Houston Short Term Rental Regulation: A Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Houston and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that you can, and Houston is still about as accommodating as a big American city gets on this. There's no zoning ordinance to satisfy, no cap on how many guests you host, no city inspection, no insurance requirement, and no limit on how many rentals a single owner can run. What changed at 12:01 a.m. on January 1, 2026 is narrower than the headlines made it sound: Houston now wants you registered.

That registration is a real obligation rather than a formality, mind you, because operating, renting or even advertising an unregistered unit inside the city limits is now a ticketable offence that runs $100 to $500 for every day it continues. The part that catches people out sits somewhere else entirely, though. Houston has never had zoning, so the thing that decides whether your particular address can be rented by the night is your subdivision's deed restrictions, and the city's own application makes you swear that yours allow it.

So let's walk through what it actually takes to do this properly in Houston, which sits mostly inside Harris County, Texas: what the ordinance requires in 2026, what the certificate costs, the four separate layers of hotel tax you'll be collecting, how hard the city is pushing so far, and who to call when something stalls. Every figure below comes from the City of Houston, Harris County or the State of Texas, checked in July 2026, and where something is still moving I've said so.

What are Short Term Rental (Airbnb, VRBO) Regulations in Houston, Texas?

Two things regulate a Houston short-term rental, and only one of them belongs to the city.

The city's half arrived in 2025. The ordinance amending Chapter 28 of the Code of Ordinances to add Article XXIII passed City Council on April 16, 2025 and took effect at 12:01 a.m. on January 1, 2026. It defines a short-term rental as "a dwelling unit or any portion of a dwelling unit that is rented out or offered to be rented out for a period of less than 30 consecutive days."

Both halves of that phrase do work. Any portion means a spare bedroom counts the same as a whole house, while offered to be rented out means the listing itself is the trigger. So § 28-722 makes it unlawful to "operate, rent, lease, or advertise" without a valid certificate. You don't need a booking to be in violation.

A handful of uses fall outside it: boarding homes, bed and breakfasts, hotels, lodging facilities, alternate housing facilities, buildings whose sleeping accommodation exists to deliver federally or state-regulated services, and a leaseback where the seller of a home rents it back from the buyer. Everything else that turns over in under 30 days is a short-term rental.

What the ordinance doesn't do is where Houston separates itself from almost every other major market:

• No occupancy cap. The city's own answers to frequently asked questions answer that one in a single line: "There are no maximum occupancy limits."
• No insurance requirement. Asked directly whether hosts must carry short-term rental insurance, the city answered "No." Several guides circulating online assert that a $1 million liability policy is mandatory. It isn't, and that figure appears nowhere in the ordinance or the director's rules.
• No inspection, no safety-equipment schedule, and no pre-approval visit.
• No owner-occupancy rule. You don't have to live there, and an entity can hold the certificate.
• No cap on portfolio size, and no density limit per building or block. A proposal to cap short-term rentals at a quarter of any apartment complex's units was dropped during the council debate as legally risky.

Now the other half, which is the one that decides the real answer for your address. Houston's Planning and Development Department says it plainly: "The City of Houston does not have zoning," and "The City codes do not address land use." Chapter 42 governs how land gets subdivided, and site plans get checked for setbacks, parking and access, yet nothing in the development code tells you what may happen inside a house.

Private deed restrictions do that instead, and unusually for Texas, the city enforces them itself. Under Chapter 212 of the Texas Local Government Code and Sections 10-551 through 10-555 of the city code, the Legal Department can sue for an injunction to stop a violation.

Which is why § 28-731(b)(7) matters more than its position in a list of eleven items suggests. It makes you acknowledge that using the property as a short-term rental "does not violate any covenants, homeowner association rules, bylaws, deed restrictions, condominium agreement terms, rental agreement terms, or other restrictions." Nobody checks. But a false statement on the application is a denial ground under § 28-732(b)(1) and a revocation ground under § 28-733(a)(2), so signing it while your restrictions say otherwise buys you a certificate you can lose.

The good news on that front came from the Texas Supreme Court. In Tarr v. Timberwood Park Owners Association, decided May 25, 2018, the court held that a bare "residential purposes" covenant doesn't bar short-term rentals. A single-family residence restriction, it reasoned, "merely limits the structure that can properly be erected upon Tarr's tract and not the activities that can permissibly take place in that structure."

