Jurisdiction Guide · 02
Downtown · Centennial Hills · The Lakes · Charleston Heights · Tule Springs · portions of the northwest
A working, active licensing program — and the clearest “no” in the valley for the traditional investor model. If you will not live in the property, this is not your jurisdiction.
A City of Las Vegas short-term rental must be owner-occupied — the property is your primary residence and you, the owner, must be on-site during each day of a rental. Maximum three bedrooms. This is not a technicality you can structure around with an LLC or an on-site manager. It is the design of the program, and it forecloses the buy-a-house-and-rent-the-whole-thing model inside city limits.
What the city does permit is a genuine house-hacking play: you live in the home, you rent bedrooms or a portion of it to travelers, you carry a real license, and you operate without looking over your shoulder. For an owner-occupant, Las Vegas is arguably the most stable STR jurisdiction in the valley — no cap-driven lottery, no pending federal injunction, no discretionary hearing. Just a clear checklist.
To be eligible for a new short-term residential rental business license in the City of Las Vegas, the property must satisfy all of the following:
The city requires a floor plan that identifies which bedroom the owner occupies during rental periods. That single documentation requirement tells you how seriously the owner-occupancy rule is meant to be taken. It is not a formality that quietly goes unenforced.
| Item | Requirement | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Annual business license | $500 | Per year |
| Owner occupancy | Required | Owner on-site during each day of rental |
| Maximum bedrooms | 3 | Hard cap |
| Separation — other STRs | 660 ft | Tested at CUV stage |
| Separation — resort hotels | 2,500 ft | Rules out much of the downtown resort corridor |
| Liability insurance | $500,000 minimum | Proof required |
| HOA written permission | Required if applicable | No workaround |
| 24-hour emergency contact | Required | Must be posted outside the property |
| Transient lodging tax | 13% · 13.38% in Primary Gaming Corridor | Guest-paid, operator-remitted |
Once licensed, the ongoing obligations are straightforward but real:
The transient lodging tax is 13.38% inside the Primary Gaming Corridor — the resort-hotel district defined by the city — and 13% outside it. You collect it from the guest and remit it. The city publishes a room tax packet through Business Licensing that walks through the mechanics.
As always: confirm what your booking platform is actually collecting and remitting on your behalf versus what remains your obligation, and remember that direct bookings are entirely yours to handle.
We will be direct, because the alternative wastes your time.
If you are an investor looking for a non-owner-occupied short-term rental, the City of Las Vegas is not a viable jurisdiction. No amount of entity structuring changes an owner-occupancy requirement that comes with a floor-plan disclosure of which bedroom you sleep in. Clients who want that model should be looking at Henderson first and North Las Vegas second, with a clear-eyed view of unincorporated Clark County's legal situation.
If you are an owner-occupant — someone buying a primary residence who wants to offset the mortgage by hosting travelers — the city's program is stable, functioning, and free of the volatility affecting the county. That is a genuinely underrated position. The three-bedroom cap and the 660-foot separation mean the eligible-parcel question needs answering before you fall in love with a house, but the path is real and it works.
Zoning, the 660-foot separation, the resort buffer, and the HOA position — we check all four and tell you plainly whether a City of Las Vegas license is achievable at that address.
No. The requirement is that the residence is owner-occupied and the owner is on-site during each day of a rental, documented down to a floor plan identifying the owner's bedroom. An entity does not occupy a bedroom. If you cannot personally live there, you need a different jurisdiction.
The city's eligibility standard is stated as no more than three bedrooms for the property. Do not assume you can self-declare a room out of the count — confirm directly with Business Licensing at 702.229.6281 how the bedroom count is determined for your specific floor plan before you buy on that assumption.
The conditional use verification step is where the city tests it definitively. Practically, you want to know the answer before you are under contract. That is one of the things we check for clients as part of an address check — along with whether the parcel's zoning permits STR use at all.
No. The federal litigation concerns unincorporated Clark County's ordinance. The city runs a separate program and it is operating normally. If your parcel is inside city limits, the county case does not change your obligations — and it does not create an opening. More on the county situation.
No. Written HOA permission is a stated eligibility requirement where an association exists. Silence is not permission. If you are evaluating a purchase, treat HOA consent as a condition to confirm during due diligence rather than a problem to solve after closing — because if the association says no, it ends the analysis regardless of what the city would have approved.
Important. You Decide Realty is a licensed Nevada real estate brokerage. This page is general information reflecting publicly available City of Las Vegas materials as of August 16, 2026. It is not legal advice. Fees, thresholds, and requirements change. Confirm all requirements directly with City of Las Vegas Business Licensing and consult a qualified Nevada attorney and tax professional before acquiring, financing, or operating a short-term rental.