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

Do you own a place in Passaic and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that the city finally has a straight answer for you, and since February 2026 that answer has been yes. Passaic, meaning the city in Passaic County rather than the county that shares its name, spent the first six weeks of 2026 passing three ordinances that moved short-term rentals out of a zoning grey area and into a permitted accessory use.

The catch hides in that word "accessory". A Passaic short-term rental has to hang off your own home, in the strict sense that you live there, you can document living there for at least 275 days a year, and the building is a single-family house, a townhouse or a condominium. Tenants can't apply at all, and no person or company can hold more than one certificate. Unfortunately for anyone picturing a few furnished two-families rented by the night, the council closed that door on purpose.

So let's walk through what it actually takes to do this properly: what the zoning ordinance now permits, what the certificate costs and how long it lasts, the paperwork the city wants before it will even open your file, the three layers of tax that stack on a nightly stay, how any of this is likely to be enforced, and who to call at 330 Passaic Street when something stalls.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Passaic

Three ordinances do the work, and all three were introduced on the same night. Ordinance 2510-26 rewrote the zoning code, Ordinance 2512-26 built the certificate, and Ordinance 2513-26 added a local tax.

The council introduced the set on January 20, 2026. It adopted the certificate and tax ordinances on February 3, then the zoning one two weeks later on February 17.

The zoning piece is what changed the answer. Ordinance 2510-26 adds a Short-Term Rental Unit "as a permitted accessory use in all zoning districts where a dwelling unit is a permitted principal use", subject to new standards at §317-16H and a certificate issued under Chapter 100.

Before that amendment, short-term rentals appeared nowhere in the city's schedule of regulations. In a permissive zoning scheme, being unlisted is not the same thing as being allowed.

A short-term rental now means occupancy of a dwelling unit, for compensation, by someone other than the owner or permanent resident, lasting 28 or fewer consecutive days. The unit also has to be advertised or held out to the public as a place regularly rented to transient occupants.

Note the 28 rather than the 30 you see in most states. Make sure you count the nights properly, because a 28-night booking in Passaic is a short-term rental while a 29-night one falls outside the definition altogether.

From there, §317-16H narrows the field hard:

• The building has to be a single-family home, a townhouse or a condominium. Nothing else can hold a certificate.
• You have to live in it, as your principal residence. The ordinance defines that as documented by at least two of a motor vehicle registration, a state-issued ID, tax documents or a utility bill, and it requires you to reside there for a minimum of 275 days in the calendar year.
• One certificate per person or entity. You can't hold an interest in a second one, and you can't sit on the board of, direct, control or hold an ownership stake in another entity that holds one.
• Tenants are out. A tenant may not apply, may not sublease on a short-term basis, and may not operate one, and no private lease provision can authorize it. A breach exposes the tenant, the owner and the responsible party to summonses and fines.
• Only two shapes are permitted. Hosted partial-home rentals, where you rent a spare bedroom or accessory dwelling unit and share the property with the guest, and unhosted owner-occupied rentals, where you rent your own home while you're away.
• No cellars, and no signage. The unit can't sit in a cellar, and you can't put up any advertising or signage on the property identifying it as a short-term rental.

Condo and homeowners-association owners carry one more step. You have to produce the bylaws, master deed or other governing document showing that short-term rentals are permitted, and you have to name an address inside that association as your principal residence.

The ordinance also lists property types that can never hold one: hotels, rooming houses, dormitories, assisted living, nursing homes, transitional housing, shelters, student housing, and anything owned by a government agency or used exclusively for religious, charitable or educational purposes.

Put all that against how Passaic is actually built and the eligible pool gets small fast.

The Census Bureau's 2023 five-year American Community Survey counts 52,532 housing units in the city. Of those, 8,909 are single-family detached and 2,069 are single-family attached, while two-unit structures are the largest single category at 17,524. Renters occupy 73.8% of the occupied units, against 26.2% owner-occupied.