Plenty of older Houston subdivisions carry exactly that generic language and say nothing about rental duration. Do check yours line by line before assuming either way, though, because the newer and the amended ones often address it head on.

Starting a Short Term Rental Business in Houston

Since the deed restrictions are the real gate, Houston is still a market where the business genuinely works, yet the diligence happens at the subdivision level rather than at City Hall.

The scale tells you as much. Building its case for the ordinance, the Administration and Regulatory Affairs Department counted 8,548 properties advertising as short-term rentals in Houston as of November 10, 2024. By July 22, 2026, the city's public map of registered short-term rentals carried 5,275 active certificates. They cluster hard, too: District D holds 1,482, District C 1,165 and District H 707, so roughly 64% of the registered inventory sits in three of eleven council districts while District E has 77.

Unlike a lot of cities, nothing here limits you to one. The city confirms there's no ceiling on the total number of short-term rentals operating in Houston and no ceiling on how many a single owner may hold, although each unit needs its own certificate, including individual condominium and apartment units inside the same complex. Entities can register as well, provided you keep your Texas Secretary of State formation documents and stay in good standing with the Comptroller.

Renting out an apartment you don't own can work too, and the mechanics are spelled out. A tenant subleasing a unit applies for that unit's certificate and has to include a declaration from the owner granting permission, plus the owner's acknowledgement that the use breaks no rules. So your landlord finds out either way, and a property manager's signature is what makes the whole thing possible.

Before you spend anything, run the numbers rather than the vibe, because a 17% tax stack and a per-unit annual fee change the arithmetic on a thin deal. Run the property through BNBCalc first. And keep in mind that this ordinance stops at the city limits: assuming the address you're circling is in a suburb rather than Houston proper, you're into a different rulebook, which is where the Fort Bend County short-term rental rules and the Galveston County short-term rental rules become the useful next reads.

Short Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Houston

Assuming your restrictions are clear and you're able to move forward, the certificate itself is still the least complicated part of this whole exercise.

One certificate covers one unit and is valid only at the address printed on it. The fee set by § 28-731(a) is $275, non-refundable whether or not you're approved, plus a city administrative charge that Houston put at $33.10 for calendar year 2025. That admin piece moves, since Houston fees "change annually according to changes in the Consumer Price Index," so treat $275 as the fixed number and your total as slightly more.

Term is where things have gone a little odd. The ordinance says each certificate runs one year from the date of issuance, with renewal filed no more than 90 calendar days before it lapses. The city has since layered a transition on top, and as its short-term rental page currently puts it, "All STR certificates of registration issued on or before December 31, 2026, will have an expiration date of December 31, 2027."

Going through the public registry, though, the expiry dates on live certificates are a mix of end-of-2026, end-of-2027 and scattered one-year anniversaries. So don't assume the transition covers you. Read the date on the certificate you actually receive, then diarize that one.

Applications run online only, through Host Compliance by Granicus, and the portal is unforgiving about it. You can't save and return, and the session dies after an hour, which sends you back to the start. Gather everything first.

Denial is straightforward and mostly self-inflicted. The director may refuse a certificate where the application is false, misleading, incorrect or incomplete, where you don't supply requested information, where you can't show hotel occupancy tax registration or remittance, or where you're a former registrant still inside a revocation waiting period. Curable problems can be fixed by amending the application instead of appealing, which is the faster and cheaper path.

Revocation is the part worth reading twice, because several grounds don't depend on anything you personally did:

• Failure to timely report and pay, or ensure payment of, hotel occupancy taxes.
• Two or more occasions where the city abates a nuisance at the property under §§ 10-451 and 10-452.
• Two or more citations issued over two separate occasions within a 12-month period that produce two or more convictions under chapter 30, the noise ordinance, whether those citations went to you, your operator or your guests.
• One or more convictions for a listed serious offence occurring at the property, including trafficking, prostitution offences, aggravated or sexual assault, reckless discharge of a firearm and certain disorderly conduct.

Then § 28-733(b) adds the clause that should shape how a portfolio operator runs the business. Where three or more certificates held by the same owner or operator are revoked inside any 24-month period, the director may move to revoke all the remaining ones. Lose three and the whole portfolio is on the table. A revoked property is also ineligible to reapply for a year, and the certificate goes void the moment you sell or convey any ownership or leasehold interest, which a buyer needs to understand before closing rather than after.

