Hackensack Short-Term Rental Regulations: A 2026 Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Hackensack and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that nobody at city hall is going to make you queue for a permit, pay an annual license fee, or sit through an inspection, because Hackensack has never created a short-term rental permit. Unfortunately, that's not the gift it sounds like.

The catch sits in one sentence of the city's own zoning ordinance. Hackensack, the Bergen County seat in northern New Jersey, runs what § 175-1.3 of the Zoning Ordinance calls "a permissive ordinance", and it spells out the consequence itself: "Any use that is not permitted or specified shall be prohibited." Short-term rental isn't specified anywhere in the chapter. Worse, the citywide prohibited-use table takes out three of the obvious workarounds by name.

So let's walk through what that means in practice in 2026: what the zoning ordinance does and doesn't allow, which licenses exist and why none of them fits an Airbnb, the paperwork you'd still need for a legal mid-term let, the 11.625% of tax a booking carries, how enforcement actually works, and who to call at 216 Union Street when you want a written answer rather than a guess.

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

That single line about permissive zoning does most of the work, so it's worth getting the mechanism clear before anything else. Most cities write a short-term rental ordinance and list the conditions. Hackensack never wrote one, and in a permissive zoning scheme silence isn't permission.

It's a no.

Look at what a single-family district actually allows. The R-50 schedule of district regulations, which the R-75 and R-100 districts adopt wholesale, permits six things and no more. Those are a single-family dwelling limited to one per lot, municipal facilities and buildings, municipal parks and playgrounds, public or parochial schools from prekindergarten through grade 12, a resident-professional practice, and a community residence for the developmentally disabled.

Renting sleeping space to travelers isn't on that list, and under § 175-1.3 that ends the analysis.

The definitions push the same way, which is usually where you can tell whether a silence was accidental. Hackensack defines a dwelling as "any permanent building or portion thereof designed or used exclusively as the residence or sleeping place of one or more persons".

It then defines a family as a group whose relationship is "of a permanent, stable and domestic character as distinguished from" boarding homes, clubs, associations, and "transient housing or other similar forms of housing". Transient housing is named and excluded. That wording predates Airbnb by decades, mind you, yet it lands squarely on the modern business.

Then comes the part that surprises people. § 175-6.9 sets out a table of uses "specifically prohibited" in all zone districts in the City of Hackensack, and three lines in it matter to anyone thinking about nightly rentals:

• "Motels, tourist camps or cabins; trailer camps or courts." Not restricted to certain zones. Prohibited everywhere.
• "Boarding Houses, Rooming Housing, and half way houses." The rent-by-the-room model is gone too.
• "Rental of furnished apartments." Read that one twice, because it's the exact product an Airbnb listing is.

Hotels do exist as a category, and they're the one lawful way to sell a night's sleep in Hackensack. The ordinance defines a hotel narrowly, as a building of at least two stories above ground level that offers sleeping accommodations to the general public through a central entrance and a common lobby, with room access only from the hallways off that lobby.

On top of that, § 175-6.6 sets a minimum of 300 square feet per unit of occupancy and a minimum lot area of one and a half acres. Hotels then appear as a conditional use in the B-2 Central Business District schedule rather than in any residential district.

Your three-bedroom colonial off Summit Avenue isn't going to clear that.

One genuine gray area is left, and I'd rather flag it than pretend it's settled. § 175-7.17 says no roomer or boarder is permitted in any dwelling building, except that two are permitted in a one-family dwelling and one in a two-family dwelling.

The ordinance's definition of a boarder is simply a non-family individual who is furnished sleeping accommodations for consideration, and it says nothing about how long they stay. Read literally, that could cover two paying guests in a room of your own house.

Pulling hard the other way, transient housing is excluded from the family definition, a dwelling is defined as permanent, and rooming houses are banned citywide. My reading is that the Zoning Officer would say no, though the honest answer is that I found no Hackensack determination either way, so put it in writing and get the answer on letterhead.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Hackensack

Given how that use table reads, the business you were probably picturing isn't available. Unfortunately for most people reading this, buying a two-family in Hackensack, furnishing it, and running weekend stays on Airbnb is not something a permit or an LLC unlocks. There's no application to file, because the city never built a lane for it.

