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

Do you own a condo or a house in Kihei and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that plenty of short-term rentals here are entirely legal, and Maui County will happily take your General Excise Tax and Transient Accommodations Tax money either way. The complicated news, and it's genuinely complicated, is that Kihei sits inside Maui County, Hawaii, at the center of the single biggest short-term rental phase-out in the country's history. If your unit is one of the roughly 6,200 apartment-zoned "Minatoya" condos scattered across South Maui, its legal clock is already running, and it stops on January 1, 2031.

That deadline comes from Bill 9, which Mayor Richard Bissen signed into law on December 15, 2025 after the County Council passed it 5-3. It doesn't touch hotel-zoned buildings, timeshares, or permitted single-family rentals, but it does end the decades-old loophole that let apartment-zoned condos rent nightly. A separate, still-unsettled rezoning effort is trying to carve out an exception for a few thousand of those units, Kihei's Maui Sunset and Maui Hill among them, though nothing has been decided yet.

So this guide walks through what still works in Kihei in 2026: which permit path fits your property, what Maui County and the State of Hawaii charge you at every step, how hard enforcement bites, and who picks up the phone when you have a question. Every figure below comes from Maui County's or the State of Hawaii's own pages and documents, checked in July 2026, and I've flagged the handful of numbers I couldn't confirm on an official source rather than guessing. If the math on a Kihei property still looks good once you've read all this, run it through BNBCalc before you commit to anything.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Kihei

That phase-out clock is exactly why the "should I start a short-term rental in Kihei" question doesn't have one answer anymore. It depends entirely on which of three legal categories your property, or the one you're eyeing, falls into.

The first category is the one most Kihei condo owners assume they're in, and it's the one under threat. Roughly 60% of the state's Minatoya-list units sit in South Maui, meaning Kihei, Wailea, and Makena together. Maui's Department of Finance counted 6,208 of them actively operating as short-term rentals as of May 29, 2024. These are apartment-zoned (A-1 or A-2) condos that a 1989 county zoning opinion let operate as vacation rentals despite their residential-district zoning. Bill 9, now Ordinance No. 5909, ends that grandfathered status outright. No renewal, no opt-out, once the calendar hits 2031.

The second category is what remains untouched: hotel and resort-zoned buildings, licensed timeshares, and the roughly 2,700-plus non-Minatoya vacation rentals already operating legally in South Maui. If you're buying into one of Kihei's hotel-zoned towers, none of this phase-out applies to you, and the rest of this guide's licensing and tax sections cover your situation directly.

The third category is a single-family house or an owner-occupied home, and it runs on an entirely different track: a county-issued Short-Term Rental Home (STRH) or Bed and Breakfast (B&B) permit under Maui County Code chapters 19.65 and 19.64. Unfortunately for anyone hoping to break into this route fresh, it's largely closed to new entrants. The STRH application packet requires the permit holder to have held title for at least five years as of September 27, 2018. That's a fixed historical date, not a rolling window, so simply buying a qualifying house today doesn't get you there. Buying an existing STRH-permitted property, on the other hand, can work if the permit transfers with proper county approval. Kihei-Makena's STRH cap sits at 46 permits with 34 issued, and its B&B cap sits at 100 with 47 issued. There's headroom in both, just not an open door for a brand-new build.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Kihei

Since which of those three paths you're on decides everything else, it's worth being precise about what "licensing" means here before going further. Hotel-zoned and timeshare units need no STR-specific county permit at all, just the standard state tax registrations covered below. Apartment-zoned Minatoya condos historically needed none either, which is exactly the arrangement Bill 9 is unwinding.

For a single-family STRH permit, the Maui County Department of Planning is the issuing authority, and the process is thorough rather than quick. Your home's construction has to predate the application by at least five years. You'll also need a designated manager who's reachable at all times, can be onsite within one hour if called, and is based within 30 driving miles (Hana and Lanai are exempted from that last part). One STRH permit can cover up to two single-family dwellings on a lot, each with its own kitchen, for a combined maximum of six bedrooms.

The application itself runs through several stages: a pre-application notice sign posted along the access road, a completed packet with a notarized owner certification, a zoning and flood confirmation form, and a neighbor notification mailed by certified mail to every owner and lessee within 500 feet of the property. Some applications trigger a public hearing before the Maui Planning Commission, which comes with its own separate hearing fee. I wasn't able to confirm the exact dollar figure for either the base application fee or the public hearing fee on a current, readable Maui County page. So budget for "not trivial" rather than a specific number until you've called the Department directly. Do check with them before you assume a cost.