Appeals go to a hearing rather than a court. You file a written request within 20 calendar days of the notice, an impartial hearing officer is appointed within 30 calendar days, and the decision lands within 30 days of the hearing and is final. Be aware that filing an appeal doesn't stay the director's decision in the meantime.

Required Documents for Houston Short Term Rentals

Since that $275 doesn't come back, it's worth getting the paperwork right the first time. The director's rules, effective November 1, 2025, spell out what the city will accept, and the specificity is where applications stall:

• Your identity. Name, email, phone, mobile, address, and uploaded images of your driver's licence, front and back.
• The property address, in full.
• Owner details that match the record. The owner named has to match Harris County Appraisal District records, or be the lessor named in your lease.
• Entity paperwork, if the owner isn't a person. You affirm that you hold the Texas Secretary of State formation documents and that the entity is in good standing with the Comptroller, then produce both on request.
• A 24/7 emergency contact. A named individual or a call centre, reachable by phone, able to reach the property within an hour of being notified by emergency personnel or the city.
• Every platform, with the full listing link for each. Not the platform name alone.
• Hotel occupancy tax proof. Airbnb-only hosts tick a box and supply nothing further. Anyone listing anywhere else provides either a service order confirmation showing remittance to Houston First for the most recent quarter, or proof of Houston First registration.
• The owner's written authorization. Either the city's Property Owner Authorization and Acknowledgement Form signed by the owner, or a lease or addendum containing a specific provision permitting short-term rental use, or a signed letter from the lessor authorising a short-term rental sublease. Handwritten, DocuSign, Adobe Acrobat Sign and Authentisign signatures are all accepted.
• A human trafficking prevention training certificate, which you keep in your own records and hand over whenever the city asks.

One ongoing duty hides in § 28-731(c), and it bites quietly: any change to the information in your application has to be reported within 15 calendar days, and failing to supplement invalidates the original application. A new platform, a new phone number for your emergency contact, a new operator, all reportable. The Regulatory Permitting Division also runs annual audits covering tax remittance, entity standing, training completion and complaint history, so the file you submit is the file you'll be measured against later.

Houston Short Term Rental Taxes

Proving you're registered for hotel occupancy tax is a condition of getting the certificate at all, which makes tax the one piece of this you can't defer. Four separate charges land on a Houston short-term stay, from three different governments, and as of July 2026 the total sits at a number that isn't a coincidence.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
Texas state hotel occupancy tax	6%	Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts
City of Houston hotel occupancy tax	7%	Houston First Corporation
Harris County hotel occupancy tax	2% inside city limits	Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector
Harris County-Houston Sports Authority tax	2%	Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector
Combined total	17%	Three separate governments

That 17% is exactly the ceiling. The Legislature capped combined state and local hotel occupancy tax at 17% in 2013, so Houston has no headroom left at all. Nobody can add a fifth layer without the state lifting the cap first.

Taking them one at a time, the state's 6% hotel occupancy tax under Tax Code Chapter 156 applies to rooms costing $15 or more per day. Returns run monthly, due the 20th of the following month, or quarterly if you qualify. File and pay on time and you keep a 1% discount. Miss it and there's a $50 penalty per late report, 5% if you're 1 to 30 days late, 10% beyond that, with interest running from day 61.

The city's 7% charge is administered by Houston First Corporation and reaches houses and rooms the same way it reaches hotels, at any rate of $2 or more per day. It's quarterly, due April 30, July 31, October 31 and January 31. Late payments draw interest at 10% per annum plus a 15% penalty once an amount has been delinquent a full municipal fiscal quarter.

Harris County's piece is the one people get wrong, because the rate isn't uniform across Harris County. In its order levying the 2026 hotel occupancy tax, adopted under Tax Code § 352.002, Commissioners Court imposed 7% from January 1, 2026, "except that the county tax rate shall be only two percent (2%) for hotels in any municipality." Houston is a municipality. Inside the city you're at 2%.

The Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector collects that one, quarterly, on or before the last day of the month after each quarter closes. Section 352.005 then lets you withhold 1% of what you collect as reimbursement for collecting it, which is a small mercy. Skip a return, though, and the county can audit you on 30 days' written notice, with the County Attorney authorised to sue.

Now the part that spares most hosts most of this work. Airbnb collects and remits all four Texas layers on Houston listings for reservations of 29 nights and shorter: 6% state, 7% city, 2% county and 2% Sports Authority. On the city piece it's been doing so since July 1, 2019, and Houston First's guidance is blunt that hosts "should not report any of their Airbnb rental receipts to Houston First." Vrbo, still called HomeAway in the city's paperwork, has the same arrangement for the city tax.