What's left is a genuinely different set of businesses, and two of them are perfectly good.

The first is the thirty-plus-night furnished let. New Jersey's transient accommodation taxes stop at 90 consecutive days, ordinary landlord and tenant law takes over, and Hackensack's zoning objection disappears because you're renting a dwelling to a household rather than selling lodging.

Bergen County generates real demand for it, since Hackensack University Medical Center rotates traveling nurses and residents through the city year-round and the county courthouse complex sits downtown.

Do check one thing before you model it, though. Ordinance 10-2026, adopted on second reading at the June 16, 2026 council meeting, restated Chapter 134 "Rent Stabilization" in its entirety and amended who the chapter applies to. Rent stabilization reaches buildings holding three or more rental units, so a small apartment building here comes with a rent board attached.

The second is a hotel, which is a development project rather than a side business. One and a half acres, two stories, a common lobby, conditional use approval in the B-2 district, then site plan review.

Anything else means changing towns. Bergen County's 70 municipalities each write their own rules, and a few of them do license short-term rentals, so the Bergen County short-term rental guide is the map worth having if you want to stay in the county.

Owners chasing nightly rates usually end up at the shore instead, where the Ocean County rules govern a market that was built on seasonal rentals. Whichever way you go, run the property through BNBCalc first, because a mid-term let at Hackensack rents and a shore house at summer rates are two different investments wearing the same word.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Hackensack

Since the use itself isn't permitted, there's no short-term rental license to apply for, and searching the city's fee schedule for one is a dead end. Hackensack's code does carry three lodging licenses, though, and it's worth knowing why each one fails to help.

Chapter 158, Tourist Lodges and Camps, is the closest thing on the books. Adopted in 1947 and revised in 1959, it requires a license before anyone conducts "the business of conducting tourist lodges", which § 158-1 defines as renting overnight or temporary sleeping accommodations for consideration to tourists, transients or travelers.

Applications go to the City Clerk, get routed to the Health Department and the Fire Chief for inspection, and are decided by the City Council itself. A license runs January 1 to December 31 with no apportionment, and a transfer costs 10% of the annual fee, which the city keeps whether or not it grants the transfer.

Every guest also goes into a register recording name, address, vehicle plate, room, and the date and hour, available "at any hour of the day or night to any police officer". Then comes the collision, because zoning prohibits tourist camps and cabins in every district, so this chapter can't authorize a new operation.

Chapter 66, Boarding and Rooming Houses, licenses rooming and boarding houses through the Building, Housing and Land Use Department on a June 1 to May 31 term, with copies of the application going to the Building Inspector, Fire Chief and Health Officer. § 66-2 even contemplates an applicant claiming a lawful nonconforming use, which tells you how the city sees these: legacy operations, not new ones. Both fee schedules live in Chapter 107, which I couldn't open, so I'm not quoting a number I haven't read.

Chapter 99, Hotels and Motels, was adopted on February 23, 2021 by Ordinance 06-2021 and appears in the city's code index. Its text is the one document in this guide I couldn't reach, so treat its details as unverified and ask the Clerk directly if you're pursuing the hotel route.

The permission that does exist, and the one you'd actually use, is a zoning permit. Form E, the zoning permit application, costs $50 as of July 2026, is filed by mail or dropped at 216 Union Street, and asks you to describe the current use of the property and the purpose of the application in detail.

The city's filing procedures give the Zoning Officer up to 10 business days to review, after which you get an approval or a Notice of Denial by email. A denial on use grounds is exactly the piece of paper you'd need before appealing to the Zoning Board. Incomplete applications are denied automatically, so send the survey or floor plan with it.