Once approved, an initial STRH permit runs for up to three years, and renewals extend it up to five years on Maui and Lanai, or one year on Molokai. Renewal applications are due within 90 days of expiration, and here's the part that catches people out: the County sends no reminder notice. Miss that window and you're starting over. Before you can open for guests, you'll also need a full liability insurance policy, a fire escape plan, fire extinguishers, and an identification sign. False or misleading statements anywhere in the process can mean denial or revocation, plus a two-year ban on reapplying.

B&B permits under chapter 19.64 work similarly but require the owner or lessee to live on-site, and Kihei-Makena's cap for those sits at 100 permits with 47 currently issued, so it's the less crowded of the two county permit types here.

Required Documents for Kihei Short-Term Rentals

Getting that application right the first time matters more than it might seem, given how much certified mail and neighbor notice is riding on it. For an STRH or B&B permit, Maui County's own checklist asks for a fairly specific stack of paperwork:

• Proof of ownership, including documentation showing at least five years of title on the STRH dwelling and identification of every owner.
• A notarized owner certification form, required for each owner of the lot or, for a condominium unit, each owner of that unit.
• A completed Designation of Manager form, covering the manager's qualifications and both residential and business contact information, if the permit holder isn't managing the property directly.
• A copy of your Transient Accommodations Tax (TAT) license for the specific rental home.
• A copy of your General Excise Tax (GET) license for the specific rental home.
• A Zoning and Flood Confirmation form, which the Department of Planning's Zoning and Administration and Enforcement Division has to complete and sign before it goes into your application.
• Site, parking, and floor plans, accurate enough to match what a planner finds during the mandatory site visit, since any discrepancy can delay processing.

Anyone in the second or third category above, meaning hotel-zoned, timeshare, or a permitted STRH or B&B, still needs that GET and TAT paperwork regardless of which permit track applies, because the tax layer sits underneath all of it. That's exactly where the next section picks up.

Kihei Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming your property clears the licensing hurdles and is able to rent legally, there's still a heavy tax stack sitting on top of every booking. Three separate taxes apply to a Kihei short-term rental, and none of them are optional.

Tax	Rate	Collected by
General Excise Tax (GET)	4% state + 0.5% county surcharge, up to 4.712% combined pass-on rate	State Dept. of Taxation
Transient Accommodations Tax (TAT)	11% (effective January 1, 2026)	State Dept. of Taxation
Maui County Transient Accommodations Tax (MCTAT)	3% (the maximum a county may adopt)	Maui County Dept. of Finance

That's 4% GET plus a 0.5% county surcharge, which is charged statewide through 2030 and combines to a maximum pass-on rate of 4.712%. On top of that sits the 11% state TAT, which rose from 10.25% at the start of 2026 under Act 96 of 2025 and runs through 2030. Then Maui County adds its own 3% MCTAT, the maximum rate a county is allowed to levy under state law, in effect since November 1, 2021. Stack all three and you're looking at roughly 18.7% on gross rental proceeds before a single dollar of income tax, which is worth building into your numbers from day one rather than discovering later.

Registration is more straightforward than the rate itself, at least. You'll need a one-time GET license (Form BB-1, $20, through Hawaii Tax Online) and a TAT certificate of registration ($5 for one to five units, $15 for six or more). Neither expires or needs annual renewal. The MCTAT piece needs no separate registration at all: a state TA-1 or TA-2 filed with DOTAX is automatically deemed filed with Maui County too. Payment deadlines mirror the state's, generally the 20th of the month following the filing period, with an annual reconciliation due April 20. Miss a deadline and the penalties stack fast: 5% of the tax due for each month late up to a 25% cap, a 2% penalty if you're required to pay electronically and don't, and interest at two-thirds of 1% per month.

Maui County also runs a distinct, and notably steeper, real property tax classification for short-term rentals, separate from GET, TAT, and MCTAT altogether. I couldn't confirm the exact current rate on a readable county page, so don't take a number from a random blog as gospel here; check your specific classification with the Real Property Assessment Division directly. And keep in mind that no state or county source confirms Airbnb or Vrbo remit any of these taxes automatically on your behalf in Hawaii, so treat platform collection as a convenience rather than something you can skip registering for yourself.

Hawaii Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

All three of those tax layers sit on a state framework that shapes everything Maui County does locally, so it's worth understanding where the line falls. Hawaii doesn't preempt counties from regulating or even phasing out short-term rentals. Quite the opposite. Act 17 of 2024 amended state law to explicitly hand counties the power to regulate "the time, place, manner, and duration" of land uses. That's the authority Maui County used to write Bill 9. The legislature passed that amendment after a federal court had enjoined part of an earlier Honolulu short-term rental ordinance, and it settled the question decisively in the counties' favor.

