Minneapolis, Minnesota Short-Term Rental Regulation: A Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Minneapolis, Minnesota and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that you can. Minneapolis actually licenses short-term rentals rather than banning them, which puts it in a friendlier spot than plenty of the cities I've researched for this series. The catch, and there is one, is that the city cares a lot about which path you take to get there.

Everything runs through the Minneapolis Code of Ordinances, Title 12, Chapter 244, and it splits hosts into two lanes. If you live in the home and rent it out while you're away, you register it. If it's a separate property you don't live in and rent continuously, you need a full rental dwelling license instead, with inspections and tiered fees attached. Either way, you're capped at one short-term rental beyond your own homestead, and that cap follows you across LLCs too, so setting up a second company doesn't buy you a second unit.

So let's walk through what it actually takes to do this properly in 2026: which lane you fall into, what the paperwork and fees look like, the three-plus layers of tax that stack on every booking, how seriously Minneapolis enforces its own rules, and who to call when something doesn't fit the form. Every figure below comes from Minneapolis's or Minnesota's own pages, checked in July 2026, and where I couldn't pin something down to an official source, I've said so plainly rather than guessing. If you're weighing a Minneapolis property against a market with looser rules, run both through BNBCalc first.

What are Short-Term Rental (Airbnb, VRBO) Regulations Minneapolis, Minnesota?

A short-term rental in Minneapolis is defined simply: charging rent for a stay of 30 days or less, whether the booking comes through Airbnb, Vrbo, or anywhere else. That definition sits inside the city's Housing Maintenance Code, Title 12, Chapter 244, and every applicant signs a statement affirming compliance with it directly on the short-term rental application.

What makes Minneapolis genuinely different from a lot of cities is that it doesn't zone short-term rentals out of most neighborhoods or cap the total number citywide. Instead, it regulates through the licensing lane you're in. Homestead properties, meaning the owner's own primary residence, need a short-term rental registration. Non-homestead properties, meaning anything you own but don't live in and rent continuously, need a full rental license instead, with the inspection and fee structure that comes with any other rental license in the city.

Two structural limits apply no matter which lane you're in. First, an owner can hold only one short-term rental besides their homestead, and that restriction reaches across separate LLCs, so it isn't something a corporate structure gets around. Second, in buildings with 20 or more units, short-term rentals can't exceed 10% of the total units, though condominiums are exempt from that particular cap. Both rules exist to stop short-term rentals from crowding out the ordinary housing stock, which is exactly the tension this ordinance is trying to manage.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Minneapolis, Minnesota

That one-STR cap is the first thing to plan around, since it shapes what "starting a business" even means here. You're not building a portfolio of nightly-rate units the way you might in a market with no ownership limit. You're either renting your own home while you travel, or you're running exactly one additional property on top of it, and any building or entity structure you use has to respect that same ceiling.

Because the cap is ownership-based rather than unit-based, a few things follow directly:

• Renters generally can't register on their own. The application asks for the owner or shareholder by name, and a corporation or LLC has to list a natural person plus its Articles of Organization. There's no tenant-facing path in the paperwork itself.
• Buying a duplex, triplex or fourplex to convert into a short-term rental triggers its own fee. Conversions like this carry a $1,000 conversion fee, and a change of ownership on an already-licensed duplex through fourplex adds a separate $450 fee. Condo, co-op and townhouse buildings with six or more units on one parcel are exempt from both.
• Occupancy caps out at 10 people, and Minneapolis is explicit that this is an upper limit, not a guarantee. A large property doesn't automatically get 10 guests, but no property can host more than 10 regardless of size.

If the numbers don't pencil for a single Minneapolis unit, it's worth checking whether a nearby suburb changes the math, since the ownership cap and inspection requirements aren't uniform across Hennepin County. The Hennepin County guide covers the county layer that sits above every city in it, and the Brooklyn Park guide is a useful comparison if you're deciding between a Minneapolis address and a suburb with different rules.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Once you know which lane you're in, the application itself runs through Inspections Services, part of Regulatory Services, rather than the general business licensing office. You'll submit the short-term rental application packet to Room 510A at the Public Service Building, and it asks for the property address, every booking platform you'll use, your insurer's name and policy number, and the applicant's identifying information.

Three attachments are non-negotiable, and the application won't be considered complete without them:

• A management plan, describing how you'll handle conduct issues, noise, parking during a snow emergency, and maintenance requests.
• A neighbor notification letter, sent to every owner, renter and occupant within the building or within 50 feet of the property line.
• A pre-inspection checklist, covering the same exterior, interior, electrical, mechanical and fire-safety items that apply to any Minneapolis rental.