One more registration catches every landlord in the city, and hosts often mistake it for an STR rule. Ordinance 11-2023, codified at Chapter 101, Article II, implements N.J.S.A. 40A:10A-1 et seq., and the city's own Business Owner and Rental Unit Owner Insurance Registry form reproduces the operative text.

Owners of rental units must carry liability insurance of not less than $500,000 combined property damage and bodily injury per occurrence, or $300,000 for a multifamily dwelling of four or fewer units where one is owner-occupied. You register annually with the City Clerk, attach a compliant certificate of insurance, and pay a $50 administrative fee.

The city's insurance requirements page confirms the cycle. Registrations expire December 31, renewals open December 15, and the deadline is January 31, or within 30 days of acquiring a rental unit. Miss it and § 101-14 authorizes a fine of not less than $500 and not more than $5,000.

Required Documents for Hackensack Short-Term Rentals

Since there's no STR application to assemble, the paperwork that still matters is the paperwork for the rental that is legal here, the thirty-plus-night furnished let, plus the zoning determination worth having on file either way.

• Form E and a survey, floor plan or site plan. The application asks for block, lot and zone, a detailed description of the current use, and the purpose of the request. $50, ten business days.
• A certificate of occupancy for the change of use. § 175-15.2 B is blunt about this: nobody may "occupy or use or change the occupation or use of, in whole or in part, any building or structure" without first securing a certificate of occupancy.
• A CCO inspection on a one- or two-family house. The Property Maintenance Division's continued certificate of occupancy checklist, revised February 2025, is where most first-time landlords lose a week. Ten-year sealed-battery smoke detectors on every level including basements and walk-up attics, carbon monoxide detectors within 10 feet of every bedroom, handrails on any stair of three or more risers, no front-door deadbolt keyed on both sides, no open slots in the main electric panel, and house numbers at least four inches high visible from the street.
• A certificate of insurance and the registry form, filed with the City Clerk with the $50 fee.
• Form NJ-REG, but only in one situation. The New Jersey Division of Taxation's transient accommodations guidance requires registration by owners offering three or more units directly in New Jersey. Rent through a marketplace only, or hold fewer than three units, and you don't register.

Don't forget that a denial is a document too. A written Notice of Denial from the Zoning Officer is what a lender, an insurer or a buyer's attorney will want to see if the question of nightly rentals ever comes up on your property, and it costs $50 to obtain.

Hackensack Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you get past the zoning question and are able to rent the place legally, there's still tax to sort out, and the Hackensack stack is smaller than most guides claim. Two charges apply, not four, and the two that get wrongly added in are the interesting ones.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
New Jersey Sales Tax	6.625%	Airbnb, Vrbo or another marketplace
New Jersey State Occupancy Fee	5.00%	Airbnb, Vrbo or another marketplace
Hackensack Hotel and Motel Room Occupancy Tax	3.00%, hotel and motel rooms only	the person collecting the rent
Meadowlands Regional Hotel Use Assessment	not applicable in Hackensack	nobody
Total on a marketplace booking	11.625%	the platform

Those rates are current as of July 2026. The two state charges come from Technical Bulletin TB-81R2, and they only bite in defined circumstances.

Sales Tax at 6.625% and the State Occupancy Fee at 5% apply to a transient accommodation obtained through a transient space marketplace, or to a "professionally managed unit", which means the owner offers two or more other units for rent in New Jersey that year. A direct booking from an owner with fewer than three New Jersey units, arranged outside any marketplace, isn't taxed at all. Stays of 90 or more consecutive days are exempt outright, which is another reason the mid-term model is cleaner here.

Now the two that don't apply, because getting either wrong is expensive in opposite directions.

Hackensack does have a 3% Hotel and Motel Room Occupancy Tax. Chapter 153, Article I, adopted August 18, 2003 by Ordinance 12-2003, fixed it at 3% of rent for every occupancy of a hotel or motel room from July 1, 2004 onward, collected by whoever collects the rent, who is personally liable for it.

