Billings Short Term Rental Regulation: A Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Billings and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that Montana's largest city says yes, and it says yes in both directions. You can host guests in the home you live in, or you can rent out a place standing empty, and the city has a legal path for each. The catch is that "legal path" means a real permit and a real business license, not just a listing and a hope nobody notices.

That's the part a lot of hosts here have skipped. Billings adopted its short-term rental ordinance back on January 25, 2021, folding it into Billings Municipal Code Sec. 27-1621, and for a few years it sat there loosely enforced while the market filled up with unregistered listings anyway. That changed in 2025, when the city started scanning Airbnb and Vrbo listings against its own permit records and came up short by a wide margin. If you're already hosting here, or thinking about starting, that shift is the single most important thing to plan around, more than any single fee or form.

So let's walk through what it actually takes to do this properly in 2026: which zones allow it, what the permit and business license cost, the documents the city wants, the tax layers that stack on top, and how seriously Billings is now checking. Every figure below traces to the city's or the state's own pages, checked in July 2026, and I've flagged the couple of spots where the official number has gone stale. If you're deciding between a Billings property and somewhere else, run both through BNBCalc first.

What are short term rental (Airbnb, VRBO) regulations in Billings, Montana?

Billings permits short-term rentals city-wide under an ordinance the council adopted specifically to legalize and control them, rather than leaving hosts to guess at zoning. The rules live in Article 27-1000 of the Billings Municipal Code, under the "Short-Term Rentals" use standard, and the permit mechanics sit in Sec. 27-1621.

Here's the part that surprises people coming from a stricter city: Billings recognizes two kinds of short-term rental, and both are legal.

• A guest home is owner-occupied or occupied by a long-term tenant. You're hosting from a home you live in, whether that's a spare room or an attached unit.
• A tourist home is an unoccupied residential dwelling rented out whole. This is the classic entire-home Airbnb, and Billings doesn't require you to live there.

That distinction comes straight from the city's own application checklist, which asks you to declare which one you're operating. Neither one is treated as the "real" or the "backdoor" option. Both get a permit, provided you're in an eligible zone.

Eligibility runs by district. In N1, N2, N3, and RMH, the core residential districts, both guest homes and tourist homes are permitted, capped at one STR permit per dwelling unit and a maximum of two permits per property. So a single-family lot gets one, and a duplex on one deed gets two, but a fourplex doesn't get four.

In NX1, NX2, NX3, NO, NMU, CMU, DX, CBD, CX, EBURD, P2, and P3, the mixed-use, downtown and commercial districts, the same two types are permitted, and multi-unit buildings under single ownership can get permits for up to 20% of their units. Between those two groupings, most of the city's housing stock qualifies. That's unusual, and worth appreciating if you've read guides for cities that ban entire-home rentals outright.

A few things sit outside the system no matter what zone you're in. Deed-restricted affordable housing units can't get an STR permit at all. Neither can a shed, garage, tent, RV or any other structure that isn't finished, habitable living space. And a permit caps occupancy at two guests per bedroom, so do check that number against your floor plan before you list a property expecting to sleep a crowd.

Starting a Short Term Rental Business in Billings

Since both hosted and unhosted rentals clear the zoning test here, the practical question for most owners isn't "am I allowed" but "what does the city actually require of me." That starts with two separate approvals, not one.

You need a Short Term Rental Permit from the Planning Division, and you need a City of Billings business license from the Finance office. They're issued by different departments and they don't substitute for each other; the permit application itself asks for your business license number, so plan to apply for both around the same time. Both are annual and both come up for renewal every year, which is a detail people underestimate because the first year's paperwork feels like a one-time hurdle.

The permit itself attaches to the property owner, not the property. It's issued to a natural person whose name is on the deed, a trust with a natural-person beneficiary, or a Montana-registered corporation, and it can't be transferred or assigned to a new owner. Sell the house, and the buyer starts the application over. A property manager can run the day-to-day, but the recorded owner still has to sign off before the application counts as complete.

