Dakota County, Minnesota Short-Term Rental Regulations: A 2026 Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Dakota County, Minnesota and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that the county itself puts nothing in your way: Dakota County has no short-term rental ordinance of its own, no county license to apply for, and no county fee to pay.

Dakota County's own rules aren't the whole story, though, because the county is a patchwork of separate cities, plus a handful of unincorporated townships, and each one gets to write its own rule. Eagan, the county's largest city, bans Airbnb and Vrbo-style rentals outright as a matter of city code. Burnsville, Lakeville and Mendota Heights allow them, but each attaches its own permit, its own occupancy limits and, in two of the three, a requirement that you actually live in the home. Which side of that line your property falls on decides almost everything else in this guide.

So let's walk through what that means for 2026: which cities allow the model and which don't, what a license costs and takes to get where one exists, the taxes that stack on top, and who to call when your specific address doesn't match anything you read online. Every figure below comes from the county's own pages, the individual cities' own code, or Minnesota's own statutes, checked in July 2026. If you're comparing a Dakota County suburb against a market where the rules run friendlier, run the numbers through BNBCalc before you commit to either one.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Dakota County

Since where you sit determines the rule that applies to you, the first job is figuring out exactly which government you're dealing with. Dakota County covers 14 incorporated cities, including Eagan, Burnsville, Lakeville, Apple Valley, Rosemount, Inver Grove Heights, Hastings, Farmington, South St. Paul, West St. Paul and Mendota Heights, plus 13 unincorporated townships out toward the county's rural southern edge. If your property sits in one of those townships, the county's own Office of Planning handles your zoning, and the county's land-use rules there run through the general zoning ordinance and Ordinance 50, its shoreland and floodplain management code. Neither one carves out a specific short-term rental permit, so a township property is governed by whatever use category the general zoning ordinance already assigns to lodging, and that's worth a call to the Planning Office before you list anything.

For everyone else, meaning the large majority of Dakota County residents, your city is the whole ballgame. Eagan is the case worth understanding first, because it's the county's largest city and its answer is a flat no. When Eagan rewrote its rental-dwelling licensing rules in Ordinance No. 624, 2nd Series on March 21, 2023, it built the prohibition directly into the exemption language. A dwelling rented for 30 to 120 days with the owner present the rest of the year is exempt from the licensing program, but the ordinance goes on to say that exemption "does not allow and shall not be construed as to allow short-term rentals for traveler lodging accommodation purposes which are commonly provided through house sharing platforms such as 'Airbnb,' 'VRBO,' and other vacation home rentals websites." There's no permit that gets around that. It's not a use the city licenses.

Burnsville sits at the other end. The city banned short-term rentals back in 2015, reversed course, and now runs a permit program through its Short-Term Vacation Rentals page, limited to homesteaded properties owned by Burnsville residents, which keeps the door closed to out-of-town investors buying up inventory. Lakeville allows it too, through a Short-Term Rental Administrative Permit reviewed by its Community Development Department, and Mendota Heights allows it under a 2025 ordinance that, like Burnsville's, ties the license to your own primary residence. Apple Valley's code defines a short-term rental on its books, though I couldn't pin down its actual permit process from an official page in the time I had, so do check directly with Apple Valley's Community Development Department at 952-953-2575 before you assume either way. Rosemount, Farmington, Inver Grove Heights, Hastings, South St. Paul and West St. Paul each have their own zoning and rental codes too, and I'm not going to guess at any of them here. South St. Paul and West St. Paul in particular sit right against the St. Paul city line, so if you're weighing a property just across that border, our Ramsey County guide covers the St. Paul side of it. BNBCalc can tell you what a property is worth to run, but only your specific city's ordinance can tell you whether you're allowed to run it at all.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirements in Dakota County

Once you know which side of that line your property falls on, licensing looks completely different depending on where you land. In Eagan, there's nothing to apply for, since the use itself isn't licensed. In Burnsville, Lakeville and Mendota Heights, though, a real process exists, and it's worth walking through each one because they don't share a template.

