Des Moines Short Term Rental Regulation: A Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Des Moines and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that Iowa law is squarely on your side here. The state bars any city from banning short-term rentals outright, from charging a special license fee for one, or from zoning them as anything other than ordinary residential use. Des Moines, Iowa's capital and largest city, sits in Polk County, and it hasn't tried to fight that.

What it built instead is a hurdle inside its own zoning code. Before you can legally advertise a short-term rental here, you need a conditional use permit from the city's Zoning Board of Adjustment, not just a form and a filing fee. That's a real difference from most cities in this series, and it's worth taking it seriously before you buy. The permit isn't automatic, either. It comes with density caps tied to what kind of structure you own, a spacing rule that can block an application before it's even heard, and a possible annual cap on rental days that depends on whether you live there yourself, one I'll unpack fully, hedges included, a couple of sections down.

So this guide walks through what the conditional use process demands in 2026: who grants it, what it costs to apply, the rules that come attached once you're approved, the three tax layers on top of all that, and who to call when you get stuck. Every figure below comes from Des Moines' own zoning ordinance or Iowa's own tax pages, checked in July 2026, and anywhere the record is genuinely unsettled, I've said so plainly rather than guessing. If you're comparing a Des Moines property against other Iowa markets, run the numbers through BNBCalc before you commit to either one.

Starting a Short Term Rental Business in Des Moines

Start with the state layer, because it decides how much power Des Moines actually has here. Iowa Code §414.1(1)(e) bars a city from adopting any ordinance that specifically targets short-term rentals, from requiring a license or permit fee for one, and from classifying one as anything but residential use. That's a strong floor. Cities keep one lane open, though: they can still regulate for fire and building safety, sanitation, traffic, noise, nuisance and property maintenance, and they can require an emergency contact, provided the rule applies the same way to non-rental properties too.

Des Moines built its short-term rental framework inside that lane. Under Chapter 134, Section 134-3.5.12(C) of the zoning ordinance, a "Short-Term Commercial Rental" is a household unit, or part of one, rented for compensation for less than 30 consecutive days, other than a restaurant, motel, temporary shelter or bed and breakfast. That's a zoning definition, not a business license. Des Moines doesn't call this a rental license at all. It calls it a conditional use, approved case by case by the Zoning Board of Adjustment under Section 134-6.4.8.

Whether that structure fully squares with the state's ban on STR-specific "licenses or permits" isn't something I found tested anywhere. It's notable, though, that a 2025 bill, SF 341, tried and failed to roll back part of the state preemption. That tells you the line between state and city authority is still being argued over in Des Moines, IA, and around Iowa generally, not settled.

What that means practically: you can't be told no just because you want to run a short-term rental. You can absolutely be told no on a specific property, though, because the conditional use standard weighs the individual site, not the general right to operate. A single-household home in most residential districts qualifies. So does a duplex, a unit in a small multi-household building, or a condo, each under its own density rule, which the next section breaks down. What doesn't qualify on its face: a restaurant, an actual motel, or a bed and breakfast, since those already have their own regulatory category.

Short Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Des Moines

Since that conditional use is the whole ballgame, it's worth understanding exactly how it works before you sink money into a property. The Zoning Board of Adjustment hears each application at a public hearing and has the discretion to deny it, attach extra conditions, or approve it as submitted.

Applications go through Development Services, and I couldn't confirm a published dollar figure for the conditional use application fee itself. Iowa law bars a fee "for the rental of a short-term rental property" specifically. So whatever Des Moines charges is presumably tied to the general zoning application fee schedule rather than an STR-specific one, but confirm the current number with Development Services before you budget for it.

How many rentals a single structure can host depends entirely on what you own, per Section 134-3.5.12(C):

Structure type	Cap
Single-household detached home	One short-term rental
Two-household attached structure or condo	One short-term rental
Multi-household building (2-9 units), individually owned condos	Up to 10% of units, rounded down
Multi-household building (2-9 units), not condos	Up to 10% of units, operated by the building owner

New applications for a single-household or two-household structure also have to clear a spacing rule. For any conditional use filed after August 30, 2020, the lot has to sit at least 700 feet from any other lot already running a short-term rental of the same type. That's the mechanism that lets the board effectively cap concentration in a given block. It can knock an otherwise-fine property out of contention before the hearing even happens. So check for nearby short-term rentals before you make an offer, not after.

