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

Do you own a place in Ellsworth, Maine and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is, you can. Hancock County's seat, the city most visitors drive through on their way to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park, has no dedicated short-term rental ordinance, no permit, and no cap on how many nights you rent.

That's not the whole story, though. City council has asked staff to explore whether Ellsworth should adopt a registration and safety inspection program of its own, and a public listening session on exactly that question is set for August 10, 2026 at City Hall. No decision has been made yet, but the open field you're picturing right now could look different within a year or two, so it's worth understanding where things stand today and where they're headed.

So let's walk through what actually applies in Ellsworth in 2026: the licensing gap the city is trying to close, the one state tax every host owes, how a crackdown on the other side of the county pushed investors here in the first place, and who to call once the rules change. Everything below comes from Ellsworth's own city code and Maine's statutes, checked in July 2026. If you're comparing this market against somewhere with STR rules already on the books, run the numbers through BNBCalc first.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Ellsworth

That research basis starts with the single most basic question: what stops you from listing a property in Ellsworth today? Going through the city's own code, the honest answer is almost nothing.

Zoning doesn't single out short-term rentals at all. The Unified Development Ordinance's table of use regulations lists a use called "Dwelling, Single Family Detached/Attached," and that's the category an ordinary whole-house Airbnb sits in, the same one as any other house on the street. It's permitted in the Downtown, Urban, Neighborhood, Commerce Park, Rural and Drinking Water districts, which covers most of the city's residential land.

A separate "Lodging" category exists in that same table for anything the city treats as a bed and breakfast or a hotel or motel. A bed and breakfast is permitted in Downtown, Urban, Neighborhood, Commercial, Rural and the Drinking Water district, while a hotel or motel is permitted everywhere on that list except Neighborhood. Which category your rental actually falls under matters more than it sounds, and I'll come back to that in the licensing section below.

One narrow exception does target short-term rentals by name. Build an accessory dwelling unit using the city's density or lot-size exemption, and that unit can't be used as a short-term rental for ten years after its certificate of occupancy is issued. The landowner has to agree to that in writing as part of getting the certificate. Build an ordinary ADU without leaning on the exemption, and the restriction doesn't apply.

Beyond that one carve-out, Ellsworth genuinely has nothing short-term-rental-specific on the books, and the city says so itself. City council has asked staff to explore whether a registration and safety inspection program should be considered, and "no decisions have been made," according to the city's own notice for the upcoming August 10, 2026 listening session. That's the single biggest thing to watch here. The market you're looking at today, wide open and unlicensed, might not look that way for much longer.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Ellsworth

Until council actually adopts something, though, licensing here still runs through Chapter 14 of the city code, which was written for hotels, taxicabs and liquor stores long before Airbnb existed.

Any trade, calling, profession or occupation conducted in the city "on a regular basis" needs a general business license, full stop. That broad definition is the closest thing to blanket coverage a short-term rental gets today. The Code Enforcement Officer issues it, no public hearing is required, and, as of July 2026, the license runs one year at $20 new, with a $10 renewal after that.

A second, older license track exists specifically for lodging, and it's genuinely unclear which one the city expects an ordinary vacation rental to carry. The "Lodging House" license covers "a place providing sleeping accommodations, with or without meals, for a fee," language broad enough to read as covering a whole-house rental.

The definition then lists only a bed and breakfast, boarding house, hotel, inn or motel as examples, though, echoing the way Maine's own health code excludes vacation rentals from its lodging definition. Unlike the general business license, a Lodging House license needs City Council approval and a public hearing every time it's issued or renewed.

License	Fee	Term and who issues it
General business license	$20 new, $10 renewal	One year, issued by the Code Enforcement Officer, no hearing
Lodging House, other than a bed and breakfast	$60 plus $3 per room	One year, City Council approval and a public hearing
Lodging House, bed and breakfast under 5 rooms	$35	One year, City Council approval and a public hearing
Lodging House, bed and breakfast, 5 to 14 rooms	$50	One year, City Council approval and a public hearing
Lodging House, bed and breakfast, 15 or more rooms	$60 plus $3 per room	One year, City Council approval and a public hearing

Do check with Code Enforcement before you apply for either one. Which license class a typical Airbnb gets sorted into isn't something the code spells out, and getting it wrong means paying twice or sitting through a public hearing you never needed.

