Short-term rental rules in Charlotte, NC

What Charlotte asks of you

• Charlotte's Unified Development Ordinance was adopted on August 22, 2022, and took effect on June 1, 2023. It replaced the city's previous zoning ordinance.^[4]

• In 2022 the City Attorney's Office advised planning staff to remove the language regulating short-term rentals from the draft ordinance, citing legal uncertainties.^[6]

• The office said it would work with staff on appropriate standards once the legal and legislative uncertainties around the use become clearer.^[6]

• Article 15 of the ordinance, which defines every use the city regulates, has no short-term rental use among its definitions.^[5]

• A bed and breakfast is defined as a detached house where a permanent resident provides lodging for a daily fee. Meals are prepared for guests, with no cooking in their rooms.^[5]

• A rooming house offers rooms for a minimum of seven consecutive days, with a kitchen shared with the permanent resident or owner.^[5]

• Owners who rent for 15 or more days a year collect Mecklenburg County room occupancy tax. That holds whether they rent alone, through an agent or through an online service.^[7]

What North Carolina asks wherever you host

These rules apply at this address whatever the city decides.

• Under G.S. 160D-1207(c), no North Carolina city can make registration a condition of renting your property. Demanding a housing-code permit before you rent is barred as well. The Court of Appeals applied that rule in Schroeder v. City of Wilmington.^[1]

• Zoning is what remains. In that case the court let a city keep whole-house lodging inside named districts. Parking rules survived too, as did limits on large events. So did insurance conditions and posted safety information.^[1]

• Renting out a private residence or cottage owes North Carolina's 4.75% sales tax. Local and transit rates come on top. So does any occupancy tax levied by the city or county. Sales tax stops once a single guest has stayed ninety days in a row.^[3]