Centennial Short Term Rental Regulation: A Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Centennial and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that the city lets you, as long as you get licensed first. Centennial sits south of Denver in Arapahoe County, and its city council settled the short-term rental question back in September 2021 with Ordinance No. 2021-O-14, which put a licensing system in place rather than a ban. Every STR in the city needs an active license, and that hasn't changed since.

The catch is what that license demands. Centennial caps occupancy at two renters per bedroom and eight per property, requires two off-street parking spaces, bars short-term rentals from accessory dwelling units entirely, and expects you to hand your immediate neighbors a contact sheet before your first guest ever checks in. None of that is a rumor: it's the City of Centennial's own STR program page, read directly. Miss a step and you're not fined quietly, either. The city can suspend or revoke the license outright.

So this guide walks through what licensing costs and requires in 2026, the documents you'll need before you apply, the taxes that attach to every booking, how Colorado's statewide framework sits above all of it, and who to call when you get stuck. Every figure below comes from Centennial's own city pages or Colorado's own tax guidance, checked in July 2026. Once you know what a Centennial listing can earn, run the property through BNBCalc before you commit to any of this.

What are short term rental (Airbnb, VRBO) regulations in Centennial, Colorado?

Short-term rentals are legal in Centennial, and the city defines the category tightly. A short-term rental means renting a residential dwelling unit, or part of one, for fewer than 30 days in exchange for money, and it covers single-family homes, duplexes, townhomes, condos, and similar dwellings, while excluding hotels, motels, and bed and breakfasts, according to the city's own program page. Stay 30 nights or longer and you've left the STR rules behind entirely; that's ordinary landlord-tenant territory instead.

City Council settled the framework in September 2021, and it landed as a licensing regime rather than a prohibition. Four rules do almost all the work, and none of them are negotiable:

• A license is mandatory. Every STR in Centennial has to maintain an active license with the city, full stop.
• Occupancy tops out at two per bedroom, eight per property. A three-bedroom house maxes out at six renters, never eight, because the per-bedroom cap and the property cap both apply.
• Gatherings are capped at double the occupancy limit. A three-bedroom house sleeping six can't host a party bigger than twelve, even for a few hours.
• Accessory dwelling units are off-limits entirely. If your STR plan depends on renting out a basement apartment or a detached ADU separately from the main house, that plan doesn't work here.

On top of those four, every licensed property needs two off-street parking spaces set aside for renters, and the Centennial Neighborly Renter Rules have to be posted where guests will see them: near the front door, plus a laminated copy somewhere prominent in the kitchen. Neighbors get their own version. Every property owner or resident whose lot adjoins yours, or sits directly across the street, has to receive the Centennial Neighborly Owner Contact Handout with your emergency contact information, as confirmed on the same city page. Keep in mind that this isn't a courtesy the city suggests. It's part of what you're certifying when you apply.

Starting a Short Term Rental Business in Centennial

Since the city licenses rather than bans short-term rentals, starting one here is a real option, not a workaround. That puts Centennial in a different position from Denver, which restricts STRs to a host's primary residence, so an investor buying a second Centennial property purely to run nightly stays isn't automatically shut out the way they would be a few miles north.

That said, the economics still hinge on the occupancy and parking rules holding up on your specific lot. An eight-bedroom mansion doesn't get to advertise sixteen guests; it's capped at eight regardless of bedroom count. A property without two off-street spaces to spare has a problem before it has a listing. And since ADUs can't be licensed separately, don't count on splitting a property into two income streams by renting the main house and a backyard unit at the same time.

Before you buy or convert anything, do check your HOA documents and any deed restrictions, since Centennial's licensing rules don't override a private covenant that already bans short-term rentals on your street. The city's application will ask you to certify compliance, but that certification is about you following the rules, not the city clearing your title of private restrictions. Once you've confirmed both the zoning and the HOA side are clear, the Arapahoe County guide is worth a look too, because Centennial's incorporated-city rules are separate from whatever the unincorporated county requires outside city limits, and the two aren't interchangeable if you're comparing properties across that line.

Short Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Centennial

Getting that comparison right matters, because Centennial's own license is where the real cost sits. You apply through the city's EnerGov self-service portal, and the STR License page lays out the fee plainly: an annual fee of $150.00 per licensed property, plus a one-time $50.00 application fee the first time around. You'll renew every year after that at the $150 rate. Since I last checked that page in July 2026, nothing on the city's more recently updated program page suggested the fee had moved, but it's worth confirming directly with the city before you budget around it, given that the fee page itself dates to a slightly older snapshot.

Processing takes up to two weeks, according to the city, and once your application clears, an STR license number gets generated automatically. That number isn't decorative. It has to appear on every advertisement for the property, on Airbnb, Vrbo, or anywhere else you list it, and the city checks for exactly that.

