Why Owning An Airbnb In Las Vegas Is Nearly Impossible
There are many illegal short-term rentals in Las Vegas. And if you’ve tried to develop an Airbnb then you may be accustomed to the cumbersome and excruciating licensing process.
A recent report from 8 News Now outlines the backlog of applications for short-term rentals currently in the county’s queue.
According to the article, there is a backlog of more than 600 applications with only 88 approved. There was a pre-application process that opened in 2022, and the deadline for pre-applications was in August 2023, the NPR affiliate in Las Vegas writes.
What Is The Application Process For Short-Term Rentals And Airbnb In Las Vegas?
There are a few requirements that make Las Vegas a difficult city when trying to create an Airbnb, and this is for a few reasons.
According to the City of Las Vegas website, a short-term rental is considered a house or condominium that’s rented out to guests for less than 31 consecutive days in a row. You also need a business license to operate in Las Vegas.
Along with those initial requirements, the home must be “owner-occupied,” which means “the homeowner must reside on-site during the guests’ entire stay. You would need to make this clear to your potential guests when you advertise.”
The rental property must also have no more than three bedrooms, it must be located 660 feet away from other short-term rentals and 2,500 feet from a resort hotel.
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The zoning area must allow short-term rentals, and you must have written permission from a homeowners association.
If your property did qualify for a short-term rental then you would need to submit a free Conditional Use Verification application to the city’s planning division. Then you need to schedule an inspection of the property from the Code Enforcement sector of the city.
If your application gets approved then you need to submit a business license application, which includes a $500 annual fee, and you must have limited liability insurance coverage with a minimum of $500,000. Then you’ll need to provide a 24-hour emergency contact person and post this information on the property.
After that, you need to notify the city about which platforms you’ll be advertising the property on.
So, once you get past these requirement hoops then you have another obstacle: The lottery system. So you have the pre-application process, a lottery system (which is how the county picks applications) then that’s when your application will be processed, according to 8 News Now.
Illegal Short-Term Rental Properties Sprouting Around Las Vegas
Due to this lengthy process, many people have resorted to just listing their properties illegally. In 2024, 8 News Now reports that officials have issued over 500 citations for illegal short-term rentals.
There are also hefty fines for landlords who list their property illegally. In January, a homeowner faced a $180,000 penalty and another faced a $240,000 fine in February, Fox 5 reports.
But not everything should be looked at through rose-colored glasses when it comes to short-term rentals. Oftentimes, short-term rentals can bring parties and disturbance to residential neighborhoods.
According to a study published in the Public Library of Science, a rapid increase of Airbnbs in an area correlates to higher rates of crime in the area.
“They found that certain violent crimes, including fights, robberies, and reports of someone wielding a knife, tended to increase in a neighborhood a year or more after the number of Airbnbs increased,” Northeastern Global News reports.
Airbnb did respond to this study and posted an article on its website that said “Unfortunately, this paper does not meet such a standard. Rather, it uses an unrepresentative sample within one city to make broad nationwide conclusions; applies a faulty methodology including a flawed regression analysis; and relies on inaccurate data. The result is a paper with inaccurate conclusions not supported by the evidence.”