The last fully confirmed version of the ordinance also tied approval to how you use the property. Live in the home as your primary residence for at least 245 days a year, either yourself or through a tenant with the owner's written consent, and the 120-day annual cap on short-term rentals doesn't apply to you. You do still have to be present for any stay that runs past that 120-day mark within the year, though. If nobody lives there full time, the 120-day cap is a hard ceiling across every platform you list on, not per platform.

I'll flag this using my own research voice rather than stating it as settled fact. Des Moines' Plan and Zoning Commission reportedly recommended in December 2023 dropping both the residency threshold and the 120-day cap, with a City Council hearing process beginning in January 2024. I could not locate the city's own final ordinance confirming that change passed. Treat the 120-day/245-day framework above as the last version I could verify, and double-check the current numbers with Development Services before you plan around either one.

Once granted, a conditional use runs for 10 years from the Board of Adjustment's decision, with the option to apply for renewal. It lapses automatically if you sell the property or lose your lease on it. That's a long runway compared to most cities' annual STR license. It also means a denial costs you a decade of runway on that specific property, not just a year.

Required Documents for Des Moines Short Term Rentals

Getting the timeline right matters here, since a Board of Adjustment hearing isn't something you can schedule the week before you want to start hosting. Based on what the ordinance requires you to have in place, plan to gather the following before you apply:

• Proof of ownership of the property, along with a site or floor plan showing the layout of the unit.
• Proof of liability insurance of at least $500,000, or documentation that your hosting platform provides equal or greater coverage. Airbnb's own host protection coverage is commonly used to satisfy this.
• Local contact information for an "authorized management agent." If you or your company's manager live in Polk County or a contiguous county, you can serve as that contact yourself. If not, designate someone over 18 who does. Notify the community development director within three business days if that person ever changes.
• Written consent from the property owner, if you're a tenant rather than the owner applying for the conditional use.
• Confirmation that the property carries no unresolved code violations. Building, electrical, plumbing, mechanical, fire, health, rental-property-maintenance, police or zoning enforcement actions all block a short-term rental until they're cleared, so it's worth checking your own record before you file rather than finding out at the hearing.

None of this replaces the general Rental Certificate that Des Moines requires for rental housing generally, administered by the Neighborhood Inspection Zoning Division. I couldn't confirm from a primary source whether a short-term rental specifically needs that separate certificate on top of the Board of Adjustment approval. The ordinance text ties revocation to "rental property maintenance code enforcement" without spelling out the certificate process itself. Given the overlap, it's worth asking Neighborhood Inspection directly whether your property needs both.

Des Moines Short Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you clear the zoning hurdle and are able to start hosting, there's still tax to work out, and Des Moines stacks two separate layers on top of Iowa's own. The Iowa Hotel and Motel Tax Act sets a flat 5% state excise tax on the sales price of any lodging under 31 days. It replaces the general 6% state sales tax on that same room charge rather than stacking on top of it.

Cities and counties can then layer a local hotel and motel tax of up to 7% on top, by ordinance following a local election. As of July 2026, according to Iowa's own jurisdiction and rate spreadsheet, Polk County's Des Moines jurisdiction has adopted that tax at the full 7%.

Tax	Rate	Collected by
State hotel and motel excise tax	5%	Iowa Department of Revenue
Des Moines local hotel and motel tax	7%	Iowa Department of Revenue
Combined lodging tax	12%	Iowa Department of Revenue

Both layers get remitted to the same place, which simplifies things more than it might look at first. Under Iowa Code §423A.5A, a "lodging platform" like Airbnb or Vrbo is required to collect and remit both the state 5% and the local 7% automatically on any booking it facilitates. If every reservation runs through a platform, you don't file anything yourself for those bookings. The moment you take a direct booking outside a platform, that responsibility shifts to you. You'll need to register for a free sales tax permit through GovConnectIowa and remit the combined 12% on that specific booking yourself.

One more layer sits separate from lodging entirely. Des Moines charges a general sales tax of 7%, made up of Iowa's 6% state rate plus a 1% local option tax, and it applies to non-lodging charges bundled into a stay. Cleaning fees and the like fall under the hotel tax bracket instead, per the state's own guidance, so keep an eye on how your booking platform itemizes fees rather than assuming everything gets taxed the same way.

Don't forget the exemption that makes long stays worth considering, either. A guest who stays 31 consecutive days or more owes no hotel and motel tax at all, which is the same threshold that takes the booking out of "short-term rental" territory on the zoning side too.