Every applicant has to show proof of ownership, a scale plan of the premises, and proof of liability insurance at the point of application, and the next section breaks each document down in full. You'll also need contact information for a representative who's reachable 24 hours a day, since the city treats "someone answers the phone" as a real requirement, not a formality. The Owner Inspection Checklist that owners sign at application goes further still. That designated local contact has to respond to any issue raised by a renter, a neighbor, or the city itself within two hours, at any point while the property is being rented. Don't treat that as a soft target. It's the exact standard you're certifying to.

A license doesn't survive bad behavior, either. The city's FAQ page states that a property that becomes a nuisance can face an administrative penalty, suspension of the license, or outright revocation, plus whatever other legal action the city decides applies. No dollar figures are published for the administrative-penalty tier, so budget for the possibility rather than a specific number.

Required Documents for Centennial Short Term Rentals

Since revocation is a real outcome and not merely a line in the ordinance, it's worth getting the paperwork right before you submit anything. The city's own STR License page and inspection checklist together spell out exactly what has to be ready:

• Proof of ownership. A recorded deed from the county, tied to the applicant's name.
• A scale plan of the premises. It has to identify the two off-street parking spaces, where trash receptacles sit both inside and outside the property, and the occupancy limits for the unit.
• Proof of liability insurance. Covering property damage or bodily injury claims connected to use of the premises. No minimum coverage amount is published, so confirm directly with your insurer that the policy is written broadly enough for short-term guests, not long-term tenants alone.
• A signed agreement acknowledging the city's inspection rights. You're certifying the city can inspect the rental premises, not merely that you've read the ordinance.
• A 24/7 reachable contact. Name and phone number for the person who can respond to an issue, whether that's you or a property manager.
• The Owner Inspection Checklist itself, completed and initialed. This is where the real safety detail lives, and it's the one document worth reading line by line before you sign it.

That checklist covers ground the license application summary doesn't. Window wells serving basement sleeping rooms need escape ladders and operable windows for a second way out. Smoke alarms have to sit inside every sleeping room and immediately outside each one, in the hallway or corridor that serves it. Carbon monoxide detectors need to be on every level of the home and within 15 feet of any sleeping room. A fire extinguisher has to be in plain view and certified annually, bathroom and kitchen outlets need GFCI protection, and any permitted work on the house needs its final inspections completed, not merely started.

Once the license is in hand, don't forget the neighbor piece. The Centennial Neighborly Owner Contact Handout has to go to every adjoining property owner or resident, plus anyone directly across the street or alley, and the city expects you to keep a written list of who received it. Remember too that all of this, the insurance, the checklist, the neighbor notification, has to be true on day one and stay true for as long as the license is active. It isn't a one-time box to check.

Centennial Short Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you clear all of that paperwork and are able to start hosting, there's still tax to work out, and Centennial's setup has a wrinkle most Colorado cities don't share. The city is a home-rule municipality that has administered and collected its own sales tax since January 1, 2009, according to Centennial's Sales Tax and Business Licensing page, which means Centennial's local share doesn't run through the Colorado Department of Revenue the way a statutory city's would.

That local share, plus the state and regional layers stacked on top, adds up to a combined rate. The city's Sales Tax Rates page breaks it down:

Tax	Rate	Collected by
City of Centennial sales tax	2.5%	City of Centennial (home-rule, self-administered)
State of Colorado sales tax	2.9%	Colorado Department of Revenue
Regional Transportation District (RTD)	1.0%	Colorado Department of Revenue
Scientific and Cultural Facilities District	0.1%	Colorado Department of Revenue
Arapahoe County	0.25%	Colorado Department of Revenue
Combined total	6.75%	Split between the city and the state

Airbnb's own Colorado tax page simplifies things for most hosts here. It lists a Centennial-specific line, collecting "2.5% of the listing price including any cleaning fees and guest fees, for reservations 29 nights and shorter," which is the city's own home-rule share. Airbnb collects the state and state-administered pieces (the 2.9%, the RTD, the district tax, and the county share) automatically everywhere in Colorado as a registered marketplace facilitator, so together that covers the full 6.75% without you touching a return. Vrbo's collection for Centennial specifically isn't confirmed the same way; its own help material only speaks in general terms about "required jurisdictions," so if Vrbo is your main channel, don't assume the same coverage until you've checked your own tax settings there.

There's no separate lodging tax layered on top, at least going through the city's own FAQ page and its most recent sales tax breakdown: Centennial doesn't currently levy one. That's a claim worth double-checking against the city directly if you're modeling a large short-term rental portfolio, since it's the kind of thing that can change with a single council vote and I'm working from the most recent city pages I could reach. Whichever platform you use, you still remit sales tax to the city yourself for any booking a marketplace facilitator didn't collect on your behalf, and the city's Tax & Licensing team is the contact if that math gets confusing.