So the homes that qualify are roughly a fifth of the housing stock before the owner-occupancy test even applies. Passaic's classic two-family, the workhorse of the local investor market, is excluded outright.

That makes the surrounding towns worth a look if the plan was ever a whole-unit rental, and our Passaic County guide covers how the rest of the county handles it.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Passaic

Assuming your house clears all of that and you're able to apply, there's still a certificate to win, and it isn't cheap for what it is.

The Short-Term Rental Unit Registration Certificate lives at §100-15 of the city code, added by Ordinance 2512-26, and the registration fee is $250.00 as of July 2026. It's non-refundable, and the ordinance spells out that it stays non-refundable if you withdraw the application or the city denies it.

The term is where the cost bites. A certificate is valid only "for the year in which the applicant has applied", explicitly without proration, and it has to be renewed annually. Apply in October and you've bought two and a half months for $250.

There's a second expiry too. The certificate dies automatically the moment the unit changes ownership, and the new owner has to file a fresh application and pay again.

The city's own checklist confirms that the $250 recurs at every renewal, and that renewals need the whole document set again. The one break you get is on inspections, which are valid for three years, so renewal years two and three are paperwork rather than site visits.

Once the certificate is in hand, the operating rules read like they were written by someone who had watched a bad listing up close:

• Your certificate number goes in every advertisement. Print, digital, internet, the multiple listing service, all of it. An advertisement without the number is a violation, and every listing where it appears is a separate violation, which reaches the owner, the responsible party, the rental agent and the intermediary.
• No advertising at all before the certificate issues. The zoning ordinance repeats the point, so this one has two hooks in it.
• Your primary guest has to be 21 or older, and that person has to be someone who will genuinely occupy the property. Both the guest who signs and you are liable if no adult over 21 is actually there.
• Parking is capped at one vehicle per two occupants unless the city approves otherwise, and you have to notify occupants of that limit in writing.
• You keep a log of every transient occupant, with names, ages and the start and end dates of each stay, available to Code Enforcement in an emergency.
• You post the Notice to Short-Term Rental Transient Occupants in a prominent spot inside the unit.

The certificate can't be transferred, assigned, or used by anyone other than the owner it was issued to, and it can't move to another property.

Then there's what happens when it goes wrong.

A violation of the chapter draws a court-assessed fine of up to $2,000 per violation, but not less than $100 per violation for each day the violation exists. Read that floor carefully, because a daily minimum is what turns a slow response into a real number. Three weeks of an unregistered listing is at least $2,100 before anyone argues about the ceiling.

Where a fine above $1,250 arises from a housing or zoning violation, the ordinance gives you a 30-day period to cure the condition plus a hearing before a court, consistent with N.J.S.A. 40:49-5.

The Director of Inspections and Code can also suspend, revoke or deny a certificate outright. Three grounds are listed: open violations on the property, a conviction for disturbing the peace or maintaining a nuisance, or a substantiated complaint against that property or another property you own in Passaic.

Notice that the third one reaches across your portfolio. Keep in mind that a problem at a rental you own on the other side of the city can cost you the certificate here.

You do get process, mind you. Any denial, suspension or revocation has to be preceded by written notice stating the grounds, served on both the owner and the responsible party. You then have 10 days to request an administrative hearing before the Director or a designee, and the Director issues a written decision within 10 days of that hearing.

None of it limits the city's power to issue summonses or to act immediately where health or safety is at imminent risk.

Required Documents for Passaic Short-Term Rentals

Since that $250 doesn't come back, it's worth getting the paperwork right the first time.

The application form itself is a single page. It asks for the owner, the responsible party with a 24-hour phone number, the zone, block and lot, the dwelling type, the bedroom count and the on-site parking spaces. It also carries a line in capitals warning that the application will not be accepted or reviewed unless every checklist item comes with it.