Anything outside those two, whether a smaller platform or your own direct-booking site, is yours to collect and remit. And don't forget that handing a platform bad information doesn't move the liability off you.

Long stays fall out of the system on both sides. A guest who gives written notice of intent to stay 30 or more consecutive days is exempt from the city tax from the start of the stay, provided payment isn't interrupted. The state applies the same 30-day permanent-resident rule, with the same warning that any interruption voids it.

Your rental income is ordinary taxable income on top of all that, with the usual depreciation, mortgage interest, furnishing and management deductions. If you're comparing what a Houston property clears against a market with a lighter tax stack or kinder seasonality, BNBCalc Markets shows that gap at neighborhood level.

Houston Wide Short Term Rental Rules

Tax is the obligation that follows every booking. The operating rules in § 28-741 are the ones that follow every guest, and they apply identically to every registered unit anywhere in the city.

A short-term rental can't be rented for less than one night, which quietly kills the hourly-rental model. Every public listing has to display your certificate of registration number and "the maximum permitted occupancy limits," and since the city sets no occupancy maximum, that second figure comes from your building's own lawful capacity under the construction and fire code rather than from an ordinance table. Watch out for that mismatch, because a listing with no occupancy number on it is non-compliant even though no number was ever handed to you.

Your emergency contact has to be reachable by phone at all times while guests are on the premises, has to respond to an emergency within one hour of being notified, and has to be authorised to make decisions about the property and its occupants. The names and numbers go up in a conspicuous spot, and a copy of the approved certificate goes inside the front entrance where a guest or an inspector can see it.

Then there's the event-space prohibition, which is broader in wording than in practice. Owners can't advertise or promote a special event at a short-term rental, and the ordinance names the shapes it has in mind: banquet, wedding, reception, reunion, bachelor or bachelorette party, concert. The city clarified that a family booking a house for a birthday isn't the target, whereas advertising the property as event space is, and no event at a short-term rental may be promoted on platforms, social media or physical signage.

Woven through all of it is compliance with chapter 30 on noise, chapter 10 on buildings and neighborhood protection, chapter 39 on solid waste and litter, and the construction and fire code.

Platforms carry duties of their own under § 28-742, and that's the machinery which eventually makes the rest self-enforcing. They must notify hosts of the registration requirement, must require the certificate number prominently on each listing, and "shall not list a short-term rental without a certificate of registration number issued by the city."

Above the city there's less than you might expect. Texas has no statewide short-term rental statute, no state registry and no law preempting what a Texas city may require, which is exactly why Houston, Austin, Dallas and San Antonio have all landed somewhere different.

What the state does supply is the tax architecture, Tax Code Chapters 156, 351 and 352 plus Local Government Code Chapters 334 and 335 for venue taxes, along with the case law on deed restrictions. For the layer sitting above this city, the Texas statewide short-term rental guide maps how that framework plays out elsewhere in the state.

Does Houston Strictly Enforce STR Rules? Is Houston Airbnb Friendly?

Houston is friendly, and it's friendly by design rather than by neglect. Enforcement exists, yet it's deliberately slower than the ordinance's own teeth would allow.

Start with those teeth. Under § 28-723 each violation draws a fine of not less than $100 and not more than $500. Each day it continues is "punishable as a separate violation," so a month of unregistered operation is $3,000 at the floor and $15,000 at the ceiling, against a $275 certificate. That's not a one-time fine. It accrues, and that's exactly where owners get badly hurt.

The stronger lever is § 28-734, which lets the city tell a platform to pull a listing carrying no certificate number, and obliges the platform to remove it within ten business days. Delisting ends a business, since an unlisted property earns nothing at all.

The city hasn't pulled that lever yet, though. Its own page states that "on January 1, 2027, the City will begin notifying platforms to remove STR listings that lack a certificate of registration," and Avalara's MyLodgeTax reported in April 2026 that the city had asked platforms to hold off until that date. So 2026 is a grace year. 2027 isn't.

The compliance numbers explain the patience. Against 8,548 properties the city counted advertising in late 2024, 5,275 certificates were live on July 22, 2026, which works out at about three in five. Avalara's April 2026 report put registrations at nearly 4,000 with another 1,100 pending, and the city's own compliance estimate at around 83%. The city's page still carries a notice about longer processing times "due to the recent influx of STR applications," which is not the posture of a department hunting for offenders.