Colorado wide Short Term Rental Rules

Centennial's tax setup only makes sense once you see the state layer it sits on top of, and the same goes for the licensing side. Colorado doesn't preempt local short-term rental regulation at all. A Legislative Council Staff issue brief from January 2026, the legislature's own nonpartisan research arm, states plainly that Colorado has no statewide regulations governing short-term rentals. Every city and county is free to license, cap, zone, or in theory ban short-term rentals however it sees fit, which is exactly why Centennial's rules look nothing like Denver's a few miles away.

What the state has done is standardize county authority rather than city authority. House Bill 20-1093, signed in March 2020, let county boards license short-term rentals and require booking platforms to pull a listing once a county reports a local license suspended or revoked. House Bill 23-1287, signed in June 2023, added formal definitions for "lodging unit," "short-term rental," and "vacation rental service" to that same statute. Neither bill caps what a county or city can charge, and neither one touches Centennial's own ordinance, since Centennial is an incorporated city running its own program rather than relying on Arapahoe County's authority.

There's also no statewide STR license to worry about. What exists instead is a general Colorado sales tax license from the Department of Revenue, required of any host whose bookings aren't fully collected by a marketplace facilitator. As of July 2026 it runs $16 plus a refundable $50 deposit, and it expires every odd-numbered year unless a platform is handling all your tax collection for you. State sales tax sits at 2.9% everywhere in Colorado, with county lodging taxes, local marketing district taxes, and visitor benefit taxes layered in depending on the address. None of those extra layers apply inside Centennial's own city limits beyond what's already in the table above. For the fuller statewide picture, including how these county-level add-ons work elsewhere in the state, the Colorado guide walks through the whole framework.

Does Centennial strictly enforce STR rules?" Is Centennial Airbnb friendly?

That statewide hands-off approach is exactly why Centennial gets to write its own strict paperwork in the first place, which raises the obvious next question: does anyone actually check it? The honest answer is that Centennial enforces through the license itself rather than through roaming inspectors. The mechanism is straightforward: no license, no legal listing, and the STR number is required on every advertisement specifically so the city (and your neighbors) can check compliance without much effort.

Complaints are the real enforcement engine. The city's Complaints page routes STR-specific concerns to the contact listed on the Neighborly Handout first, since that's the person certified to respond within two hours. General property issues go to Code Compliance at 303-325-8000 or through the online Report a Problem form, and the city even lists direct liaison contacts at Airbnb and Vrbo for platform-level complaints. That's a genuinely fast complaint path for a neighbor who's had enough, and it's exactly why the 24/7 contact requirement isn't just paperwork.

Compare that to Denver's approach, which is Airbnb-friendly only if you actually live in the unit. Denver restricts STRs to a host's primary residence, full stop, which rules out the whole non-owner-occupied investment model that Centennial still allows. Investors watching the Denver metro area have noticed the gap. On BiggerPockets, hosts researching the region routinely point out that Denver proper only permits STRs in primary residences and requires licensing on top of that, while nearby suburbs vary widely in how strict they are. Centennial lands closer to the permissive end of that spectrum: no primary-residence requirement, a defined and public licensing path, and a fee structure that's modest next to what a strict enforcement city charges. Watch out for one thing, though. Permissive on ownership structure doesn't mean loose on the operating rules; the occupancy cap, the parking requirement, and the ADU ban are all real, and a revoked license ends your listing regardless of how the city otherwise treats investors.

How to Start a Short Term Rental Business in Centennial

Assuming Centennial's rules fit your property and you're able to square them with your HOA, the order you tackle these steps in matters, since the early ones tell you whether the later ones are worth the time.

1. Confirm your property clears the basics first. Two off-street parking spaces, no ADU-only plan, and an occupancy count you can actually deliver on. If any of these fail, stop before you spend the application fee.
2. Check your HOA documents and any deed restrictions. The city's license doesn't override a private covenant, so this is worth doing before, not after, you apply.
3. Line up your insurance. Confirm your policy covers property damage and bodily injury tied to short-term guest use specifically, not just long-term tenancy.
4. Draw up your scale plan. Mark the two parking spaces, trash storage locations, and occupancy limits, since this is a required attachment to the application itself.
5. Complete the Owner Inspection Checklist. Walk the property against every item: window well egress, smoke alarms in and outside every sleeping room, CO detectors within 15 feet of sleeping rooms, a certified fire extinguisher, GFCI outlets, and finished permits on any prior work.
6. Apply through the EnerGov self-service portal and pay the $150 annual fee plus the $50 one-time application fee. Expect about two weeks of processing.
7. Distribute the Neighborly Owner Contact Handout. Every adjoining neighbor and anyone directly across the street or alley gets a copy, and keep a written record of who received one.
8. Post the Neighborly Renter Rules inside the unit. Near the front door and again in the kitchen, laminated, where a guest will actually see it.
9. Add your license number to every listing on Airbnb, Vrbo, or anywhere else, before you take your first booking.
10. Set up sales tax remittance. Confirm what your platform collects automatically and what you still owe the city directly, then diarize your annual renewal so the license never lapses by accident.

