St. Louis, Missouri Short-Term Rental Regulation: A Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in St. Louis, Missouri and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that you can, and right now the city isn't even asking you for the permit it spent years building. That's not old advice, either: St. Louis passed a full short-term rental licensing law back in 2023, but a court order has kept the city from enforcing most of it since April 2025, and it's still paused as I write this in 2026.

That freeze only covers half the picture, mind you. St. Louis voters separately approved a 3% fee on every short-term rental stay back in November 2024, and the city started collecting it in February 2026, so a host who assumes nothing is happening right now ends up skipping a tax that's still live. Add the state's sales tax and the city's own hotel tax on top, and the bill adds up even while the permit itself sits in legal limbo.

So let's walk through what all of that means for you: whether you're allowed to operate today, what the paused permit rule would require if it comes back, which taxes you owe regardless, and who to call when you need a straight answer. Every figure below comes from St. Louis's own ordinances and official city pages, checked in July 2026, and where the legal situation is still moving I've said so plainly. Once you know where things stand, run the numbers on your property through BNBCalc to see whether St. Louis pencils out at all.

What are Short-Term Rental (Airbnb, VRBO) Regulations in St. Louis, Missouri?

Before you run those numbers, it helps to see how the pieces fit together, because St. Louis regulates short-term rentals through three separate instruments that don't move on the same clock.

The first is Ordinance 71729, the permit law Alderman Bret Narayan sponsored as Board Bill 33. Signed into law in November 2023 and codified as Chapter 25.57 of the city's Revised Code, it requires anyone renting out a dwelling unit for 30 days or less to hold a Short-Term Rental permit, while the booking platforms themselves need a separate $500 permit of their own. The permit requirement became operative on November 6, 2024, with a grace period to comply running to May 6, 2025. That's the ordinance currently frozen by the court order described above.

The second is the zoning layer. Short-term rentals are allowed by right in every zoning district in the city except one: Single Family A, the strictest residential district, where you need a Conditional Use hearing before the Building Division will even look at your permit application. The city's own permit FAQ dates that requirement to December 10, 2024, when the underlying zoning code amendment took effect.

The third is the tax layer, and it's the one still running at full speed. Proposition S, approved by 67.5% of St. Louis voters in November 2024, created a 3% fee on every short-term rental stay. The city didn't have a way to collect it until Ordinance 72095 took effect on February 23, 2026, which is exactly the piece people miss when they hear "the ordinance is paused" and assume that covers everything.

Above all three sits Missouri state law, and it mostly stays out of the way. Missouri has no statewide short-term rental permit or registry, no statute preempting a city's power to regulate STRs, and, per our Missouri statewide guide, leaves zoning, licensing and caps entirely to home-rule cities and counties like St. Louis. The one state-level obligation that reaches every host is the ordinary sales-tax registration covered in the tax section below.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in St. Louis, Missouri

That state registration is the easy part. The harder question is which of the two city permit types fits your property, and it's worth understanding the structure while enforcement sits on hold, because the caps and exclusions still apply even with applications paused.

St. Louis splits every short-term rental into one of two categories. A Short-Term Rental, Occupied permit covers a unit that's your sole principal residence, whether you own it or rent it with your landlord's authorization; you can hold only one, since nobody has two principal residences. A Short-Term Rental, Non-Occupied permit covers everything else, and it comes with real limits: no more than four units per owner citywide, plus a structure-size cap layered on top of that, laid out in Ordinance 71729.

Structure size	Non-Occupied cap	Detail
2 dwelling units	2	Any mix of Occupied and Non-Occupied
3 to 4 dwelling units	1	Also capped at 50% of total units
5 to 23 dwelling units	25% of units	A 23-unit building caps out at 5
24 or more dwelling units	12.5% of units	A 24-unit building caps out at 3

Non-Occupied hosts carry two extra burdens Occupied hosts don't. They need a Graduated Business License, taxed at the commercial rate, and if the property sits in a Single Family A zoning district, they need that Conditional Use hearing before the Zoning Section will even review the application.