Required Documents for Ellsworth Short-Term Rentals

Since that public hearing question is the whole reason to ask first, the documents you'll still need depend on which answer you get back.

Every license under Chapter 14 starts with the same written application, filed with the license fee attached. Before anything is issued, the Fire Chief, Police Chief, Code Enforcement Officer and City Treasurer each review it. They have to confirm the property meets the Maine Food Code, state plumbing and wastewater rules, and the relevant chapters of the city code, including fire protection, sewers, floodplain management and the Unified Development Ordinance itself. The city can also send someone out to inspect the property first.

If your rental lands in the Lodging House track, you or an authorized agent also has to show up in person at the public hearing on a new application. Miss it, and the administrator has to treat the whole thing as incomplete rather than rescheduling around you.

Then there's the paperwork the state wants separately. Register with Maine Revenue Services through the Maine Tax Portal before your first guest checks in. It's free, and it's how you get set up to collect and remit the 9% rental tax covered next. Remember, none of this replaces a normal building permit if you're renovating a bedroom or adding an accessory dwelling unit to host guests in, so loop Code Enforcement in early if construction is part of the plan.

Ellsworth Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you get that Maine Tax Portal account set up, the tax itself is still the easy part, since Maine runs it as one flat state rate with nothing stacked on top at the city or county level.

That rate is 9%, charged on the rental of living quarters under 36 M.R.S. §1811, and it applies whether you call the place a cottage, a condo, or a plain single-family home. Airbnb and Vrbo both register as transient rental platforms in Maine and collect that 9% automatically on any booking made through their sites. Even so, you should still register with Maine Revenue Services yourself, since a direct booking or a stay arranged off-platform won't have anyone collecting it for you.

One narrow exemption might apply if you only have a single unit. Rent it fewer than 15 days in a calendar year and you're not considered a "retailer" under 36 M.R.S. §1764, so you don't have to collect the tax on those particular stays, unless you've placed the unit with a property manager or real estate agent, who has to collect regardless of how few nights it rents.

Keep in mind the Chapter 14 license fees from the last section are fees for a permit, not a second tax layer. Maine law doesn't give Ellsworth the authority to add its own local-option lodging tax on top of the state's 9%, and going through the city's own fee schedule, nothing there is labeled a tax either.

Maine Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

That 9% and the exemption around it come from the same statewide framework that shapes everything else in this guide, so it's worth seeing the whole picture at once.

Maine has no statute preempting or capping local short-term rental rules. Instead, 30-A M.R.S. §4364-C(2) does the opposite: it confirms that a municipality may write its own short-term rental regulations to help meet the state's housing production goals, which is exactly the authority Ellsworth would lean on if council adopts anything after the August listening session.

There's no single statewide operating license for a short-term rental. Three narrower state requirements do the actual work:

• Sales tax registration through the Maine Tax Portal, required of every host, covered above.
• A state lodging license from the Maine CDC's Health Inspection Program, but only if you're running an actual bed and breakfast, which needs one "regardless of the number of rooms rented." A single-family home or condo rented short-term doesn't need this one.
• A one-time notice to the Land Use Planning Commission, but only for properties inside Maine's unorganized territories. Ellsworth is an organized city with its own government, so this doesn't apply here, though it's worth knowing if you also own a camp further out in Hancock County's unorganized townships.

Two bills that would have changed this picture both died in 2025. LD 1181 would have let assessors reclassify a short-term rental as "commercial" rather than residential for tax purposes, and LD 1476 would have added a statewide booking fee to fund homeless shelters. Neither survived committee, and no statewide STR licensing bill passed before the 132nd Legislature adjourned in April 2026. Our Maine short-term rental guide covers that whole framework in more depth, which is worth a look if you own property in more than one Maine town.