Assuming you clear the zoning check, the business model still has real limits worth planning around before you buy or convert a property. Short-term rentals in Billings are for lodging only. They can't be used for weddings, reunions or large social gatherings, though a guest attending one of those events elsewhere in town is welcome to book your place to sleep.

You can't serve meals to guests, either. Once you start doing that, the use shifts into bed-and-breakfast territory, which is a different category with its own rules and isn't permitted in every district an STR is.

Short Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Billings

That two-part structure, permit plus business license, is where the actual application work happens, so let's get into what each one takes. Both route through the same online system: the CityView Portal, which replaced the city's older Citizen Access system. You register an account, apply for a Planning Permit, select "Short Term Rental License" as the project type, complete the form, and pay the fees before staff starts reviewing.

The city's own application no longer prints a flat dollar figure. It says to call (406) 657-8247 for the current fee. As of July 2026, the most recent number I could find on an official city source was a February 2025 press release from Planning Division Manager Anna Vickers. It put a first-time business license at $55 and the STR permit itself at $300, both renewed annually, for roughly $355 combined.

Treat that as a figure to confirm by phone, not a locked-in price. The application form has since dropped it, and fees do move.

The application asks for more than a form field. You'll need to name a local contact, and that contact has to be an actual person, not a corporation, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with a phone number given to both the city and anyone staying at the property. You'll also identify every dwelling unit you're renting, list the URL for every advertisement of the property, and, for most structures, show proof of building code compliance.

Once you're approved, the permit still runs for just one year, and renewal applications are due at least 30 days before it expires. Don't forget that date. Billings can deny a renewal on the same grounds it denies a first application, and denial carries a real cost: a 30-day bar on reapplying for that address unless you've fixed whatever caused it.

The zoning coordinator can deny or refuse to renew where there are unresolved code enforcement violations, non-compliance with zoning, fire, building or safety rules, false statements on the application, a property that isn't available for immediate rental, or a business license that's lapsed. If you're denied and then denied again on appeal after supposedly curing the issue, the Board of Adjustment hears it next.

Revocation works on a similar track while you're already operating. The city gives 30 calendar days' written notice to fix the problem, and during that window you're barred from taking any further reservations. If the permit does get revoked, the unit has to stop renting immediately and can't come back online for another 30 days, even once you've cured whatever triggered it.

There's a second, state-level license that catches some owners off guard. Montana treats a "tourist home" as a public accommodation establishment under MCA Title 50, chapter 51, which means it can require its own annual license, issued through the county sanitarian. In Yellowstone County that's RiverStone Health's Environmental Health Services, and the state's own fee schedule runs $40 for 1 to 10 rooms up to $160 for 26 or more.

I couldn't confirm from an official source whether this gets actively enforced against a single-room, owner-occupied guest home the way it clearly applies to a whole-home tourist home. So if you're running the owner-occupied version, it's worth a call to RiverStone Health to ask directly rather than assuming either way.

Required Documents for Billings Short Term Rentals

Since the STR permit fee doesn't come back once you've paid it, it's worth getting the paperwork right the first time rather than guessing your way through a resubmission. The application is a checklist as much as a form, and every line on it maps to something you'll be attesting to under your own signature.

• Proof of who you are. The deed, the trust document, or your corporate registration with the State of Montana, matching whichever ownership type applies.
• Local contact details. Name, phone number and email for the person available around the clock, plus confirmation that number goes to guests as well as the city.
• Confirmation there's no private restriction on the property. HOA rules or deed covenants can bar short-term rentals even where the zoning allows them, so check that before you sign, not after.
• Your STR type. Guest home or tourist home, plus how many units on the parcel you're seeking a permit for.
• Business license number, or confirmation you've applied for one, since the two applications reference each other.
• Every advertisement URL. Airbnb, Vrbo, or wherever else you're listing.
• Proof the space is habitable, not an accessory structure, plus proof of building code compliance where the standard requires it.
• Confirmation it's not a deed-restricted affordable unit.