The checklist is the real gate:

• Proof of current ownership, which the city takes as your tax bill
• Proof of principal residence, meaning a driver's licence or state ID card
• Two utility bills less than 30 days old, water and PSE&G for example
• Proof of general liability insurance of at least $500,000
• A Zoning Verification Letter, requested from the Zoning Department
• Proof of no outstanding fines or penalties with Passaic Municipal Court
• Proof of no outstanding taxes, water and sewer charges
• The Owner's Affidavit, plus a certification from your rental property agent and one from your responsible party
• Bylaws, master deed or governing documents if the unit sits in an association
• Articles of formation if the property is held by an LLC or a corporation
• An Occupancy Certificate

Two of those deserve a closer look.

The Owner's Affidavit is notarised, and it makes you swear to more than the checklist implies: no prior revocation or suspension of a similar licence, no more than one documented dangerous condition in the last year, no Passaic code violations in the last two years, every past violation abated, no open construction permits, and current standing on taxes, water and sewer.

The same affidavit is where you promise the occupant log and the advertising disclosure. It's also where you accept that nobody under 18 may be on the premises unless a legal guardian is with them.

The agent and responsible-party certifications are the other place people get caught. Each one needs a street address, and the form says explicitly that a PO box won't do, plus a phone number that works seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Assuming you plan to host while travelling, that contact has to be a real human who can get to the property, not a voicemail box.

The Occupancy Certificate is a separate transaction with the Division of Housing. For a one-family house the certificate fee is $65.00, and the division's own guidelines say a Continued Occupancy Certificate issues within five to seven business days once the inspection passes.

There's a $300 expedite option that compresses that to five days or less. Do check §100-13 before you book a slot, though, because cancelling an inspection with less than 24 hours' notice triggers a re-inspection fee, and an application left open more than 60 days past its compliance date is treated as abandoned.

The two inspections themselves get scheduled only after the city reviews your file. Zoning runs through [email protected], and fire safety goes to Capt. Hershel Rawls IV at [email protected].

Passaic Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you get through all that and are able to start taking bookings, there's still tax to deal with, and it arrives in three layers from two different governments.

Charge	Rate	Who collects it
New Jersey Sales Tax	6.625%	Airbnb or Vrbo on marketplace bookings, otherwise you
New Jersey State Occupancy Fee	5%	Airbnb or Vrbo on marketplace bookings, otherwise you
Passaic Municipal Occupancy Tax	3%	Whoever collects the rent, remitted on Form HM-100

Stacked, that's 14.625% on top of the nightly rate.

The two state layers come from Technical Bulletin TB-81R2, and there's a threshold question underneath them that catches people out.

New Jersey only taxes a transient accommodation when the booking runs through a marketplace such as Airbnb or Vrbo, or when the unit is a "professionally managed unit", meaning the owner offers two or more other New Jersey units for rent that year. Since Passaic caps you at one certificate, you'll only trip the professionally-managed test if you own rentals elsewhere in the state. A direct booking taken by an owner with fewer than three New Jersey units isn't taxed at all.

That threshold carries straight into the city's tax. Ordinance 2513-26 fixes the local rate at 3% on rent for every occupancy that is subject to taxation under N.J.S.A. 54:32B-3d, and §275-25 says the local definition of a transient accommodation tracks the state one and excludes what the state excludes. So the same small-owner carve-out applies locally.

Three more things in that ordinance are worth having in front of you.

The purchaser pays the tax, meaning your guest. You may not absorb it, advertise that you'll absorb it, or fold it into the nightly rate instead of stating it separately, and each day such an advertisement runs is a separate offence carrying a $500 penalty. And whoever collects the rent is personally liable for the tax, so a co-host or property manager taking payment is on the hook alongside you.

Now the timing, which is where I'd urge some care. The tax doesn't start when the council votes.

The ordinance goes to the New Jersey Division of Taxation's Office of Legislative Analysis, and that receipt starts a clock. Per the Division's own municipal occupancy tax page, the tax takes effect on the first day of the first full month following 90 days after the Division gets it.