Who to contact in Centennial about Short Term Rental Regulations and Zoning?

Whichever step trips you up, Centennial routes almost everything through one office, which makes this section shorter than most.

Short-term rental licensing and the program itself

• Phone: 303-325-8000 (the city's 24-Hour Citizen Response Center)
• Email: [email protected]
• Address: Centennial Civic Center, 13133 E. Arapahoe Rd., Centennial, CO 80112
• Apply or renew: the EnerGov self-service portal

Code Compliance, for general property complaints

• Phone: 303-325-8000
• Online: the city's Report a Problem form, linked from the Short Term Rental Complaints page

Sales tax and business licensing

• Email: [email protected]
• Online: the Sales Tax and Business Licensing page carries the current forms, rates, and payment portal

In an emergency

Call 911 directly rather than routing through any of the numbers above. That's the city's own instruction on its Complaints page, and it applies whether the danger is STR-related or not.

What do Airbnb hosts in Centennial on Reddit and Bigger Pockets think about local regulations?

That contact list is useful precisely because Centennial hosts actually need it less often than hosts in stricter cities do, which lines up with how investors talk about the market. Reddit itself blocks the kind of automated access this research relies on, so what follows leans on BiggerPockets threads I could actually read plus the general shape of Denver-metro sentiment, not a claim to have surveyed every forum.

The recurring theme on BiggerPockets is relative, not absolute: Centennial reads as workable mainly by comparison. Investors discussing the Denver metro area consistently flag Denver proper as the tight one, since it restricts STRs to a host's own primary residence, and steer conversation toward the surrounding suburbs instead. Centennial's licensing path, with its published fee and defined occupancy rule, comes up as a reasonably clear option next to that, even if nobody's calling it a loophole-free investment paradise.

What hosts don't seem to be complaining about, at least in what I've been able to read, is arbitrary enforcement. The complaint path runs through a specific person (your own designated local contact) before it ever reaches the city, and that structure tends to resolve neighbor friction quietly rather than escalating into a public dispute. The tradeoff is the paperwork itself. The insurance proof, the scale plan, the inspection checklist, and the neighbor list all take real time to assemble properly, and that's the part investors researching Centennial from a distance tend to underestimate going in.

Once the rules are clear, the remaining question is whether the numbers actually work on your specific property, and that's where regulation stops being the interesting part. The Colorado market data on BNBCalc is worth checking before you commit, since occupancy and nightly rates swing more across the Denver metro than the licensing rules do, and Centennial's own numbers are only useful next to its neighbors.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Centennial, Colorado in 2026?

Yes. Centennial licenses short-term rentals rather than banning them, under Ordinance No. 2021-O-14. You'll need an active STR license from the city, which costs $150 a year plus a one-time $50 application fee, and you'll need to meet occupancy limits (2 guests per bedroom, 8 per property), provide two off-street parking spaces, and keep liability insurance in place. Accessory dwelling units cannot be licensed separately.

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

The annual fee is $150.00 per licensed property, plus a one-time $50.00 application fee the first time you apply. You'll renew every year at the $150 rate. Processing typically takes about two weeks. Confirm the current fee directly with the city before budgeting, since the source page for this figure is not the most recently updated one on Centennial's site.

Do you have to pay sales tax on a Centennial short-term rental?

Yes, at a combined rate of 6.75%: 2.5% goes to the City of Centennial itself, and the remaining 4.25% covers Colorado state sales tax plus the RTD, Scientific and Cultural Facilities District, and Arapahoe County shares. Airbnb collects and remits all of it automatically as a registered marketplace facilitator. Vrbo's collection for Centennial specifically isn't confirmed, so check your own account settings if that's your main platform. Centennial does not currently levy a separate lodging tax.

What happens if you rent your Centennial property without an STR license?

The license itself is the enforcement mechanism, since your license number has to appear on every advertisement, which makes an unlicensed listing easy to spot. A property that becomes a nuisance, licensed or not, can face an administrative penalty, license suspension, or outright revocation, plus whatever other legal action the city decides to pursue. No specific dollar penalties are published, so don't assume an unlicensed listing is a minor risk.

Can you put a short-term rental in an ADU in Centennial?

No. Centennial's ordinance excludes accessory dwelling units from short-term rental licensing entirely, regardless of whether the main house on the same lot is licensed. If your investment plan depends on renting a basement apartment or detached unit separately from the primary residence, that specific structure isn't available in Centennial, and no amount of paperwork changes that.

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