A few things rule you out entirely, and they're worth checking before you get attached to a property. No permit gets issued for a unit offering stays under two nights, or for anything on a parcel currently benefiting from tax increment financing or a tax abatement. Business entities can't hold a permit at all, since it has to be a natural person, so an LLC-owned rental needs the human owner named on the application rather than the LLC itself.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in St. Louis, Missouri

Assuming your property clears those exclusions and you're applying as yourself rather than through an LLC, the licensing mechanics are still the same for both permit types, only wrapped around different attestations.

Each permit, Occupied or Non-Occupied, carries a $150 non-refundable application fee, due annually since neither permit renews on its own. That's the specific fee at the center of the Hancock Amendment lawsuit, which is why the whole ordinance sits frozen right now. A St. Louis Circuit Court order from April 22, 2025 barred the city from collecting that fee, issuing permits, or even inspecting properties, and the city's own notice still confirmed applications, inspections and issuance as paused when I last checked in mid-2026.

A June 9, 2025 ruling let the city enforce almost everything else in the ordinance, except the $150 fee and the natural-person-only rule, according to reporting from St. Louis Magazine. Mayor Cara Spencer chose to keep the entire permit process on hold rather than run a partial version of it, and by late 2025 Alderman Narayan was already drafting fix legislation. None of that has produced a new permit process yet, according to a February 2026 update, so treat the requirements below as what's on the books rather than what anyone is currently checking.

Before the pause, the process required an occupancy inspection, sign-off that you owe the city nothing (personal property tax, real estate tax, earnings tax, water and refuse bills, existing business license fees), and a Short-Term Rental Agent designated on the application who has to be able to reach the property in person within an hour of a problem. That agent requirement doesn't go away with permitting on hold. It's baked into who's legally allowed to operate once the ordinance is enforced again, so it's worth having someone lined up regardless of what the courts decide.

Platforms carry their own version of this accountability. Airbnb, Vrbo and any other booking service need a $500 Short-Term Rental Platform permit of their own, and once the city revokes a listing's permit, the platform has seven days to pull it down or risk losing its own permit in the process.

Required Documents for St. Louis, Missouri Short-Term Rentals

That platform-level accountability is also why the paperwork matters even with permitting on pause: the moment the city switches enforcement back on, it's your documentation trail, not a fresh registration, that determines how fast your listing gets legal again.

Do check that you have, or can quickly assemble, each of the following:

• A completed application, with the unit address and the owner's or tenant's contact information on file.
• Proof of ownership, or written landlord authorization if you're a tenant or lessee applying for an Occupied permit.
• A principal residence attestation for Occupied permits: a signed statement that the unit is your one and only primary residence, and that no lease, HOA agreement or condo covenant bars short-term rentals there.
• A parking disclosure, since the number and location of your off-street or on-site spaces has to be listed on the application and later posted at the unit alongside the maximum number of vehicles allowed.
• Posted house rules, covering the noise ordinance, the occupancy limit, and an acknowledgment that violations can end the permit and trigger fines.
• A no-outstanding-obligations attestation, confirming you're current on personal property tax, real estate tax, earnings tax, water and refuse bills, and any existing business license fees.
• A Short-Term Rental Agent designation, naming who's on call and confirming they can be physically on site within an hour.
• A Graduated Business License, for Non-Occupied permits only, since those properties get taxed at the commercial rate.
• Conditional Use hearing documentation, if your property sits in a Single Family A zoning district.
• Payment for the $150 non-refundable application fee, per permit.

None of this gets you the permit by itself, mind you. The Building Division still has to complete the occupancy inspection before anything gets issued, whenever intake reopens, so gathering the paperwork now is preparation rather than a submission you can make today.

St. Louis, Missouri Short-Term Rental Taxes

Whenever intake reopens or not, the tax side doesn't wait on any of that, and it's the part every host owes regardless of where the lawsuit lands. Three layers stack on a St. Louis short-term rental stay.

Tax	Rate	Collected by
State sales/use tax	4.225%	Missouri Department of Revenue
City hotel/motel tax (Convention & Sports Tax + Convention & Tourism Tax)	7.25% (3.5% + 3.75%)	City License Collector
Proposition S short-term rental fee	3%	City License Collector

The state layer comes from RSMo § 144.020.1(6), which treats a room charge as a taxable retail sale, so hosts register for a Missouri sales tax license the same way any retailer would, through MyTax Missouri or Form 2643, with no state filing fee.