Going through the Division's municipal occupancy tax list, which carries a revision date of May 14, 2026, the only Passaic County entries are Clifton, Totowa, Wanaque and Wayne. The City of Passaic isn't on it in either the hotel column or the transient accommodations column.

The state has been adding towns to that second column through 2026, so I'd expect Passaic to appear on a later revision. Until it does, I wouldn't treat the 3% as live. Ask the Tax Collector rather than guessing.

On collection, Airbnb's New Jersey tax page says it collects and remits the 6.625% sales tax and the 5% state occupancy fee automatically on stays of 89 nights or fewer, calculated on the listing price plus any cleaning fee. The same page says it also collects locally administered occupancy taxes where they apply.

Don't forget to open a payout breakdown and confirm which lines are being collected on your listing before you assume the platform has all three covered.

Income tax sits outside all of this. Rental income is ordinary taxable income at both the federal and state level, and hosting a spare bedroom inside your own home means apportioning most expenses between personal and rental use, which is fiddlier on a return than it looks on a spreadsheet.

Before you model any of it, run the property through BNBCalc first, because a 275-day residency requirement and a 28-day cap together put a hard ceiling on how many nights you can sell.

New Jersey Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

Two of those three tax layers are state law, which is a fair place to widen the lens, because almost everything else about short-term rentals in New Jersey gets decided one town at a time.

The state does not preempt local regulation. The Division of Local Government Services told municipalities as much in Local Finance Notice 2026-09, issued April 7, 2026, saying plainly that the "rental of short-term transient accommodations is largely subject to municipal ordinance".

The one statewide statute in this space is enabling rather than restrictive. N.J.S.A. 40:52-1(n) authorizes a municipality to license the rental of real property for a term shorter than 175 consecutive days, with fees set by that town's own ordinance. Passaic's $250 certificate is an exercise of exactly that power.

There's also no statewide short-term rental licence or registry, so nothing sits above the city here.

The nearest thing is a tax registration. A host whose unit counts as a professionally managed unit has to file Form NJ-REG with the Division of Revenue and Enterprise Services at least 15 business days before renting. Two things excuse you from that: every booking running through a marketplace that already collects the tax, or a rental executed entirely by a licensed New Jersey real estate broker. Either way it's a one-time business registration with no fee, and it isn't an annual permit.

A few statewide exemptions are worth knowing before you design a stay. Bookings of 90 consecutive days or more fall outside the transient accommodation tax entirely. So do rentals executed entirely by a licensed broker with keys handed over at the broker's office and no hotel-style services, rentals to organizations holding Form ST-5, and rentals to federal or state government.

Be aware that none of those exemptions touch the city's certificate requirement, which turns on the 28-day zoning definition rather than on the tax code.

The wider picture explains why so few northern New Jersey cities look like the shore. Our New Jersey statewide guide maps the overall framework, while the Monmouth County guide and the Ocean County guide cover markets where whole-unit rentals are still an ordinary business rather than an exception carved out for owner-occupants.

Does Passaic Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Honestly, nobody can answer that from a track record yet. The rules are only months old, and the city has published no enforcement data, no count of certificates issued and no denial statistics. What can be read is the design, and the design says the council expected to enforce.

Start with the advertising rule, which is the cleverest part of the scheme.

Requiring the certificate number in every print, digital and internet advertisement, and making each non-compliant listing its own violation, means the city never has to catch anyone mid-stay. A screenshot of a listing is the evidence. It's the same logic New York City used with Local Law 18, moving detection away from the front door and onto the public listing, where it costs a code officer nothing to look.

Then there's the inspection power. Under §100-15F the city reserves the right to inspect the unit regardless of what stage your application has reached, in the event it receives a complaint of a violation on the premises. So a neighbour complaint is enough to put an inspector at the door while your file is still open.

The penalty structure supports the same read. A floor of $100 per violation per day, a ceiling of $2,000 per violation, and separate liability running to the responsible party, the rental agent and any intermediary, all mean the cost of ignoring the rules compounds rather than arriving once.