Day to day, enforcement is complaint-driven and routed by subject rather than handled by one dedicated squad. A 24-hour hotline and complaint portal run through Host Compliance by Granicus, and from there noise complaints go to the Houston Police Department, trash to Solid Waste Management, dangerous-building complaints to Houston Public Works and fire code issues to the Houston Fire Department. Avalara reported 228 formal short-term rental complaints in the first months after the ordinance took effect, alongside two party shootings that account for a good deal of the political pressure behind it.

Set that beside a Texas city which went further and the contrast gets stark, which is the comparison that matters if you're choosing between metros. San Antonio short-term rental rules run to permit types, density limits and owner-occupancy distinctions. Houston built a list and a hotline. That's the whole difference, and for an investor it's the thesis: your risk here is demand and supply, not permission.

How to Start a Short Term Rental Business in Houston

Given how forgiving the city has been so far, the sequence below matters mostly because the early steps are the ones that can kill a deal, and taking them after you've paid is how the $275 stops being refundable.

1. Read your deed restrictions and HOA or condo documents first. This is the one true veto in Houston. A generic "residential purposes" covenant probably doesn't stop you after Tarr, yet anything addressing rental duration, leasing terms or commercial use may well do.
2. Confirm the address is inside Houston city limits. The ordinance reaches no further, and a suburban address answers to its own city or county instead.
3. Get the owner's signature. Either the city's Property Owner Authorization and Acknowledgement Form, or a lease or addendum with an explicit short-term rental provision. Assuming you're a tenant, this is the step that needs a real conversation with your landlord.
4. Register for hotel occupancy tax before you register the rental. Airbnb-only hosts tick a box, though everyone else needs a Houston First account and proof of it, and the city won't issue a certificate without one.
5. Complete the human trafficking prevention training and file the certificate somewhere you can find it again, since the city can ask for it at any point and does ask during audits.
6. Set up your 24/7 emergency contact properly. Someone real, reachable around the clock, able to be on site within an hour and authorised to act. A friend who might answer isn't this.
7. Gather everything, then apply in one sitting. Identity documents, licence images front and back, owner details matching appraisal district records, entity paperwork where applicable, every platform link, tax proof, owner authorization, training certificate, and the $275 plus admin fee.
8. Put the certificate number and an occupancy figure on every listing, then post the certificate inside the front entrance alongside your emergency contact details.
9. Diarize the expiry date on the certificate you receive and file the renewal inside the 90-day window. Just make sure you also report any change to your application details within 15 days, because that one invalidates the application if you let it slide.

Who to Contact in Houston About Short Term Rental Regulations and Zoning

Whichever of those steps you get stuck on, five offices handle nearly all of it between them, and knowing which one owns your question saves a real amount of time.

Registration and the ordinance itself

The Administration and Regulatory Affairs Department's Regulatory Permitting Division administers Article XXIII and issues the certificates.

• Address: Houston Permitting Center, 1002 Washington Avenue, Houston, TX 77002
• Service counter hours: Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
• Phone: 832-394-8802
• Email: [email protected]
• Apply: the short-term rental registration portal

Where your question is about filling in the form rather than about the rules themselves, the city's own FAQ points you to the Regulatory Permitting Division on 832-394-8803 for help completing the online application.

City hotel occupancy tax

Houston First Corporation collects the city's 7% hotel occupancy tax, issues the tax ID number and takes the quarterly returns.

• Address: Houston First Corporation, Hotel Occupancy Taxes, 701 Avenida de las Americas, Suite 200, Houston, TX 77010
• Phone: 713-853-8209
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Central

State hotel occupancy tax

The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts handles the 6% state tax, the permit and the returns.

• Tax assistance: 800-252-1385, Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central

County and Sports Authority hotel occupancy tax

The Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector collects both the 2% county tax and the 2% Sports Authority tax, and under the Commissioners Court order the reports and payments go to that office on or before the last day of the month following each calendar quarter. The county tax office's own web pages wouldn't load while I was researching this, so I'd work from the levy order and call the office rather than trust a phone number I couldn't verify against an official page.

Deed restrictions and land use

Since Houston has no zoning department to call about zoning, the equivalent question then goes to the City of Houston Legal Department's Neighborhood Services Section, whose Deed Restriction Enforcement Team investigates and litigates violations.

