a council vote, and a town with no rule in July can have one by September. So the durable skill isn't memorising a fee schedule, it's knowing which layer of government owns the question you're asking and reading that layer's own document before you buy. Everything else is somebody's summary.

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