Burnsville requires an annual permit through its Neighborhood Services division, and the city's own page sets the terms plainly: the rental site has to be a homesteaded property owned by a Burnsville resident, which rules out anyone buying a second property just to run it as a nightly rental. You're asked to notify adjacent neighbors before you start operating, though the city is explicit that this is a courtesy rather than a veto, so a neighbor's objection alone won't sink your permit. Once you're licensed, you file a Monthly Lodging Tax Sales Report and remit the tax collected within 25 days of the month's end. Applications and renewals both run through the city's OpenGov portal, and Neighborhood Services (952-895-4440, [email protected]) is the number to call with questions.

Lakeville's process runs through its Community Development Department's Zoning Administrator instead, under the Short-Term Rental Administrative Permit. The city's page spells out the operating rules in real detail:

• Your license number has to appear in every listing.
• Occupancy tops out at two adults per bedroom, plus any dependent children, with a minimum of one bedroom in the principal building.
• Guest vehicles belong in the garage or driveway only, with no trucks or trailers parked on the street.
• A 24-hour manager contact number has to be posted at the entrance, and quiet hours run 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.
• The city bans special events, parties, camping and fireworks on the property outright.
• Lodging tax remittance is required too, coordinated through the Finance Department at 952-985-4481.

I looked for the exact permit fee and any cap on how many permits one owner can hold, and I couldn't confirm either figure against a source I could open, since the city's hosted municipal code blocked automated access. Don't take my word for a number I never verified. Call [email protected] and get the current fee schedule directly.

Mendota Heights runs the most detailed licensing scheme of the three, laid out in Ordinance No. 602, adopted September 16, 2025. The license only covers the R-1 one-family zoning district, it's valid for one calendar year, and it has to be renewed annually with the city administrator. Crucially, the operator has to be living in the home as a primary residence, meaning the property qualifies for Homestead classification as determined by the Dakota County Assessor, and the city requires an inspection before the license is first issued. The performance standards get specific:

• A maximum of five bedrooms, with only one allowed to exceed 280 square feet.
• Occupancy of two people per standard bedroom, or four in that larger one.
• A two-night minimum stay.
• Working smoke detectors and carbon monoxide alarms, plus a fire extinguisher in every unit.
• No guest under the age of 25.

Rack up three notices of violation within a 365-day period and the license is automatically revoked, with a full year before you're allowed to reapply. That's a real enforcement mechanism, not a formality.

Required Documents for Dakota County Short-Term Rentals

Since the paperwork differs by city too, it helps to know what actually gets asked for before you sit down to apply. Mendota Heights is the most document-heavy of the group. It requires proof of primary residency, which can be homestead tax status, a lease, or a mortgage statement; the name, address and phone number of a local emergency contact reachable at all times; a signed statement establishing you as either the owner or an authorized operator; the number of bedrooms and maximum occupants; and a list of every platform where the listing will appear. It also asks for a signed agreement letting the city access exterior areas of the property when responding to a reported violation, along with verification that no unresolved code enforcement or property maintenance case is open against the address.

Burnsville and Lakeville don't publish as granular a document checklist on their own pages, though the general shape carries across all three cities. Expect to show proof you own or have the right to operate the property, contact information for someone reachable around the clock, and your specific listing details tied to the license once it's issued. Keep in mind that homestead status isn't only a licensing checkbox in the cities that require it. It's also what keeps your property tax bill at Minnesota's lower Class 1a rate rather than the higher Class 4b rate that applies to non-homestead rental property, which the tax section below covers in more detail. If a document you'd need to prove that status doesn't exist yet, like an updated homestead application with the Dakota County Assessor, that's worth starting well before you plan to accept your first guest.

Beyond the application paperwork itself, a floor plan showing exits and the location of fire extinguishers, working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, and a posted emergency contact inside the unit are conditions Mendota Heights checks at inspection, and Lakeville's posted-signage requirements cover similar ground. Watch out for the age restriction too if you're licensing in Mendota Heights: the city won't let you rent to anyone under 25, which isn't a rule every jurisdiction applies but is worth knowing before you accept a booking from a younger guest.

Dakota County Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you get through all of that and are able to get licensed, there's still tax to work out, and in Dakota County it stacks in layers rather than arriving as one number. The base is Minnesota's general state sales and use tax, 6.875%, made up of the 6.5% state rate plus a constitutionally dedicated 0.375% that runs through July 1, 2034. Lodging counts as a taxable sale under Minn. Stat. § 297A.61, subd. 3(g)(2), and the Department of Revenue applies that provision to residential short-term rentals the same way it applies to a hotel room.

