NSW laws for short-term rental accommodation

Short term rental accommodation in NSW

NSW Short-Term Rental Accommodation (STRA) regulations for holiday rentals enable owners to take advantage of demand for holiday rentals while providing certainty and safety for locals and visitors.

Key features of the STRA policy include:

• Hosted (where the owner lives onsite) STRA homeowners can rent their homes out year round. This includes second homes such as granny flats on the same site.
• Non-hosted (where the owner lives elsewhere) STRA is restricted to a maximum of 180 days a year in the following areas: Greater Sydney region (not including the Central Coast), Ballina area, Byron area, and parts of the Clarence Valley and Muswellbrook areas.
• Minimum fire safety standards; and
• A Code of Conduct for hosts, guests, online booking platforms and agents.

STRA Register

A Government-run register for STRA has been developed. Any dwelling used for STRA must be registered on the STRA Register where hosts are required to confirm compliance with the STRA fire safety standard. An initial registration fee of $65 is payable, with an annual renewal fee of $25.

The Register captures the number of days a property is used for STRA and is integrated with key STRA booking platforms (e.g. Stayz, Booking and Airbnb) for monitoring purposes.

Information on STRA properties collected through the register is also available via the NSW Planning Portal for the relevant Council to assist with monitoring and compliance.

If a dwelling is found to be operating as an unauthorised STRA, a local council can begin a compliance investigation which may result in penalties or enforcement action under planning laws.

Safety Standards

Fire safety standards for STRA allow for guests and visitors being less familiar with their location than permanent residents. They were designed after public consultation to strike an appropriate and reasonable balance between safety and cost.

Code of Conduct

A mandatory Code of Conduct for the Short-term Rental Accommodation Industry applies minimum standards of behaviour and requirements to all participants in the short-term rental accommodation industry. The Code creates new disciplinary actions that NSW Fair Trading can take, including listing non-compliant participants on an exclusion register.

The Code sets out a fair process that must be followed before a penalty is imposed and the Code and Regulation provide for appeals against decisions to impose a penalty for breach of the Code.

Read more about the new disciplinary actions at short-term rental accommodation complaints.

Strata by-laws prohibiting short-term rental

Strata buildings can enact by-laws to prohibit STRA in a building where the dwelling is not a principal place of residence (ie non-hosted STRA).

If an apartment is also the principal place of residence, then hosted STRA can be undertaken under the policy without reference to any such strata by-laws. However, hosts must still comply with all requirements of the policy such as fire safety standards and registration on the STRA Register.

Regulations

• State Environmental Planning Policy (Affordable Rental Housing) Amendment (Short-term Rental Accommodation) 2021
• Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Short-term Rental Accommodation) Regulation 2021

For more information on this topic, contact your S+ Strata Manager.

July 2023