Does Ellsworth Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Neither bill would have touched Ellsworth directly anyway, since enforcement here is a city question, not a state one, and the honest answer right now is that there's barely anything to enforce.

Going through the city's own code, I couldn't find a published record of Ellsworth citing or fining a short-term rental host, and that tracks with there being no STR-specific ordinance to violate in the first place. A listing operating as a genuine, unlicensed bed and breakfast could in theory run into the general Chapter 14 requirement that any lodging house carry a license.

Any zoning dispute that did arise would fall under Maine's general municipal violation statute, 30-A M.R.S. §4452, which sets a $100 to $2,500 civil penalty for operating without a required permit and up to $5,000 for other violations, doubling for repeat offenses inside two years. None of that is a short-term-rental-specific number, though. It's just what state law lets any Maine municipality charge for any code violation.

That's likely to change. City council explicitly framed the August 2026 listening session around whether Ellsworth needs a registration and safety inspection program. It's the same phrase Bar Harbor used before adopting its own short-term rental chapter in late 2025, with annual registration, mandatory re-inspection every three years, and separate rules for owner-occupied and investor-owned units.

Ellsworth's market grew partly because it wasn't Bar Harbor. A 2023 outlook reported by the Bangor Daily News ranked the city 8th nationally to buy a short-term rental, pointing straight at the low regulatory risk and the overflow from Bar Harbor's 2021 crackdown on vacation rentals. Watch out, because that same overflow is very plausibly why Ellsworth is now having the conversation Bar Harbor already had.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Ellsworth

Given all of that, the order you tackle these steps in matters more than it would in a city with settled rules, since half the point is staying ready for whatever council does next.

1. Confirm your zoning district and use category with Code Enforcement. A bed-and-breakfast-style operation and a plain whole-house rental get treated differently under the Unified Development Ordinance's table of use regulations.
2. Ask, rather than guess, whether your rental reads as a Lodging House or an ordinary rental. One path needs a City Council public hearing and the other doesn't, and the wrong guess costs you a hearing or a fee you didn't need.
3. File the Chapter 14 application and pay the fee that fits, whether that's the $20 general business license or the Lodging House fee for your property type.
4. Register with Maine Revenue Services through the Maine Tax Portal before your first booking, so you're set up to collect and remit the 9% rental tax.
5. Confirm Airbnb or Vrbo is actually collecting that 9% on your listing, and don't assume it if most of your bookings come direct.
6. Check whether any accessory dwelling unit on your property used the city's density exemption. That triggers the ten-year short-term rental restriction.
7. Follow the city's Planning and Code Enforcement pages, or attend the next listening session yourself, so a new ordinance doesn't catch you unlicensed once it passes.

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

That last step, staying in the loop, starts with knowing which office actually owns which question, since Ellsworth splits this across a few small departments rather than one dedicated bureau.

Zoning, licensing recommendations and the pending ordinance

The City of Ellsworth Code Enforcement Department administers the Unified Development Ordinance, sits on the review committee for every Chapter 14 license, and is running point on the short-term rental listening session process.

• Address: 1 City Hall Plaza, Ellsworth, ME 04605
• Phone: 207-667-4910
• Staff: Robert Grant, Code Enforcement Officer ([email protected]); Andrew Lutterloh, Deputy Code Enforcement Officer ([email protected])
• Hours: Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., closed holidays. Book ahead, since the office recommends an appointment over a drop-in visit.

General business and Lodging House license applications

The City Clerk's Office processes the general business license and, alongside the Code Enforcement Officer's recommendation, the paperwork behind a Lodging House license.

• Address: 1 City Hall Plaza, Ellsworth, ME 04605
• Phone: 207-667-2563
• Staff: Suzanne McLean, City Clerk ([email protected])
• Hours: Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

State sales tax registration

The Maine Revenue Services Sales Tax Division handles registration for the 9% rental of living quarters tax and any questions about the casual-rental exemption.