That's a hotel tax, though. To reach an Airbnb-style stay, TB-81R2 says a municipality has to amend or adopt an ordinance imposing the Municipal Occupancy Tax on transient accommodations, send it to the Division of Taxation, and wait 90 days. The Division's own list of municipalities that have done so, updated April 2026, contains no Bergen County municipality at all. So the 3% doesn't attach to your booking.

The Meadowlands Regional Hotel Use Assessment is the trap. It's 3%, it applies in Bergen County, and Hackensack isn't in it.

TB-81R2 names the Bergen municipalities individually, and they are Carlstadt, East Rutherford, Little Ferry, Lyndhurst, Moonachie, North Arlington, Ridgefield, Rutherford, South Hackensack and Teterboro, plus Jersey City, Kearny, North Bergen and Secaucus across the river in Hudson County. South Hackensack is a separate township of about two thousand people, three miles from the city that shares its name.

Airbnb's New Jersey tax page describes the assessment loosely as "3% in Bergen and Hudson Counties", which is how the error spreads. Where the two disagree, the Division of Taxation's bulletin is the one that binds, and it's the source used throughout this guide.

Whichever charges apply, a marketplace collects and remits them for you.

Keep in mind that the relief only covers what the platform actually handles. A direct booking taken over email on a professionally managed unit is yours to collect, report and remit, and the Division of Taxation's hotel and motel occupancy page puts those returns on Form HM-100, due monthly by the 20th.

New Jersey Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

Nothing in that tax framework tells Hackensack what it may permit, and that gap is deliberate. New Jersey does not preempt local short-term rental regulation, which is precisely why a state that hosts a huge shore rental economy can also contain a city where nightly rentals aren't an allowed use.

The Division of Local Government Services said so plainly in Local Finance Notice 2026-09, issued April 7, 2026 ahead of the World Cup and America's 250th-anniversary events: "rental of short-term transient accommodations is largely subject to municipal ordinance".

The one statewide statute on point enables rather than restricts. N.J.S.A. 40:52-1(n) authorizes a municipality to license the "rental of real property for a term less than 175 consecutive days for residential purposes by a person having a permanent place of residence elsewhere", with fees set by each town's own fee ordinance. Authorizes, not requires. Hackensack has never used it.

There's no statewide short-term rental license or registry either, so anyone telling you to register with Trenton before hosting is describing a different state. What New Jersey does run is the tax framework, enacted by P.L. 2018, c.49 and narrowed by P.L. 2019, c.235 so that only marketplace bookings and professionally managed units are caught.

Beyond that, every meaningful rule is municipal, and neighboring towns land in genuinely different places. The New Jersey statewide guide covers the framework in full, and the county guides go town by town.

Does Hackensack Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Enforcement follows from the same chapter that creates the problem, which makes it more predictable than the usual complaint-and-inspection cycle. There's no STR inspector in Hackensack. There's a Zoning Officer, and § 175-15.1 gives that office the job of enforcing the whole chapter, with the power to require the Police, Fire or Health Department to report violations in writing.

The trigger is a neighbor. § 175-15.6 D lets any person file a written complaint if there's reason to believe a violation exists, and it requires the Zoning Officer to record it and "immediately investigate". After that the clock is short: § 175-15.6 E(2) calls for abatement within five days of written notice, or such reasonable time as may be determined.

The numbers are where it stops being a nuisance and starts being a problem.

A first offense draws a fine of up to $1,250, or imprisonment for up to 90 days, or both. Every day the violating use continues is a distinct violation, so the exposure compounds rather than capping out.

The second offense carries an unusual measure. § 175-15.6 C sets the fine for a second and subsequent violation at the annual cost of educating a student in the schools of the City of Hackensack, recovered in a civil action in municipal court under the Penalty Enforcement Law. That's per-pupil spending, which in New Jersey runs well into five figures. Nobody prices that into a spreadsheet and comes out ahead.