Make sure you carry liability insurance too, since the application requires an insurer name and policy number. I couldn't find an official minimum coverage amount stated anywhere, so confirm what your carrier offers rather than assuming a figure.

One detail catches people out: if you live more than 60 driving miles from the property, or outside a specific list of Minnesota counties around the metro, you need a notarized emergency contact who can reach the property. City staff also has to be able to reach you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which the management plan explicitly asks you to explain.

Fees differ by which lane you're in. Non-homestead licenses run on the same tiered structure as any Minneapolis rental license, based on the property's condition tier and unit count. As of July 2026, the city's current fee schedule puts a Tier 1 building with one to three units at $98 plus $41 per unit, climbing to $121 plus a supplemental fee at Tier 3, with a separate scale for buildings of four or more units. For the homestead registration path, I went through every official page I could find and couldn't confirm a current flat registration fee, so don't assume a number here. Call Regulatory Services and get the current figure before you budget around it. What is confirmed either way: the $1,000 conversion fee and $450 change-of-ownership fee, since those appear identically on both the application packet and the live fee page.

Required Documents for Minneapolis, Minnesota Short-Term Rentals

Since the application won't even get logged without those three attachments, it's worth getting them right before you submit rather than after a rejection. Beyond the management plan, neighbor letter and pre-inspection checklist already covered, a few more pieces need to be in order.

• A floor plan posted at the entrance, showing fire exits and escape routes, the address, north direction, and every room labeled with its number and floor. Hand-drawn plans are accepted as long as they're legible; the city even points hosts to free software like SketchUp if you want something cleaner.
• Three postings inside the unit during every stay: the 311 poster, your short-term rental license or registration certificate, and that emergency floor plan.
• Your Articles of Organization, if the property is owned through an LLC or corporation, listing the shareholders so the city can confirm you're not quietly running a second STR under a different entity name.
• Documentation for the pre-inspection checklist itself, which covers everything from roof condition and smoke detectors to kitchen appliances and stair handrails. Don't forget the small stuff either. Two vehicles maximum per dwelling unit and no commercial vehicle parking are both on that checklist, and they trip up hosts who assume it's only about the building.

Minneapolis, Minnesota Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you get through all that and are able to start hosting, there's still tax to deal with, and Minneapolis stacks more layers onto a booking than most Minnesota cities do. Seven separate rates apply to a Minneapolis short-term rental of 50 rooms or fewer, which covers essentially every residential listing in the city, and all seven are collected by the same agency rather than split between city and state.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
State general sales tax	6.875%	Minnesota Dept. of Revenue
Hennepin County sales tax	0.15%	Minnesota Dept. of Revenue
Hennepin County transit sales tax	0.5%	Minnesota Dept. of Revenue
Metro Area sales tax for housing	0.25%	Minnesota Dept. of Revenue
Metro Area transportation sales tax	0.75%	Minnesota Dept. of Revenue
Minneapolis sales tax	0.5%	Minnesota Dept. of Revenue
Minneapolis entertainment tax (short-term lodging)	3%	Minnesota Dept. of Revenue
Combined total	12.025%	Minnesota Dept. of Revenue

That table comes straight from the Minnesota Department of Revenue's Minneapolis Special Local Taxes fact sheet, revised February 2025, and it's worth reading carefully because it corrects a common mix-up. Minneapolis also has a separate 3% Lodging Tax, but that one only applies to hotels and motels with more than 50 rooms, so a residential short-term rental almost never owes it. What you actually owe instead is the 3% Entertainment Tax, which the fact sheet states applies directly to "short-term lodging within the city limits." Same rough burden either way, but they're legally distinct taxes, and getting the label wrong when you register can cause headaches later.

Here's the part that simplifies things: the state administers all of it. Every one of those seven rates flows through the same Minnesota Dept. of Revenue sales tax registration, rather than Minneapolis billing you separately through its own finance office. Once you're set up as a retailer with the state, which the Minnesota-wide guide covers in more depth, you're reporting the whole Minneapolis stack on that same account.

Platform collection is where I have to be honest about a gap. Airbnb's own tax page confirms it collects the 6.875% state rate on every reservation of 29 nights or shorter, plus a "Local Sales and Special Taxes" line of 0.5% to 3.0%. It doesn't name Minneapolis's entertainment tax specifically, though, and I couldn't confirm from any official source whether that line item covers the full 5.15 percentage points of county, metro and city charges on top of it. Since I couldn't verify it either way, check your own account's tax settings rather than assuming every layer is handled for you.