There's no statewide short-term rental permit or license in Hawaii. What exists instead is the tax registration layer covered above, GET and TAT, both administered by the state and required of every operator regardless of which county or zoning district you're in. Everything else, meaning whether you can rent at all, for how long, and under what permit, is decided entirely at the county level. That's exactly why a guide written for Honolulu or Lahaina won't map cleanly onto Kihei. Our Hawaii statewide guide covers the shared tax and preemption framework, while our Honolulu County guide and Honolulu city guide cover an entirely different county's rules. Our Lahaina guide covers the other side of Maui County, still under Bill 9, but on a faster West Maui timeline: January 1, 2029 instead of Kihei's 2031.

Does Kihei Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Given a phase-out this large is underway, enforcement here isn't really about whether the county checks up on you. It's about whether your specific property survives the deadline at all. As of July 2026, operating an illegal short-term rental in Maui County carries a steep civil penalty: a $20,000 initial fine plus $10,000 for every additional day the operation continues. That level was set in late 2019, specifically because the old $1,000-and-$1,000 structure had become, in the county's own framing, just another cost of doing business. That fine schedule applies regardless of which category your property falls into. And the STRH application packet itself warns that simply filing an application doesn't legalize an unlawful rental already underway.

For STRH and B&B permits specifically, Kihei-Makena isn't under any pressure from scarcity right now. At 34 of 46 STRH permits and 47 of 100 B&B permits issued, neither cap is anywhere near the 90% threshold that triggers a County Council review of the region's restrictions. The real enforcement story in Kihei in 2026 is Bill 9's calendar, not permit competition.

And that story is still being actively contested. A follow-up measure, Bill 88, passed the County Council 7-2 on June 19, 2026. It creates two new hotel zoning categories, H-3 and H-4, meant to let owners of roughly 4,500 grandfathered units at 104 properties seek reclassification instead of shutting down. On July 25, 2026, the Council voted 7-1 to send a first batch of about 2,056 units to the Planning Commission for review, including Kihei's own Kauhale Makai at 938 S. Kihei Road, alongside Maui Sunset and Maui Hill. Since I last checked, though, that outcome is genuinely uncertain. The Maui Planning Commission already voted 5-1 against the whole H-3/H-4 concept back in February, and if it does the same on this specific batch, the Council would need a two-thirds supermajority to override it. Don't plan a purchase around a rezoning that hasn't happened yet.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Kihei

With enforcement now tied to a moving deadline, the order you tackle these steps in matters even more here than in most markets. Working through them out of sequence risks spending real money on a property that's counting down regardless.

1. Check the zoning and the Minatoya status first, before anything else. Confirm with a title search or the seller's disclosures whether your unit is apartment-zoned and on the Minatoya list, hotel-zoned, or a single-family lot eligible for STRH or B&B use. This single fact decides which of the rest of this guide applies to you.
2. If you're buying into an apartment-zoned Minatoya condo, price in the 2031 deadline. Don't treat a rezoning under Bill 88 as a given; it's still working through the Planning Commission as of mid-2026.
3. For a single-family STRH or B&B route, confirm eligibility before spending anything. Remember the September 27, 2018 ownership-tenure cutoff for STRH permits, and check Kihei-Makena's remaining permit headroom (12 STRH slots, 53 B&B slots as of this research).
4. Register for state GET and TAT through Hawaii Tax Online before you take a single booking; both are one-time registrations with no county equivalent to file separately for MCTAT.
5. Assemble the full document packet if you're pursuing an STRH or B&B permit: ownership proof, notarized certifications, manager designation, tax licenses, and zoning confirmation.
6. Complete the neighbor notification and, if triggered, the public hearing process, keeping copies of every certified mail receipt for the Department's file.
7. Get pre-operation requirements squared away before opening: liability insurance, fire escape plan, extinguishers, and signage.
8. Diarize your renewal date the moment you're approved. The County sends no reminder, and STRH renewals must be filed within 90 days of expiration.
9. Budget for the full 18.7% combined tax stack in your pricing model from the start, not as an afterthought once the first booking clears.

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

However far you've gotten through that list, a handful of Maui County and State of Hawaii offices handle nearly every question that comes up.

Maui County Department of Planning, Current Planning Division handles STRH, B&B, and zoning confirmation applications.

• Address: 2200 Main Street, Suite 619, Wailuku, HI 96793
• Phone: (808) 270-8205 (general Planning Administration line: (808) 270-7735)
• Fax: (808) 270-1775

Maui County TAT Office, part of the Department of Finance, handles the county's Transient Accommodations Tax.