• Deed Restriction Hotline: 832-393-6333
• Mail: City of Houston Legal Department, Neighborhood Services Section, Attn: Deed Restriction Enforcement Team, P.O. Box 368, Houston, TX 77001-0368

Questions about how a property may be developed, as against how it may be used, belong to the Planning and Development Department under Chapter 42.

What Airbnb Hosts in Houston Report About Local Regulations

Those offices are the formal channels. What hosts say among themselves is a different picture, and what follows is my read of recurring themes rather than any kind of survey, so do weigh it accordingly.

• Operators mostly accepted the registry and fought the fee structure. Through the council debate, the consistent host argument was that per-unit annual fees punish the compliant. In Houston Landing's reporting, operator Sebastien Long asked council not to "punish 99.9 percent of law-abiding operators" over a tiny minority, while Airbnb's Luis Briones argued home sharing is an economic lifeline for Houston residents. Almost nobody argued that registration itself was illegitimate, and a real estate attorney quoted by Click2Houston made the same point, that cities have required leasing licences for years without controversy.
• The neighbours' objection was about evidence, not policy. Museum District resident Kathryn McNiel asked at a March 2025 committee meeting how anyone would prove a given stay was a short-term rental at all, and At-Large Councilmember Sallie Alcorn framed the aim as concentrations of bad activity rather than the whole category. That's why the finished ordinance leans on conviction counts and nuisance abatements rather than on hosting patterns.
• The portfolio revocation clause worries professionals most. Hosts running many units read § 28-733(b) the way a borrower reads a cross-default clause, since three revocations inside 24 months puts every remaining certificate at risk. It's the single provision I'd expect to draw litigation first.
• Nationally, Houston barely comes up. Reading through the BiggerPockets short-term rental discussions in late July 2026, the live threads were about management tooling, direct-booking tax structure and whether nightly rentals are softening against long-term ones. Houston regulation wasn't among them. For a city with 5,275 registered rentals, that silence is the point: the rules are settled enough that operators argue about the market instead.

Take that last one as the practical summary. Houston's regulatory risk is genuinely low, and the January 2027 delisting date is the only entry on the calendar that can take your listing away from you. Everything else you'll compete on is ordinary business.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you run an Airbnb in Houston in 2026?

Yes. Houston permits short-term rentals citywide with no zoning restrictions, no occupancy cap, no insurance requirement and no owner-occupancy rule. Since January 1, 2026 every unit needs a Certificate of Registration from the Administration and Regulatory Affairs Department, costing $275 a year plus a city administrative fee. The binding constraint for most owners isn't the city but private deed restrictions or homeowner association rules, which the ordinance requires you to certify permit short-term rental use.

How much does a Houston short-term rental registration cost?

The annual certificate of registration fee is $275 per property, non-refundable whether or not the application is approved, plus a City of Houston administrative fee that was $33.10 for calendar year 2025 and moves each year with the Consumer Price Index. Each unit needs its own certificate, including separate condominium and apartment units in one complex. There's no volume discount and no cap on how many certificates a single owner may hold.

What happens if you run a Houston short-term rental without registering?

Operating, renting, leasing or advertising an unregistered short-term rental is an offence carrying a fine of $100 to $500 per violation, and every day it continues counts as a separate violation. From January 1, 2027 the city will also begin notifying Airbnb, Vrbo and other platforms to remove listings without a certificate number, and platforms must comply within ten business days. Through 2026 the fine is the enforcement tool. After that, delisting is.

What taxes do Houston Airbnb hosts pay?

Guests pay 17% in combined hotel occupancy tax: 6% to the State of Texas, 7% to the City of Houston through Houston First Corporation, 2% to Harris County and 2% to the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority. That total is the statutory maximum Texas allows. Airbnb collects and remits all four layers on stays of 29 nights or fewer, and Vrbo handles the city portion, so hosts booking only through those two generally don't remit anything themselves.

Do deed restrictions override a Houston short-term rental certificate?

Effectively yes, because a city certificate grants no immunity from private covenants. Houston has no zoning, and the city itself enforces deed restrictions by injunction under Chapter 212 of the Texas Local Government Code. A generic "residential purposes" covenant doesn't bar short-term rentals under Tarr v. Timberwood Park Owners Association, but restrictions addressing rental duration or leasing terms do, and certifying otherwise on your application is grounds for revocation.

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