• Mailing address: PO Box 9107, Augusta, ME 04332-9107
• Phone: 207-624-9693
• Email: [email protected]
• Register: through the Maine Tax Portal

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

Whichever office you end up calling, you won't be the only one asking, since interest in Ellsworth as a short-term rental market has been building for a few years now.

Going through the public discussion that exists, the loudest theme by far is Ellsworth's contrast with its more famous neighbor. Bar Harbor's 2021 crackdown, and the formal ordinance it adopted in late 2025, pushed a share of would-be hosts and buyers up the road into Ellsworth instead, and the 2023 national ranking the Bangor Daily News covered was built almost entirely on that contrast. That's still the version of Ellsworth most outside investors picture: cheaper homes, the same Acadia tourist season, and none of the paperwork.

I didn't find a dedicated Ellsworth thread on BiggerPockets or Reddit large enough to call a trend, which is honestly typical for a market this size, since most of the specific chatter clusters around Bar Harbor and Mount Desert Island instead. What little does surface treats the city's current lack of rules as a feature rather than a guarantee, and the August 2026 listening session is the first real sign that assumption is being tested locally rather than just discussed from outside.

Take that as a genuine hedge rather than a dismissal. A market can be wide open one summer and running an annual registration and inspection program the next, and Bar Harbor is proof of exactly how fast that turn can happen once a city council decides it wants one. If you'd rather weigh a market with a more established regulatory picture, the Bangor market sits about half an hour up the road and gives you a bigger, longer-tracked rental market to compare against.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Ellsworth, Maine in 2026?

Yes. Ellsworth has no short-term rental ordinance, licensing cap, or zoning ban aimed at whole-house rentals as of 2026. An ordinary single-family home falls under the same "Dwelling, Single Family" zoning category as any other house in the city, and that use is permitted in most of Ellsworth's residential districts. The one carve-out applies to accessory dwelling units built using the city's density exemption, which can't be used as a short-term rental for ten years after their certificate of occupancy. City council is weighing new registration rules, so expect this to change within a year or two.

Do you need a business license for a short-term rental in Ellsworth?

Ellsworth's Chapter 14 requires a general business license for any trade or occupation conducted regularly in the city, and a short-term rental likely falls under that broad definition. The license costs $20 new and $10 to renew, runs one year, and is issued by the Code Enforcement Officer with no public hearing. A separate, older "Lodging House" license also exists for anything the city treats as a bed and breakfast, hotel, inn or motel, and that one needs City Council approval and a public hearing instead. Confirm with Code Enforcement which license class applies to your property before you apply.

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

Maine charges a flat 9% tax on the rental of living quarters, and that's the only layer: Ellsworth has no local-option lodging tax stacked on top. Airbnb and Vrbo both collect and remit that 9% automatically on bookings made through their platforms. If you take direct bookings, you need your own Maine Revenue Services account through the Maine Tax Portal to collect and remit it yourself. A narrow exemption applies if you rent a single unit for fewer than 15 days a year, unless a property manager or real estate agent is handling the listing.

Is Ellsworth about to pass a short-term rental ordinance?

Possibly. Ellsworth's city council has directed staff to explore a registration and safety inspection program, and the city scheduled a public listening session on the question for August 10, 2026. No decision has been made and no ordinance has been drafted for a public vote as of August 2026. Given that neighboring Bar Harbor moved from a similar conversation to a full registration ordinance with inspections and separate owner-occupied rules within a few years, hosts in Ellsworth should expect the same possibility rather than assume the current unregulated status is permanent.

Can you rent a room in your Ellsworth home without registering for Maine's rental tax?

Only in a narrow case. If you have just one unit and rent it fewer than 15 days in a calendar year, Maine law doesn't treat you as a "retailer," so you don't have to collect the state's 9% rental tax on those stays. That exemption disappears the moment you place the unit with a property manager or real estate agent, who must collect the tax regardless of how few nights it rents.

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