Separately, § 1-15 of the code sets the general penalty where no specific one applies, at up to $2,000, up to 90 days in jail, or up to 90 days of community service, with each successive day a separate offense. For housing and zoning violations it also builds in a 30-day window to cure the condition and a hearing right, after which a $2,000 fine may be imposed.

How often does any of this fire? I can't tell you, and I'd rather say that than invent a number. Hackensack publishes no data on short-term rental complaints or municipal court outcomes, and I found none.

What I can tell you is that the mechanism needs one annoyed neighbor and a written complaint. A public listing carrying photographs, a calendar and reviews is about the easiest evidence anybody has ever had to gather.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Hackensack

Given all of that, the sequence below is built to fail fast, since the first two steps decide whether the rest are worth your time or your money.

1. Find your zone before anything else. Block, lot and zoning district determine everything downstream, and the zoning ordinance is a permissive one, so start from what your district lists rather than from what you'd like to do.
2. Put the question to the Zoning Officer in writing. File Form E with a survey for $50, describe the proposed use honestly as short-term or transient occupancy, and wait the ten business days. An approval is worth far more than any forum answer, and a denial tells you to stop before you've furnished anything.
3. Decide which legal model you're in. Thirty-plus nights on a lease, a hotel project in the B-2 district, or a different municipality. There isn't a fourth option.
4. Sort the certificate of occupancy. § 175-15.2 B requires one before you occupy or change the use, and a one- or two-family house needs the CCO inspection, so work through the city's checklist before you book the appointment.
5. Register the insurance. Certificate of insurance at $500,000 (or $300,000 for the owner-occupied small multifamily), the registry form, and the $50 fee to the City Clerk by January 31.
6. Handle tax by model. For stays under 90 days through a marketplace, the platform collects the 6.625% and the 5%. For three or more New Jersey units rented directly, file NJ-REG at least 15 business days before renting. For 90-plus-day tenancies, neither charge applies.
7. Keep the paperwork somewhere you can find it. Zoning approval, certificate of occupancy, insurance registration and lease copies. Be aware that a complaint gives you five days to respond, which is not enough time to go hunting for documents.

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

Steps two and four both land in the same building, so knowing which desk owns which question saves a lot of transferred calls. Hackensack splits this work across two addresses, and the split isn't obvious from the outside.

Zoning, use questions and Form E

The Zoning Officer decides whether a use is permitted, and that's the determination everything else in this guide depends on.

• Zoning Officer: Bridget McLaughlin
• Phone: (201) 646-3920, extension 2020
• Email: [email protected]
• File applications at: 216 Union Street, Hackensack, NJ 07601, by mail or drop-off
• Turnaround: up to 10 business days, per the city's zoning application procedures

A business, LLC or other entity appealing a decision to the Zoning Board needs legal representation, which the city states on the same procedures sheet.

Building permits, certificates of occupancy and property maintenance

The Building, Housing and Land Use Department handles construction permits, CCO inspections and property maintenance enforcement.

• Department: Building, Housing and Land Use, 65 Central Avenue, Hackensack, NJ 07601
• Phone: (201) 646-3920
• Construction Official: Ernest Sisco, [email protected], extension 2001
• Property Maintenance Division and CCO inspections: 216 Union Street, (201) 646-3920
• Land Use Administrator: Joseph Mellone, 65 Central Avenue, (201) 646-3914, fax (201) 646-8052

The insurance registry, licenses and records

The City Clerk runs the insurance registry, issues the licenses the code does provide, and holds every ordinance the council has passed.

• Acting City Clerk: Timothy J. Hoffman
• Address: City Clerk's Office, 65 Central Avenue, Hackensack, NJ 07601
• Phone: (201) 646-3940
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., unless otherwise posted

State tax registration

• NJ Division of Revenue and Enterprise Services: 609-292-9292, for NJ-REG registration and for ending a registration you no longer need
• NJ Division of Taxation: PO Box 281, Trenton, NJ 08695-0281, for hotel and motel occupancy fee returns on Form HM-100

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

Those contact details matter more here than in most cities, because the public conversation about Hackensack is unusually unreliable. What follows is my read of what circulates rather than any kind of survey, so weigh it accordingly.