Des Moines-wide Short Term Rental Rules

Getting the tax filing right is only useful if the rental stays legal to run in the first place, and Des Moines attaches a long list of operating conditions to every conditional use it grants. Watch out for these, since the ordinance treats a violation of any one of them as grounds to revoke your approval, not just a warning:

• Guest packet. Every stay needs an in-unit copy of emergency contact info for you and your local agent, non-emergency numbers for Des Moines police and fire, the trash pickup schedule, parking restrictions (including the city's snow ordinance), and the unit's occupancy limit.
• Safety signage. Post, on the inside of the front door, a printed sign showing the location of fire extinguishers, gas shutoff valves, exits and fire alarm pulls.
• Occupancy and parking. Guest counts follow the occupancy limits in the International Property Maintenance Code, and you have to provide one off-street parking space, assigned onsite, for each bedroom or sleeping area used as part of the rental.
• One party, adults only. A short-term rental has to be booked by a single party that includes at least one adult 21 or older, and it can't be used for any kind of assembly event.
• Noise. Guests and hosts alike are bound by the city's regular noise control ordinance, sound equipment included.
• Annual neighbor notice. Once a year, you're required to give owners and occupants of every adjoining and adjacent property your emergency contact information, not just post it inside your own unit.
• Guest records. Keep records of each guest's name, address and the license plate of any vehicle parked at the property, along with the dates of the stay, and make them available to the community development director on request.
• Advertising rules. You can't advertise the rental, on any platform, until the conditional use is approved, and you have to pull the listing anytime the property falls out of compliance with any of the above.

That's a genuinely longer list than most Iowa cities require, which is exactly the tradeoff for the 10-year permit term: fewer renewals, more conditions attached to each one. Our Iowa statewide guide is worth reading alongside this one if you're weighing Des Moines against a city that runs a lighter operating list, and Cedar Rapids is a useful side-by-side if you're deciding between Iowa's two largest metros.

Does Des Moines strictly enforce STR rules?

Given how many conditions attach to that permit, the obvious next question is what happens if you slip on one of them. Since I last checked, Des Moines doesn't publish an enforcement dashboard the way some larger cities do. I can't point you to a specific count of active permits or violations issued the way I could for a market with a public registry. What the ordinance itself makes clear is that enforcement runs through the city's general zoning framework under Article 8 of Chapter 134, the same mechanism used for every other zoning violation in the city, not a short-term-rental-specific process.

Under that framework, a violation is treated as a misdemeanor or a municipal infraction. Iowa Code §364.22 caps a municipal infraction's civil penalty at $750 for a first violation and $1,000 for a repeat one, with each day the violation continues counting as a separate offense. On top of the fine, the neighborhood services director can withhold or deny other permits tied to the property, issue a stop-work order, and revoke the conditional use itself.

Losing the conditional use isn't a slap on the wrist here. It means starting the whole application over, including a fresh 700-foot spacing check that a new listing down the block might now fail.

The density and spacing rules do double duty as a quiet enforcement tool too. A new single-household or two-household application has to sit 700 feet from an existing one, and multi-household buildings are capped at 10% of units. So the board can turn down a technically-compliant application simply because the neighborhood has already hit its limit. That's a different kind of friction than a fine. It's the city deciding, block by block, how much short-term rental activity a given area can absorb, before any individual host does anything wrong.

How to Start a Short Term Rental Business in Des Moines

Assuming your property and your plans survive all of that scrutiny, the order below saves you from wasting an application fee on a property that was never going to clear the spacing rule.

1. Check the 700-foot spacing rule and the density cap for your structure type before you buy or commit, since this can disqualify an otherwise-perfect property.
2. Decide whether you'll live there. That choice determines whether the 120-day annual cap applies to you, so confirm the current residency framework with Development Services rather than relying on an old listing you found online.
3. Line up $500,000 in liability insurance, or confirm your hosting platform's coverage meets that threshold.
4. Clear any open code violations on the property, since building, fire, health or zoning enforcement actions block approval outright.
5. Assemble your application: proof of ownership, site plan, local agent contact details, insurance proof, and written owner consent if you're a tenant.
6. Apply through Development Services and attend the Board of Adjustment public hearing. Expect the board to weigh the specific site, not just approve on the merits of the ordinance.
7. Once approved, set up the guest packet and safety signage before your first booking, and send neighbors their annual notice.
8. Register for an Iowa sales tax permit only if you plan to take direct bookings; otherwise your platform handles both tax layers automatically.
9. Diarize your renewal date. The conditional use runs 10 years, and it can be revoked well before that if you rack up code violations.

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

Whichever step trips you up, a handful of offices handle nearly everything between them.