The city layer is two taxes that ride together: a 3.5% Convention and Sports Tax under RSMo § 67.657 that funds convention facilities at America's Center, and a 3.75% Convention and Tourism Tax under RSMo § 67.619 that funds the Convention and Visitors Commission. The city's own page names "transient home rentals through online providers like AirBnb" directly as covered, and Airbnb's own tax page confirms it collects and remits the combined 7.25% automatically on St. Louis City reservations of 31 nights or shorter. Both taxes are filed quarterly, due 20 days after quarter-end, and a payment more than 30 days late draws 2% monthly interest plus a 1% monthly penalty.

Then there's Proposition S, the 3% fee described above, which now runs through the new Short-Term Rental Business License created by Ordinance 72095. At least half of what it raises goes to the city's Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Since I couldn't confirm whether Airbnb or Vrbo collect this one automatically the way they do the hotel tax, the safer assumption is that you're registering and remitting it yourself with the License Collector until you see it appear on a platform statement.

Add those three together and a St. Louis short-term rental stay carries roughly 14.5% in confirmed combined tax, before any general local sales tax add-on that varies block by block with the city's TIF and special taxing districts; secondary sources put the fully loaded combined sales tax rate anywhere from about 9.7% to over 11%, so don't treat that last piece as a fixed number for your specific address.

Does St. Louis, Missouri Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

All that tax collecting happening in the background is exactly why "unenforced" is the wrong word for where St. Louis stands right now. It's more accurate to say the city enforces the parts it can collect on and has paused the parts still in court.

The permit ordinance itself: no. No new applications, no inspections, no revocations under Ordinance 71729 while the Hancock Amendment case works through the courts, a status the city's own notice still showed as current through the most recent snapshots available in this pass. The lawsuit centers on an owner of a St. Louis short-term rental arguing the $150 fee amounts to an unconstitutional tax, and a purported class action has since joined the fight, per First Alert 4's February 2026 coverage.

The tax side: very much yes. The 3% Proposition S fee is live, the 7.25% hotel tax has been enforced for years against every temporary lodging operator including Airbnb hosts, and the late-payment penalties on that hotel tax (2% interest plus 1% penalty per month) apply the same way they always have. Watch out for treating the permit pause as a tax pause. They're two different legal instruments, and only one of them is on hold.

Once the permit ordinance does come back, the enforcement framework already on the books is still strict. Three violation notices in 24 consecutive months revoke every permit at that property and bar new ones there for up to 12 months. Fully adjudicated municipal court violations run $500 per offense, and a continuing violation counts as a fresh offense every single day. You do get 30 days to fix a curable problem and 30 business days to appeal a revocation in writing to the Building Commissioner, whose decision can be appealed further to the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis, but none of that helps if you never had a permit to begin with. Neighbor complaints still route through the Citizens' Service Bureau as nuisance reports today, and SLMPD keeps its own record of violations tied to specific addresses, so a property that generates complaints now builds a paper trail the Building Division can use the moment it's allowed to act on it again.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in St. Louis, Missouri

Given all that uncertainty, moving carefully is the right instinct, and the order below is built around not wasting money on a step that might have to be redone once the ordinance comes back to life.

1. Check the current enforcement status before you commit capital. Read the Building Division's short-term rental permit page and the court-order notice directly, since the pause could lift with little warning.
2. Register for Missouri sales tax with the Department of Revenue through MyTax Missouri or Form 2643. This obligation exists no matter what happens with the city ordinance.
3. Confirm your zoning district. Keep in mind that Single Family A is the only district that triggers a Conditional Use hearing, so most properties clear this step without issue.
4. Decide Occupied or Non-Occupied, and if it's Non-Occupied, check the structure-size cap for that specific building before you close on it.
5. Install the required safety equipment now: smoke detectors inside and outside every bedroom, carbon monoxide alarms outside every bedroom, and a charged fire extinguisher on every habitable floor.
6. Line up a Short-Term Rental Agent who can reach the property within an hour, even if that agent is you.
7. Set up tax remittance. Confirm what your platform collects automatically, generally the state sales tax and the 7.25% hotel tax, and register directly with the License Collector for the 3% Proposition S fee since platform collection of that one still isn't confirmed.
8. Keep every document the ordinance would require on file: proof of ownership, principal-residence attestation, posted rules, and proof you owe the city nothing, so you're ready to apply the moment intake reopens.
9. Watch Alderman Narayan's office and the Building Division for updates. Fix legislation could change the fee structure rather than restart the old one outright, so don't assume the $150 figure survives the rewrite.