The dominant thing you'll find online about Hackensack short-term rentals is a description of an ordinance that doesn't exist. Aggregator pages and AI answer boxes confidently describe a Hackensack STR regime with off-street parking conditions, a primary-residence requirement, an occupancy cap keyed to bedroom count, a ban on renting accessory dwelling units, a guest log, and a tidy $500, $1,000, $1,500 penalty ladder.

I went looking for every one of those provisions in the city code and found none of them. The closest real thing is the liability-insurance registry from Ordinance 11-2023, which applies to every landlord and every business in the city and has nothing to do with nightly stays.

Two second-order effects follow, and both cost people money. Owners read the invented ordinance, conclude that Hackensack permits short-term rentals with conditions, and buy accordingly. Then they call the Zoning Officer and discover there was never an application to file. The other pattern is the tax one, where the Meadowlands assessment gets applied to Hackensack because South Hackensack is on the state's list, and a pricing model quietly carries 3% that never existed.

Where the discussion is grounded, it's about Bergen County rather than Hackensack specifically, and the recurring theme rings true against the ordinances: rules change street by street across 70 municipalities, and the town next door proves nothing about yours. Anyone weighing this against markets where entire homes can legally go up nightly will want the revenue picture too, and the New Jersey market data is the fastest way to see how far apart a Bergen County mid-term let and a shore season really sit.

The broader lesson generalizes well past this one city. When a place has no ordinance, that absence gets filled with a plausible-sounding invention faster than anyone corrects it, and the only reliable fix is to read the use table yourself and get the answer in writing from the person who enforces it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Airbnb legal in Hackensack, New Jersey in 2026?

Not as a whole-home nightly rental. Hackensack's zoning ordinance is permissive, meaning any use it doesn't list is prohibited, and short-term rental appears nowhere as a permitted, accessory or conditional use. Section 175-6.9 also prohibits motels, tourist camps or cabins, boarding and rooming houses, and "rental of furnished apartments" in every zone district in the city. Renting for 30 nights or more under an ordinary lease sits outside the problem.

Does Hackensack require a short-term rental license or permit?

No. Hackensack has never created a short-term rental license, registration or permit, and there is no fee schedule for one. The related licenses in the code cover tourist lodges under Chapter 158, boarding and rooming houses under Chapter 66, and hotels and motels under Chapter 99, and none can authorize a use that zoning prohibits. Every landlord in the city, short-term or not, must register a certificate of insurance with the City Clerk annually for $50.

What taxes apply to a short-term rental in Hackensack?

Two: New Jersey Sales Tax at 6.625% and the New Jersey State Occupancy Fee at 5%, for a combined 11.625%, and a booking platform like Airbnb or Vrbo collects and remits both. Hackensack's own 3% hotel and motel room occupancy tax applies to hotel and motel rooms, not to transient accommodations, since the city is absent from the Division of Taxation's April 2026 list. The 3% Meadowlands assessment covers South Hackensack, a different municipality, not Hackensack.

What is the penalty for an illegal short-term rental in Hackensack?

A first offense carries a fine of up to $1,250, up to 90 days imprisonment, or both, and every day the use continues counts as a distinct violation. For a second and subsequent violation, the zoning ordinance sets the fine at the annual cost of educating a student in Hackensack's schools, recovered in municipal court. The general code penalty, where no specific one applies, runs to $2,000 with a 30-day period to cure a housing or zoning condition first.

Can you rent a room in your own house in Hackensack?

Possibly, though it's the one unsettled question in Hackensack. Section 175-7.17 permits two roomers or boarders in a one-family dwelling and one in a two-family dwelling, and the ordinance defines a boarder without reference to length of stay. Against that, the definition of family expressly excludes transient housing, a dwelling is defined as permanent, and rooming houses are prohibited citywide. No published Hackensack determination resolves it, so ask the Zoning Officer in writing before listing.

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