Zoning applications and the Board of Adjustment

The Development Services Department's Permit and Development Center processes conditional use applications and zoning questions.

• Address: 602 Robert D. Ray Drive, Des Moines, IA 50309-1881
• Phone: (515) 283-4200
• Board of Adjustment hearings: currently held at the T.M. Franklin Cownie City Administration Building, 1200 Locust Street, Des Moines, IA 50309

Rental certificates, property maintenance and complaints

The Neighborhood Inspection Zoning Division handles the general rental certificate program and property maintenance code enforcement.

• Address: 602 Robert D Ray Drive, Des Moines, IA 50309
• Phone: (515) 283-4046
• Fax: (515) 237-1859
• Email: [email protected]

City records and ordinance copies

The City Clerk's Office can provide certified copies of the ordinances and resolutions cited throughout this guide.

• Phone: (515) 283-4209

State tax registration and hotel/motel tax questions

The Iowa Department of Revenue handles the state and local hotel/motel tax layers, plus sales tax permit registration for direct bookings.

• Address: Hoover State Office Building, First Floor, 1305 E. Walnut St, Des Moines, IA 50319
• Phone: (515) 281-3114, or toll-free (800) 367-3388
• Register as a vendor: through GovConnectIowa

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

Given the enforcement mechanism runs quietly through zoning rather than through headline-grabbing fines, it's worth knowing how that actually lands with hosts on the ground. I wasn't able to pull a reliable sample of Des Moines-specific Reddit threads for this guide. So what follows is a general read of how Iowa short-term rentals get discussed in host communities, not a survey of this city specifically. Iowa as a whole tends to come up as one of the friendlier states for hosts, mostly because of the state preemption law that keeps any city from banning short-term rentals or capping them out of existence. Des Moines' rules generally get folded into that reputation at a glance.

Where hosts researching Des Moines specifically tend to get surprised is the conditional use step itself. A first-time host coming from a state where an STR license is a form and a fee doesn't expect a public hearing. They don't expect a spacing check against nearby listings either, or a density cap that can knock out an application before it's ever heard. That's a genuinely different level of friction than most Midwestern cities require, even ones with their own registration systems. I'd treat that as the single most important thing to internalize before you make an offer on a Des Moines property. Do check for existing short-term rentals within 700 feet, and don't assume the zoning district alone tells you whether you'll get approved.

If the numbers still work once you clear that hurdle, BNBCalc Markets is worth pulling up for Des Moines specifically, since it lets you weigh what a compliant rental could realistically earn against everything above before you commit real money to an application.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Des Moines in 2026?

Yes, but only with a conditional use permit from the city's Zoning Board of Adjustment. Iowa law bars Des Moines from banning short-term rentals outright, but the city requires a case-by-case zoning approval rather than a simple license, and that approval comes with density caps, a 700-foot spacing rule for new single- and two-household applications, and a list of ongoing operating conditions. Advertising a rental before approval is granted is against the ordinance.

How much does a Des Moines short-term rental permit cost?

The specific application fee for a conditional use permit wasn't published anywhere I could confirm directly, so budget for a standard zoning application fee and confirm the current number with Development Services before you apply. What's confirmed is the term: an approved conditional use runs for 10 years from the Board of Adjustment's decision, with the option to renew, and it lapses if you sell the property.

Do you have to live in your Des Moines short-term rental?

Under the last confirmed version of the ordinance, no, but not living there caps you at 120 rental days a year across every platform. If you or your tenant live in the home as your primary residence at least 245 days a year, that cap doesn't apply, though you do have to be present for stays booked after you hit 120 days. The city was reportedly considering dropping this framework in 2024; confirm the current rule with Development Services before you plan around it.

What taxes apply to a Des Moines Airbnb?

A combined 12% hotel and motel tax applies to any stay under 31 days: 5% to the state and 7% to Des Moines locally, both remitted to the Iowa Department of Revenue. Airbnb and Vrbo collect and remit both layers automatically on platform bookings. Direct bookings outside a platform require you to register for a free Iowa sales tax permit and remit the tax yourself. Stays of 31 consecutive days or more owe no hotel and motel tax at all.

What happens if you run an unapproved short-term rental in Des Moines?

It's treated as a municipal infraction, with a civil penalty capped at $750 for a first violation and $1,000 for a repeat one under Iowa Code §364.22, and each day the violation continues counts as a separate offense. The city can also withhold other permits tied to the property, issue a stop-work order, or revoke an existing conditional use outright, which forces you to reapply, spacing rule and all.

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