Beyond the paperwork itself, the checklist also has you confirm that specific physical things are present in the unit before guests arrive. Treat it as a pre-opening walkthrough rather than a box to tick. Make sure the unit has smoke detectors in every sleeping room and hallway, a fire extinguisher, and a CO2 detector, alongside posted emergency information and your STR permit number where a guest will see it.

Guests also need to see parking instructions (driveway first, street overflow only where the city permits it, no parking on lawns or in setbacks), trash disposal instructions, and a note on the city's quiet hours, which run 8pm to 7am in Billings neighborhoods.

Billings Short Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you get through all that and are able to start hosting, there's still tax to deal with. The good news is that Billings keeps it simpler than a lot of cities do. There's no additional city or county lodging tax layered on top of the state's, because Billings isn't one of Montana's ten designated resort-tax communities. Only Red Lodge, Virginia City, West Yellowstone, Whitefish, Big Sky, Cooke City, Craig, Gardiner, St. Regis and Wolf Creek can charge that extra layer. Montana's largest city isn't on the list.

What you do owe is the state's combined lodging tax, and it's straightforward: 4% Lodging Facility Use Tax plus 4% Lodging Sales Tax, for 8% total, applied to the nightly rate plus cleaning fees and any other guest charges. Before you collect a dime of it, register for a seller's permit through the Montana TransAction Portal.

Returns are due quarterly, on April 30, July 31, October 31 and January 31. Filing on time earns a 5% vendor allowance on the sales tax portion, which is a small but real incentive not to let the deadline slide.

Here's the part that saves most hosts the actual paperwork: both major platforms collect and remit this automatically. Airbnb and Vrbo both handle the state's 8% for Montana listings on their own pages, so if all your bookings come through one of them, you're not the one filing quarterly returns for that piece. Just keep in mind that if you ever take a direct booking outside the platform, that transaction is on you to report yourself.

One more tax layer changed for 2026, and it's a property tax rather than a booking tax, so it's easy to miss if you're only watching the lodging-tax rules. Montana reworked residential property tax classification, and a short-term rental now counts as non-qualifying property, which pays a flat 1.90% of market value starting in tax year 2026.

A qualifying primary residence or a genuine long-term rental (leased 28 or more days at a time, occupied at least 7 months a year) gets a tiered rate instead, starting at 0.76% and only reaching 1.90% on the portion above $1,512,000. In plain terms, running a property as an STR instead of a long-term rental now costs more in property tax every year. That's on top of the permit fees, and it's worth working into your numbers before you commit a property to the nightly model.

Montana wide Short Term Rental Rules

All of that sits on top of a state framework that gives Billings the room to write its own rules in the first place. Montana has no statute that broadly preempts a city's authority over short-term rentals. So what you read above is genuinely a Billings decision, not a state mandate the city is merely administering.

A bill that would have changed that, Senate Bill 336, passed the state Senate 36-14 in March 2025. It was tabled in a House committee that April, and it's dead as of this writing. Keep an eye on future sessions, since a version of it could come back, but as of 2026 there's nothing forcing Billings to loosen or standardize what it has.

What the state does regulate directly is sanitation and tax. The tourist home license mentioned earlier applies statewide, administered locally by the county sanitarian everywhere in Montana. The 8% combined lodging tax and the 2026 property tax changes apply the same way whether you're in Billings, Bozeman or Whitefish.

Where cities differ is zoning, permitting and enforcement, which is why the Montana statewide guide is worth reading alongside this one if you're weighing more than one Montana market. Resort towns like Big Sky and Whitefish run under different rules, since they can add that resort tax layer Billings can't.

Does Billings strictly enforce STR rules? Is Billings Airbnb friendly? Do hosts operate in Billings despite the rules?

Given how much of Montana's regulatory posture is hands-off, it's easy to assume Billings enforcement is loose too. For years, honestly, that assumption was correct. The city's own numbers say so: as of early 2025, it had identified more than 300 properties operating as short-term rentals without a permit or a current business license, against just 170 properties that were in compliance. That's a majority of the active market running outside the rules the city had on the books since 2021.