One more thing worth flagging even though it's a state rule rather than a city one: converting a homesteaded property into a regular short-term rental can knock it into a different property tax class. Under Minn. Stat. § 273.13, subd. 25, a nonhomestead property rented short-term for more than 14 days in the prior year gets classified at 1.25%, against 1.0% for a homesteaded property on the first $500,000 of value. That's a real ongoing cost, not just a paperwork detail, so keep it in mind when you're comparing the registration and license paths.

Minnesota Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

That property-tax reclassification is one piece of a bigger picture, since Minnesota itself sets remarkably little on short-term rentals directly and leaves most of the real decisions to cities like Minneapolis. There's no statewide short-term rental license, permit or registry, and going through current Minnesota Statutes and the 94th Legislature's bill index turns up no law that preempts a city from adopting its own zoning, licensing or occupancy rules. Minneapolis's entire framework above exists because the state lets it.

What Minnesota does set is the tax and registration floor everything else builds on. Under Minn. Stat. § 297A.62, the state general sales tax runs 6.875%, made up of the 6.5% base rate plus a 0.375% dedicated add-on through 2034, and Minn. Stat. § 297A.61 treats lodging as a taxable sale. A host who takes bookings directly, outside a platform, has to register as a retailer with the Minnesota Dept. of Revenue, and an "accommodations intermediary" like Airbnb or Vrbo has to register separately and remit tax on its share of the booking. Local lodging taxes are separately authorized under Minn. Stat. § 469.190, which caps most cities at 3%, though several larger cities including Minneapolis operate under older special state laws that let them go higher, which is exactly how Minneapolis ended up with its entertainment tax structure instead of a plain lodging tax.

Two bills touching short-term rentals sit in the 2025-2026 legislature, and neither has passed as of this writing. HF 150 would clarify what counts toward the local lodging tax base and let cities simplify how often platforms file. SF 4157 and its House companion regulate short-term rental guarantee and reimbursement insurance products, which is a narrower insurance question rather than a zoning or tax change. Neither is law yet, so don't plan around them.

Does Minneapolis Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Given how much structure sits behind the registration and license system, it shouldn't be a surprise that Minneapolis backs it with real penalties rather than treating it as a formality. The city's Administrative Fine Schedule sets a $250 baseline civil fine for a Title 12 housing offense, and operating a rental property without the required license or registration sits in a higher band, escalating from around $500 toward a $2,000 cap. A second violation of the same type within 24 months doubles whatever the previous fine was, up to that $2,000 ceiling per violation, and that doubling resets the clock rather than forgiving anything.

Fines aren't the only lever, either. The management plan you sign acknowledges that violating it "may result in enforcement actions, including adverse actions against the short-term rental license, administrative citations, and other fines," which covers denial, non-renewal, suspension or outright revocation. Since the city also licenses the booking platforms themselves under a separate chapter of the code, it has a second point of contact for spotting a listing that never went through registration in the first place, which is a meaningfully different enforcement setup than a city relying only on neighbor complaints.

Speaking of which, complaints do still matter, and they route through 311 the same way any housing complaint does. A neighbor within 50 feet of your property received a notification letter when you applied, so they already know your unit is registered, and that same awareness cuts the other way if you're not following the management plan you filed. Watch out for the parking rule in particular. Two vehicles per dwelling unit is a hard line on the pre-inspection checklist, and it's an easy one for a group of guests to blow past without realizing it's a violation at all.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Minneapolis, Minnesota

None of that enforcement should scare you off if your property genuinely qualifies, so here's the order that actually works, since doing these out of sequence tends to waste an application fee.

1. Confirm which lane you're in. Is this your homestead, or a separate property? That single answer determines whether you're filing a registration or a full rental license, and it changes the fee structure entirely.
2. Check your ownership cap before you buy or convert anything. One non-homestead short-term rental per owner, across every LLC you control. If you already own one, a second application will be denied on that basis alone.
3. Draft your management plan and neighbor letter. Be specific about noise mitigation, parking during a snow emergency, and how staff can reach you 24/7, since vague answers are the most common reason applications bounce back.
4. Line up your insurance and floor plan. Get your insurer's name and policy number ready, and put together a floor plan showing exits, room labels, and north, using SketchUp or a clean hand-drawn version.
5. Submit to Inspections Services and pay the applicable fee. Non-homestead applicants should budget for the tiered license fee plus a $1,000 conversion fee if this is a new conversion, or $450 for a change of ownership on a duplex through fourplex.
6. Pass the pre-inspection. Walk your own checklist first: smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, working exits, no more than two vehicles per unit, and the general exterior and interior maintenance items every Minneapolis rental has to meet.
7. Register for Minnesota sales tax if you'll ever take a direct booking outside a platform, and check your platform's tax settings for what it does and doesn't collect on the local side.
8. Post the required notices on day one: the 311 poster, your license or registration certificate, and the emergency floor plan, all inside the unit where a guest will actually see them.
9. Diarize your renewal date and keep your management plan current. Any material change has to be reported to Regulatory Services, and letting the plan go stale is exactly the kind of thing that shows up during a renewal inspection.