• Address: 110 'Ala'ihi Street, Suite 107, Kahului, HI 96732
• Phone: (808) 270-7637
• Fax: (808) 270-6230

Maui County Real Property Assessment Division handles your property's tax classification.

• Address: 110 'Ala'ihi Street, Suite 110, Kahului, HI 96732
• Phone: (808) 270-7297

Hawaii Department of Taxation, Maui District Office handles state GET and TAT registration and filing.

• Address: 54 South High Street, Suite 208, Wailuku, HI 96793
• Phone: (808) 984-8500
• Hours: Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Keep in mind that none of these offices can tell you whether your specific condo will be rezoned under Bill 88. That decision sits with the Maui Planning Commission and, potentially, the full County Council.

What Airbnb Hosts in Kihei Report About Local Regulations

With those contacts in hand, it's worth knowing what actual hosts and investors are saying about all this. Sentiment has shifted hard from where it sat a few years ago. Reading through older BiggerPockets threads on Maui investing, from well before Bill 9 existed, the pitch used to be straightforward: entry-level Kihei condos rented reliably, the roughly 14% combined tax load of that era got baked into nightly pricing, and a soft market could always fall back on Maui's chronically tight long-term rental demand. That old logic hasn't disappeared. It's just no longer the whole picture.

Current real estate industry commentary on Bill 9 tells a very different story for anyone holding a Minatoya-list unit right now. Some Kihei condos in affected buildings have reportedly traded at steep discounts to their pre-Bill 9 peak, as buyers price in the 2031 cutoff. And 94% of the units affected are owned by people who don't live in Maui County, according to Mayor Bissen's own office. That absentee-owner number is a big part of why the political fight has been so bitter. Going through the coverage of Bill 88's progress myself, my read is that the H-3/H-4 rezoning path is a genuine wildcard, not a safety net. The Planning Commission has already opposed the concept once. Testimony keeps stressing "adequate time" for individual review rather than a fast rubber stamp. Anyone buying into a Kihei Minatoya condo purely for its short-term rental income should treat that income as time-limited unless a specific building gets rezoned. It's not a permanent feature of the deal.

If your numbers still hold up even at the more conservative end of that timeline, BNBCalc Markets is the fastest way to see what Kihei and the rest of Maui are actually producing at the neighborhood level before you commit.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I legally run an Airbnb in Kihei in 2026?

It depends entirely on your property's zoning. Hotel-zoned buildings, licensed timeshares, and properties holding a Short-Term Rental Home or Bed and Breakfast permit can operate legally today. Apartment-zoned "Minatoya list" condos, which make up a large share of Kihei's rental inventory, remain legal for now but must stop renting short-term by January 1, 2031 under Maui County's Bill 9, unless a pending hotel-rezoning process saves that specific building first.

What is the Minatoya list, and is my Kihei condo on it?

The Minatoya list refers to apartment-zoned condominium buildings that a 1989 county legal opinion allowed to operate as vacation rentals despite their residential zoning. Roughly 6,200 units statewide were on it as of 2024, with about 60% located in South Maui, meaning Kihei, Wailea, and Makena. Check with the seller, a title company, or Maui County's Department of Planning to confirm your specific unit's status before buying or renting it out.

How much tax do I pay on a Kihei short-term rental?

Three taxes stack on every stay: the state General Excise Tax at up to 4.712% combined with the county surcharge, the state Transient Accommodations Tax at 11%, and the Maui County Transient Accommodations Tax at 3%. Combined, that's roughly 18.7% of gross rental proceeds, collected by the State of Hawaii and Maui County respectively. A separate, distinct real property tax classification for short-term rentals also applies, at a rate you should confirm directly with the county.

What happens to my Kihei condo after Bill 9's 2031 deadline?

Once the deadline hits, apartment-zoned Minatoya units in South Maui, including Kihei, lose the legal right to operate as short-term rentals, with no renewal, opt-out, or automatic grandfathering. The unit would need to convert to long-term residential use, unless it has separately been rezoned into one of the new H-3 or H-4 hotel districts created by Bill 88, a process still working through the Maui Planning Commission as of mid-2026.

Can I still get a new short-term rental permit for a house in Kihei?

Getting a Short-Term Rental Home permit on a property you just bought is difficult, since the permit holder must have held title for at least five years as of September 27, 2018, a fixed date rather than a rolling requirement. Buying an existing STRH-permitted property, and having the permit properly transferred with county approval, is generally the realistic path. Kihei-Makena's B&B route has more room, with 47 of its 100-permit cap currently issued.

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