That changed with a real enforcement push, not just a stricter-sounding policy. The Planning Division started using software that scans STR listing sites and cross-checks them against city permit records, which is how it built that 300-plus number in the first place. Courtesy letters went out the week of March 10, 2025, giving owners 60 days to register before their file moved to the Code Enforcement Division.

Vickers was explicit that the city wasn't chasing back-fees for years of non-compliance. It wanted people current going forward, which is a more forgiving approach than a lot of cities take on their first real enforcement wave.

Miss that window, though, and the penalties are real money, not a slap on the wrist. Operating without a permit or business license can be cited into municipal court as a municipal infraction under the city code's civil penalty section, BMCC 18-1304. That's a $300 civil penalty for the first offense, and each additional day counts as a separate violation, climbing up to $500 a day.

Since the ordinance took effect in 2021, the city says the complaints have still kept coming, more than 120 of them. Neighbors clearly do report noncompliant listings when they see them. That's the mechanism most enforcement starts from.

So is Billings Airbnb-friendly? Yes, genuinely, in the sense that matters most: the zoning is broad, both hosted and unhosted rentals are legal in most of the city, and there's no cap on how many total STRs the city will license the way some markets impose. What changed is that "friendly" no longer means "unenforced."

I couldn't find an official update past that March 2025 push describing how the compliance gap has closed since. Treat the current enforcement intensity as at least what it was then, and likely higher given the direction the city has been moving.

How to Start a Short Term Rental Business in Billings

Given everything above, the order you tackle these steps in matters, since the early ones determine whether the later ones are worth your time and your $355.

1. Confirm your zone and your unit type. Check that your property sits in N1, N2, N3, RMH, or one of the eligible mixed-use districts, and decide upfront whether you're filing as a guest home or a tourist home.
2. Check for private restrictions. HOA covenants or deed restrictions can bar an STR even where zoning allows it, so review yours before you spend anything.
3. Line up your local contact. You need a real person, reachable 24/7, before you can complete the application.
4. Apply for both approvals together. Register on the CityView Portal, apply for the Short Term Rental License, and apply for the City business license at the same time, since one references the other.
5. Call to confirm the current fee at (406) 657-8247 rather than budgeting off an old number.
6. Outfit the unit for the safety checklist. Smoke detectors in every sleeping room and hallway, a fire extinguisher, a CO2 detector, and posted emergency information plus your permit number once it's issued.
7. Post the guest-facing information. Parking instructions, trash instructions, and the 8pm-to-7am quiet hours.
8. Register for the state seller's permit through the Montana TransAction Portal before you take your first booking, so the 8% lodging tax is set up correctly from day one.
9. Ask RiverStone Health directly whether your specific setup needs the separate state public accommodation license, especially if you're running a tourist home.
10. Diarize your renewal date. Both the permit and the business license are annual, and the permit renewal is due 30 days before it lapses.

Who to contact in Billings about Short Term Rental Regulations and Zoning

Whichever step trips you up, four offices between them cover almost every question that comes up.

Zoning, the STR permit, and eligibility

The City/County Planning Division handles the Short Term Rental Permit itself, zoning eligibility, and renewals, for both the City of Billings and the unincorporated Yellowstone County zoning jurisdiction that shares its application form.

• Address: 316 N 26th St, 5th Floor, Billings, MT 59101
• Phone: (406) 657-8247
• Email: [email protected]
• Planning Clerk: Brenda Berns, (406) 247-8610, [email protected]
• Apply online: the CityView Portal

The business license

The City of Billings Finance Department issues the separate business license every STR operator needs alongside the permit.

• Address: 316 North 26th Street, Billings, MT 59101 (mailing: PO Box 1178, Billings, MT 59103)
• Phone: (406) 657-8433

The state public accommodation license

RiverStone Health, Environmental Health Services, Yellowstone County's public health authority, handles the state tourist-home license and public accommodation inspections.