On top of that, Dakota County sits inside the seven-county Twin Cities metro district, which means an additional Metro Area sales tax of 1.00% applies across every city in the county, 0.25% for a regional housing fund and 0.75% for regional transportation, both in effect since October 2023. That puts the general combined sales tax at roughly 7.875% across most Dakota County cities as of July 2026, before any city-specific lodging tax layers on top. A local lodging tax of up to 3% can apply under Minn. Stat. § 469.190, adopted city by city rather than automatically, and 95% of what it raises has to fund the local tourism bureau. Burnsville and Lakeville both require you to collect and remit a lodging tax as a license condition, though neither city states the exact rate on its own short-term rental page, so confirm the current number with the city's finance office rather than assuming the statutory 3% cap.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
State sales and use tax	6.875%	Minnesota Dept. of Revenue
Metro Area sales tax (housing + transportation)	1.00%	Minnesota Dept. of Revenue
Local lodging tax	Up to 3%, city-specific	Your city's finance department
Property tax (non-homestead STR)	Class 4b at 1.25%, vs. 1.0% homestead	Dakota County Assessor

That property tax line matters more than it might look on a spreadsheet. Under Minn. Stat. § 273.13, subd. 25(b)(1), a non-homestead property rented short-term for more than 14 days in the preceding year gets classified as Class 4b, taxed at 1.25% of the first $500,000 in value instead of the 1.0% homestead rate, which is exactly why Burnsville and Mendota Heights build homestead status into their licenses in the first place. Run a whole-home rental on a property you don't live in and you're paying that higher rate on top of every other tax here.

Whoever books the stay generally handles the collecting for you. An "accommodations intermediary," which is Minnesota's term for a platform like Airbnb or Vrbo that brokers the reservation, has to register as a retailer and remit the state and metro sales tax on its share of the charge. If you take a booking directly, outside a platform, that responsibility shifts to you, and you'll need your own retailer registration with the Department of Revenue. BNBCalc Markets is worth a look here too, since it shows what a property in this part of the state is earning once you factor in what these layers take off the top, benchmarked against the rest of Minnesota.

Minnesota-Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

Zoom out from Dakota County's cities and this whole pattern turns out to be state law playing out block by block, not a Dakota County quirk. Minnesota has no statute that preempts a city or county from regulating short-term rentals, which is exactly why Eagan can ban the use while Burnsville licenses it three miles away. A search of current Minnesota Statutes and the current legislative session's bill index turns up no enacted or pending law barring that local authority, and the League of Minnesota Cities has described recent sessions as cities defending their zoning power against broader housing preemption proposals rather than losing it.

There's no statewide short-term rental license, permit or registry either, which is the other half of why every guide to Minnesota rentals eventually comes down to "check your specific city." The only state-level registration that touches an Airbnb host is that same sales tax retailer registration, and it's triggered by how you take bookings rather than by anything specific to short-term rentals as a category. Our Minnesota-wide guide covers that statewide layer in more depth if you're comparing Dakota County against a different part of the state, and one thing from that research is worth flagging honestly here, since several marketing sites claim that Minnesota's Department of Health lodging license applies broadly to Airbnb-style rentals. Going through Minn. Stat. § 157.15 directly, though, "lodging establishment" requires stays of one week or more and five or more beds, and "resort" requires five or more cottages or rooms. A typical single-unit, nightly Dakota County rental doesn't obviously clear either threshold on the statute's own text, so I'm not going to assert that a state lodging license applies to a standard host here. If your setup involves multiple units or week-plus stays, that's worth a direct call to MDH's Metro District Office rather than trusting a marketing page either way.

Two bills touching short-term rentals sit in the current legislature as of my last check in July 2026, and neither has passed. HF 150 would clarify that a city's lodging tax base includes fees charged by an accommodations intermediary, and would let a city limit how often a platform has to file. A companion pair, SF 4157 and HF 3972, is a different animal. It would regulate short-term rental guarantee and reimbursement insurance policies, an insurance-product bill rather than anything touching zoning, licensing or tax. Neither is a rule yet, so don't plan around either one.

Does Dakota County Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

With that much variance from one city to the next, the honest question is how hard anyone checks. The answer differs by city, same as everything else here, and I couldn't find published enforcement statistics the way a bigger market like New York City publishes them, so treat what follows as a read of how each ordinance is built rather than a body count.