Who to Contact in St. Louis, Missouri about Short-Term Rental Regulations and Zoning

Most of those steps eventually run through one of three city offices, so it helps to know which one owns which question before you're stuck on hold.

Permits, Inspections and Zoning

The Building Division, part of the Department of Public Safety, administers Ordinance 71729 and is the office to watch for any news that the permit process is reopening.

• Address: 1200 Market Street, City Hall, Room 426, St. Louis, MO 63103-2826
• Phone: (314) 622-3313
• Fax: (314) 622-3235
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: Phone hours Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.; Permits Section 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Friday

Business Licenses and Taxes

The License Collector's Office administers the new Short-Term Rental Business License, the 3% Proposition S fee, and the 7.25% hotel/motel tax.

• Address: 1200 Market Street, City Hall, Room 102-104, St. Louis, MO 63103
• Phone: (314) 622-4528
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Neighbor Complaints

The Citizens' Service Bureau routes nuisance complaints about a short-term rental, or any other city service issue, to the right department.

• Phone: (314) 622-4800
• Online: reports can be filed anytime through the city's service request system

State Sales Tax Registration

The Missouri Department of Revenue handles the sales tax license every host needs regardless of the city's permit status, through its business tax registration page.

Remember that St. Louis City is legally independent of St. Louis County. If your property sits outside the city line, the rules and this whole permit dispute don't apply to you, and our St. Louis County guide covers that separate jurisdiction. And once you've sorted out which office you need, it's worth checking the St. Louis market on BNBCalc Markets to see how the numbers compare to other Missouri cities like Lee's Summit before you commit to a property here.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run a short-term rental in St. Louis in 2026?

Yes. St. Louis has never banned short-term rentals, and the 2023 ordinance that would require a city permit is currently blocked by a court order tied to a Hancock Amendment lawsuit over its $150 fee. That means no permit is required to operate right now, but you still owe the state sales tax, the city's 7.25% hotel tax, and the 3% Proposition S fee, all of which remain active regardless of the permit dispute.

Do you need a permit to operate a short-term rental in St. Louis right now?

No, not currently. A St. Louis Circuit Court order issued in April 2025 stopped the city from accepting applications, conducting inspections, or issuing permits under Ordinance 71729. That pause was still in effect as of the most recent city notices checked in 2026. The underlying permit rules haven't been repealed, though, so keep the required paperwork and safety equipment ready in case enforcement resumes.

What taxes does a St. Louis short-term rental host have to pay?

Three layers apply: Missouri's 4.225% state sales/use tax, the city's combined 7.25% hotel tax (a 3.5% Convention and Sports Tax plus a 3.75% Convention and Tourism Tax), and the 3% Proposition S short-term rental fee that took effect in February 2026. Airbnb collects and remits the state sales tax and the 7.25% hotel tax automatically for most bookings, but hosts should confirm separately whether the 3% fee is being collected on their behalf.

Can you rent out a room in a Single Family A zoned home in St. Louis?

Only after a Conditional Use hearing. Short-term rentals are allowed by right in every St. Louis zoning district except Single Family A, the city's strictest residential zone, where the Zoning Section requires a separate hearing before the Building Division will review a permit application. This requirement has been part of the zoning code since December 2024 and applies regardless of whether the broader permit ordinance is currently being enforced.

What happens if St. Louis resumes enforcing its short-term rental permit ordinance?

Hosts operating without a permit would need to apply immediately, including passing an inspection and paying the application fee, whatever amount survives the pending fix legislation. Once a host holds a permit, three violation notices within 24 months revoke it and bar new permits at that address for up to a year, and adjudicated violations carry a $500 fine per offense. Keeping documentation and safety equipment ready now avoids a scramble later.

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