• Address: 123 South 27th Street, Billings, MT 59101
• Phone: (406) 256-2770
• Email: [email protected]

State lodging tax

The Montana Department of Revenue's Business Tax Unit handles seller's permit registration and quarterly lodging tax filing.

• Phone: (406) 444-6900
• Email: [email protected]
• Register online: the Montana TransAction Portal

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

Given how recent the 2025 enforcement push is, you'd expect hosts to be talking about it somewhere public, and to an extent they are, though not in the volume you'd find for a bigger market. I couldn't find a live, substantive Reddit or BiggerPockets thread specifically dissecting the current Billings ordinance, so I'm not going to pretend I surveyed one. What I can point to is dated but still worth reading.

Back on August 1, 2020, while the ordinance was still being drafted, a host posted in the Airbnb Community Center with a real worry. The incoming rule, as they understood it, would force owner-occupancy on every short-term rental in the city, wiping out roughly 75% of the local STR market and costing the area an estimated $3.2 million a year.

Reading the ordinance the city actually adopted five months later, that fear turned out to be overstated. Billings kept both categories alive, the owner-occupied guest home and the unoccupied tourist home. That's a more permissive outcome than what hosts were bracing for at the time.

What the more recent local news coverage suggests, rather than forum chatter, is that plenty of hosts simply operated without a permit for years and the city let it slide, right up until 2025. That's not really a regulatory opinion so much as a market fact. Enforcement risk here has been low in practice, even while the rule on paper was strict about occupancy caps, safety equipment and local contacts.

Whether that gap stays closed is the open question. It's one worth watching rather than assuming either way. If you're sizing up what a compliant Billings listing might earn once you've paid for the permit and the tax layers, the Billings market page is a reasonable place to start before you commit to a property.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Billings, Montana in 2026?

Yes, in most of the city. Billings permits both owner-occupied short-term rentals (guest homes) and unoccupied whole-home rentals (tourist homes) in its core residential districts and most mixed-use and commercial districts, provided you hold a Short Term Rental Permit and a separate City of Billings business license, both renewed annually. Deed-restricted affordable units and non-habitable structures like sheds or RVs don't qualify regardless of zone.

How much does a Billings short-term rental permit cost?

The city's current application form doesn't list a fixed number and directs applicants to call (406) 657-8247 to confirm. The most recent figure available from an official city source, a February 2025 press release, put a first-time business license at $55 and the STR permit at $300, for roughly $355 combined, both renewed annually. Confirm the current amount by phone before budgeting, since the printed figure has since been removed from the form.

What happens if you operate a short-term rental in Billings without a permit?

The city can cite you into municipal court for a municipal infraction under the Billings Municipal Code's civil penalty section (18-1304). The civil penalty is $300 for a first offense, and each additional day counts as a separate violation, escalating up to $500 per day. As of early 2025, the city had identified more than 300 unpermitted properties using software that cross-checks listing sites against its permit records, and it sent courtesy letters with a 60-day compliance window before referring cases to Code Enforcement.

Do you have to collect lodging tax on a Billings Airbnb?

Yes, an 8% combined state lodging tax applies (4% Lodging Facility Use Tax plus 4% Lodging Sales Tax), charged on the nightly rate, cleaning fees and other guest charges. Billings has no additional local resort tax, since it isn't one of Montana's 10 designated resort-tax communities. Airbnb and Vrbo both collect and remit this 8% automatically for Montana listings, so most hosts booking exclusively through those platforms don't file it themselves.

Can you rent out a Billings property you don't personally live in on Airbnb?

Yes. Billings calls this a "tourist home" permit, distinct from an owner-occupied "guest home" permit, and both are legal in the city's eligible residential and mixed-use districts. You'll still need the same Short Term Rental Permit and business license, subject to the same occupancy cap of two guests per bedroom and the same safety, parking and local-contact requirements as an owner-occupied 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.