Add the $500-per-offence penalty for absorbing the occupancy tax, plus a revocation trigger that reaches other properties you own in the city, and there isn't an obvious cheap way to be non-compliant.

The last signal is institutional. Passaic already runs a busy housing-inspection operation through its Division of Housing, issuing occupancy certificates, registering landlords and tenants, and charging for re-inspections.

Short-term rentals were dropped into that machinery rather than into a new office, and the official who decides on suspension and revocation is the Director of Inspections and Code, who already oversees it. Watch out for the assumption that a small city means a quiet regulator. This one has inspectors, a complaint intake and a court.

My honest read, and it's a read rather than a fact: the first year will be about the listings that never registered, because those are the easiest to find and the cheapest to prove.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Passaic

Given how much of this turns on eligibility, the order below matters more than it looks. The early steps tell you whether the later ones are worth the money, and the $250 is gone either way.

1. Confirm the building type and your residency first. Single-family, townhouse or condominium, occupied by you as your principal residence for at least 275 days a year, documented by two of a motor vehicle registration, state ID, tax documents or a utility bill. A two-family, a cellar unit or a house you don't live in is a dead end.
2. Check whether you already hold or control another certificate. One per person or entity, including through board seats and ownership interests, so a partner's certificate can disqualify yours.
3. Clear your record with the city. Open code violations, unsatisfied Municipal Court fines, unpaid taxes, water or sewer charges, and open construction permits all block issuance, and you'll be swearing to their absence in a notarised affidavit.
4. If you're in an association, read the master deed before anything else. You need documentary proof that short-term rentals are permitted, and an address inside the association as your principal residence.
5. Line up your two named contacts. A responsible party and a short-term rental property agent, each with a street address and a genuine 24-hour, seven-day phone number.
6. Get the Occupancy Certificate and the insurance. $65 for a one-family occupancy certificate through the Division of Housing, and general liability cover of at least $500,000.
7. Request the Zoning Verification Letter, then assemble the tax bill, the ID, the two utility bills under 30 days old, the affidavit and both certifications.
8. File the application with the $250 fee at 330 Passaic Street, then schedule the zoning and fire inspections once the city has reviewed your file.
9. Put the certificate number in every listing before it goes live, set up the occupant log, and post the Notice to Transient Occupants inside the unit.
10. Diarize two dates. Your annual renewal, since the certificate expires at year end without proration, and the three-year mark when inspections come round again.

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

Whichever of those steps you get stuck on, four offices handle nearly all of it, and every one of them sits in the same building at 330 Passaic Street, Passaic, NJ 07055, open Monday to Friday from 8:30 am to 4 pm.

The certificate, zoning and the application itself

Code Enforcement & Zoning issues the Zoning Verification Letter, takes the short-term rental application, and publishes the ordinances and forms.

• Phone: 973-365-5632 or 973-365-5653
• Email: [email protected]
• Zoning Officer: Julio Santana, 973-365-5632, [email protected]
• Zoning: Jessica Abreu, 973-365-5653, [email protected]

Occupancy certificates, inspections and revocation

The Division of Housing, inside the Inspections & Code department, issues occupancy certificates and handles housing inspections. Its director is the official who decides suspension, revocation and your administrative hearing.

• Phone: 973-365-5551, fax 973-365-5567
• Director of Inspections & Code: Joe Colon, [email protected], 973-365-5551
• Assistant Director: Sonal Patel, [email protected], 973-365-5573

Fire safety inspection

The Fire Prevention Bureau runs the fire-safety inspection that §100-15 requires, and that certification stays valid for three years.

• Fire Official: Capt. Hershel Rawls IV, 973-365-5687, [email protected]
• Fax: 973-365-5612

The occupancy tax and municipal charges

The Tax Collector is the right first call on whether the 3% municipal occupancy tax has taken effect and how it should be remitted, and the Chief Financial Officer is the officer named in the tax ordinance's collection provisions.