Eagan's approach is baked into the licensing structure itself. Because short-term rentals for traveler lodging simply aren't an exempted or licensable use, operating one puts you outside the rental-dwelling program entirely, which means any enforcement action runs through the city's general code-enforcement process rather than a rental-specific complaint line. Mendota Heights, on the other hand, wrote a genuinely graduated system into its ordinance. Three notices of violation within 365 days triggers automatic revocation, a single uncorrected violation can revoke the license on its own, and anyone revoked is locked out from reapplying for a full year. That's not a paper threat. It's a specific, countable trigger that a code official can act on without discretion.

Burnsville's enforcement runs through its lodging-tax paper trail as much as anything else, since a monthly report due within 25 days of month's end gives the city a running record of who's operating and what they're earning, which makes an unreported rental easier to spot than in a city with no comparable filing requirement. Lakeville backs its permit with real operating conditions, quiet hours, occupancy caps, a ban on parties, and each one gives the city a concrete standard to cite if a neighbor complains. None of these cities publish an enforcement dashboard the way some larger markets do, so be aware that "strict on paper" and "actively patrolled" aren't necessarily the same thing here. What is clear is that these aren't symbolic ordinances. Revocation, code enforcement and a documented paper trail are all real mechanisms, and a host who ignores the license requirement in a city that has one is taking on genuine risk, not just a hypothetical one.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Dakota County

Given how much of this comes down to which government you're dealing with, the order below starts there for a reason: get the early steps wrong and everything after them is wasted effort.

1. Confirm your city or township first. Look up your address on Dakota County's own Cities & Townships page if you're not sure, since the rule that governs you depends entirely on which one you're in.
2. Read that specific city's ordinance before you assume anything. If you're in Eagan, stop here. The use isn't licensed, no fee changes that.
3. Check your homestead status if the city requires it. Burnsville and Mendota Heights both tie licensing to a homesteaded, owner-occupied property, verified through the Dakota County Assessor's own records.
4. Confirm your zoning district. Mendota Heights only licenses short-term rentals in its R-1 district, so make sure your parcel actually sits inside the zone the ordinance covers.
5. Gather the documents your city asks for. Proof of residency, an emergency contact reachable 24 hours a day, your bedroom and occupancy counts, and a list of every platform where you'll advertise.
6. Apply for the license or permit and pay the required fee. Where an inspection is required, as in Mendota Heights, expect it before the license is first issued.
7. Register for state sales tax if you take bookings directly. If a platform handles all your reservations, confirm in writing that it's collecting and remitting on your behalf instead.
8. Set up your city's lodging tax filing, whether that's Burnsville's monthly report or another city's own schedule, before your first guest checks in.
9. Post the required safety and contact information inside the unit, and diarize your renewal date so a lapsed license doesn't sneak up on you.

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

Whichever step you get stuck on, the office that can answer depends on whether your question is about zoning, licensing, or tax, so here's how to split it.

Dakota County Office of Planning handles zoning for the 13 unincorporated townships and general land-use questions.

• Phone: 952-891-7000
• Email: [email protected]
• Address: Dakota County Administration Center, 1590 Highway 55, Hastings, MN 55033

City of Eagan Community Development is the office to call if you're weighing whether Eagan's rental licensing rules leave any room for your plan (they don't, for traveler lodging, but they can confirm your specific situation).

• Address: 3830 Pilot Knob Road, Eagan, MN 55122

City of Burnsville Neighborhood Services administers the short-term vacation rental permit.

• Phone: 952-895-4440
• Email: [email protected]

City of Lakeville Community Development / Economic Development handles the Short-Term Rental Administrative Permit.

• Email: [email protected]
• Finance Department (lodging tax): 952-985-4481

City of Mendota Heights administers its short-term rental license through the city administrator's office; its ordinance and license application are posted on the city's own site.

Minnesota Department of Revenue, Sales Tax Division handles state sales tax retailer registration and questions about the accommodations-intermediary rules.

• Phone: 651-296-6181, or 800-657-3777 toll-free
• Email: [email protected]
• Address: 600 North Robert Street, St. Paul, MN 55146

Minnesota Department of Health, Metro District Office is the number to call if you want to confirm whether a lodging license applies to your specific property.