Before you commit to any of this, it's worth running the actual numbers for your neighborhood rather than assuming the citywide averages apply to your block. BNBCalc Markets breaks down Minneapolis occupancy and nightly rates at that level, which matters here more than most cities given how tightly the ownership cap limits what you can scale into.

Who to Contact in Minneapolis, Minnesota about Short-Term Rental Regulations and Zoning?

Whichever step you're stuck on, four offices between the city and state cover almost everything.

Registration, licensing and inspections

Inspections Services, part of the city's Regulatory Services department, handles short-term rental registrations and licenses, management plans, and inspections.

• Address: Public Service Building, 505 Fourth Ave. S., Room 510, Minneapolis, MN 55415
• Phone: 612-673-3000
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, closed on city holidays

General business licensing and the platform license

Business Licenses & Consumer Services handles broader business licensing, including the separate license that booking platforms themselves must hold.

• Address: Public Service Building, 505 Fourth Ave. S., Room 220, Minneapolis, MN 55415
• Phone: 612-673-2080
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: Monday through Thursday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Friday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Complaints and general questions

Minneapolis 311 takes complaints about a short-term rental, along with general questions that don't need a specific department.

• Phone: 311, or 612-673-3000
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday

State and Minneapolis special local taxes

The Minnesota Dept. of Revenue, Sales and Use Tax Division administers the state sales tax and every one of the Minneapolis special local taxes covered above.

• Address: Mail Station 6330, St. Paul, MN 55146-6330
• Phone: 651-296-6181, or 1-800-657-3777

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Minneapolis in 2026?

Yes. Minneapolis licenses short-term rentals rather than banning them. Owner-occupied homes need a short-term rental registration, while properties the owner doesn't live in need a full rental license with inspections. Every owner is capped at one short-term rental beyond their own homestead, and that cap applies across LLCs. Occupancy tops out at 10 guests, and buildings with 20 or more units can't put more than 10% of their units into short-term use, though condos are exempt from that particular cap.

How much does a Minneapolis short-term rental license cost?

Non-homestead licenses run on a tiered fee schedule based on the property's condition and unit count, starting around $98 plus $41 per unit at the lowest tier. A new conversion typically adds a $1,000 conversion fee, and a change of ownership on a duplex through fourplex adds $450. The flat fee for the homestead registration path could not be confirmed on an official city page as of this writing, so confirm the current figure with Regulatory Services before you apply.

How many short-term rentals can one person own in Minneapolis?

One, beyond your own homestead. Minneapolis caps every owner, including anyone using multiple LLCs, at a single non-homestead short-term rental in addition to the home they live in. A second application for a non-homestead property gets denied once the city confirms you already hold one, so check this before you buy or convert anything with short-term rentals in mind.

What taxes do you pay on a Minneapolis Airbnb?

Seven combined charges apply to almost every Minneapolis short-term rental: the 6.875% state sales tax, 0.15% Hennepin County sales tax, 0.5% Hennepin County transit tax, 0.25% Metro Area housing tax, 0.75% Metro Area transportation tax, 0.5% Minneapolis sales tax, and a 3% Minneapolis entertainment tax that applies specifically to short-term lodging. That's 12.025% combined, all administered by the Minnesota Dept. of Revenue rather than billed separately by the city.

What happens if you rent out your Minneapolis home without a license?

Operating an unlicensed rental in Minneapolis carries a civil fine that escalates from roughly $500 toward a $2,000 cap, and a repeat violation within 24 months doubles the prior fine up to that same cap. Beyond fines, the city can deny, refuse to renew, suspend or revoke a registration or license for violating any requirement in it. Since Minneapolis separately licenses the booking platforms themselves, an unregistered listing is easier for the city to spot than in a market that relies only on complaints.

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