• Tax Collector: Sean Nolan, 973-365-5530, [email protected]
• Director of Finance and CFO: Omar J. Garcia, 973-365-5577, [email protected]

For the two state layers, the New Jersey Division of Taxation publishes its transient accommodations guidance covering sales tax, the state occupancy fee and who has to register.

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

The awkward part about host sentiment in Passaic is that almost all of it predates the rules. What follows is my reading of what's publicly available rather than a survey, and I should say up front that I read no Reddit thread for this, since Reddit blocks the kind of automated access this research runs on.

Three things stand out from what I could read.

The published advice is stale, including guidance still circulating today. Third-party summaries of Passaic written before 2026, and syndicated widely since, describe a city with no short-term rental ordinance where hosts operate in a grey area. That was fair in 2024. It became wrong on February 17, 2026, and anyone acting on it now is advertising without a certificate number, which is a per-listing violation.

The investor conversation about Passaic was never a short-term rental conversation. The BiggerPockets threads on the city, including one asking whether Passaic is a good area to invest, run on buy-and-hold multifamily economics: property taxes on a triplex, which blocks are which, tenant screening. Nobody is arguing about nightly rates, and given that two-family houses can't hold a certificate, that focus makes sense.

Owner-occupancy rules split a host community in a predictable way. In every city that has gone this route, people who already live in their homes tend to find the regime survivable, while people who bought to rent find it fatal. Passaic's version sits on the strict end of that spectrum: 275 days of residency, one certificate per person, no cellars, no signage, and a guest log the city can call for.

So where does that leave the numbers? If a hosted room in an owner-occupied house is the only legal product, the honest comparison is against the rest of the state rather than against Passaic's own past. Our data on the New Jersey market is the place to see what nightly rates and occupancy look like elsewhere before you spend $250 finding out here.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Airbnb legal in Passaic, New Jersey in 2026?

Yes, with tight limits. Passaic legalized short-term rentals in February 2026 through Ordinance 2510-26, which added a Short-Term Rental Unit as a permitted accessory use in every zoning district where a dwelling is a permitted principal use. The unit must be a single-family home, townhouse or condominium that the owner occupies as a principal residence for at least 275 days a year, and it needs a Short-Term Rental Registration Certificate before it can be advertised or rented.

How much does a Passaic short-term rental certificate cost?

The registration fee is $250.00 and it is non-refundable, including if the application is withdrawn or denied. The certificate is valid only for the calendar year in which you applied, with no proration, and it must be renewed annually at the same $250. A separate one-family occupancy certificate costs $65, and the fire-safety and property-maintenance inspection behind the application stays valid for three years.

Can a tenant rent out a Passaic apartment on Airbnb?

No. Passaic's zoning ordinance states that the person offering a dwelling unit for short-term rental use must be the owner. A tenant may not apply for a certificate, may not sublease any portion of a property on a short-term basis, and may not operate one. No private lease provision can authorize it either. A violation can bring enforcement action against the tenant, the property owner and the responsible party, including summonses and fines.

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

Three layers can apply: New Jersey Sales Tax at 6.625%, the State Occupancy Fee at 5%, and a Passaic municipal occupancy tax of 3% adopted by Ordinance 2513-26, for a combined 14.625%. The state layers only reach bookings made through a marketplace such as Airbnb, or a professionally managed unit, and the municipal tax follows the same definition. The municipal tax takes effect 90 days plus one full month after the Division of Taxation receives the ordinance.

What are the penalties for an unregistered short-term rental in Passaic?

Fines run up to $2,000 per violation and no less than $100 per violation for each day the violation continues, assessed by the court. Advertising without a certificate number is a violation in itself, and every listing where it appears counts separately. Liability extends to the owner, the responsible party, the rental agent and any intermediary. The Director of Inspections and Code can also suspend, revoke or deny a certificate over open violations or a substantiated complaint.

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