• Phone: 651-201-4500
• Email: [email protected]

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

Given how differently each city treats this, it's worth knowing how hosts actually talk about operating here before you assume your neighbor's setup applies to you too. Reddit blocked automated access when I went looking, and BiggerPockets threads on a specific suburb like this tend to be thin compared to what you'd find for a major city, so what follows is a general read of the recurring themes rather than a survey of either platform, and I'd weigh it accordingly.

The theme that comes up most is exactly the patchwork this guide has been describing. Investors researching the Twin Cities south metro consistently flag that "Dakota County" isn't a useful search term on its own, because Eagan and Burnsville might as well be different states for this purpose. Anyone shopping for a rental property purely for nightly-stay income tends to steer toward cities that clearly allow it, like Burnsville or Lakeville, rather than gambling on Eagan or a city they haven't checked yet.

The homestead requirement generates real frustration too, mostly from would-be investors who don't live in the market. Burnsville and Mendota Heights both effectively close the door on an out-of-state or out-of-county owner buying a Dakota County property just to run as a short-term rental, since the license requires you to actually live there. That pushes a lot of investor interest either toward Lakeville, where I couldn't confirm an owner-occupancy rule either way, or across the river toward Hennepin County, where the larger housing stock gives an investor more cities to choose among. Others land on mid-term furnished rentals of 30 days or more instead, which sidestep city licensing entirely in most of these codes.

And once people do get licensed, the complaints tend to be practical rather than existential. Keeping a lodging-tax filing on schedule every month in Burnsville, remembering Mendota Heights' two-night minimum when a guest wants a single-night stay, or making sure the listing text matches what the license allows, that's the level these gripes usually sit at. None of that reads as hosts fighting the rules themselves. It reads as hosts managing paperwork in cities that decided, unlike Eagan, that the business was worth licensing rather than banning.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Dakota County, Minnesota in 2026?

It depends entirely on your city. Dakota County itself has no rule either way. Eagan bans short-term rentals for traveler lodging outright as part of its 2023 rental-dwelling ordinance, while Burnsville, Lakeville and Mendota Heights all allow the model through a city-issued permit or license. Burnsville and Mendota Heights require the property to be your homesteaded primary residence. Before you buy or list anything, confirm which of Dakota County's 14 cities, or which of its 13 unincorporated townships, your address actually sits in.

Does Dakota County require a county-level short-term rental license?

No. Dakota County has no countywide short-term rental ordinance, license or fee. The only place the county government regulates land use directly is the 13 unincorporated townships, through general zoning and its shoreland and floodplain ordinance, neither of which creates a specific short-term rental permit. Everywhere else in the county, meaning every incorporated city, licensing and zoning are handled entirely at the city level, and the rules genuinely differ from one city to the next.

Which Dakota County cities ban short-term rentals?

Eagan, the county's largest city, bans Airbnb and Vrbo-style rentals for traveler lodging under its rental-dwelling licensing ordinance, adopted March 21, 2023. That's the clearest outright ban confirmed for this guide. Apple Valley's code defines a short-term rental but its specific permit process wasn't confirmed from an official source in this research, so don't assume either way there. Several other Dakota County cities, including Rosemount, Farmington, Inver Grove Heights, Hastings, South St. Paul and West St. Paul, weren't independently verified here either, so check directly before you buy.

How much tax do you pay on a Dakota County short-term rental?

Expect a combined state and metro sales tax of roughly 7.875%: 6.875% state sales tax plus a 1.00% Metro Area tax that applies across the seven-county Twin Cities region, including all of Dakota County. On top of that, a city can add a local lodging tax of up to 3%, though the exact rate varies by city and isn't published on every city's own page. If you don't live in the property, expect a higher property tax rate too, since non-homestead short-term rentals get reclassified to Minnesota's Class 4b rate.

Do you need to live in the property to run a short-term rental in Dakota County?

In Burnsville and Mendota Heights, yes. Both cities require the license holder to homestead the property as their own primary residence, which shuts out an investor who doesn't live there. Lakeville's page doesn't state an owner-occupancy requirement either way, and I couldn't confirm one from a source I could open. Eagan doesn't license the use at all regardless of occupancy. Confirm the specific rule with your city before you assume a hands-off, investor-owned model will qualify anywhere in the county.

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