Guides

Short-term rentals: what the record can tell you

What each county calls them, where the rules live, and what this site can and cannot answer about a particular property.

The Ledger cannot tell you whether a particular property may be rented short-term. That is a determination only the county makes, from its own zoning, permit and registration records, and it turns on facts a map cannot see: when the use began, whether a certificate was issued and renewed, and what a building's own rules say. (The Ledger)

What the Ledger can show you is the record: the zoning the county maps at a parcel, the building permits issued there, and the bills and permit applications moving through the counties now. (Permits and zoning by address)

Rentals of less than 30 days are regulated by the city, and where they are allowed is set by the Land Use Ordinance and the Department of Planning and Permitting's registration system; units grandfathered before the 1986 cutoff hold nonconforming use certificates that must be renewed each year. (The city's short-term rental pages (the Ledger links rather than copies: the department's site refuses automated reading))

Since Ordinance 22-6, an owner selling residential property must disclose to the buyer, before the sale, whether the property may legally be used as a short-term rental. The ordinance's stated purpose is to give buyers complete information about a property's legal income potential and to curb price inflation from units marketed as investments. (Ordinance 22-6, City and County of Honolulu)

The Ledger shows the mapped zoning at any Oʻahu parcel and its permit history; that is a starting point for a question the department answers. (Permits and zoning by address)

Bill 147 would set operating standards for transient vacation rentals, make hosted bed-and-breakfasts a permitted use in the single-family residential district and in some agricultural districts, and allow un-hosted short-term vacation rentals throughout the multiple-family residential district and in certain coastal areas next to resort areas. (Hawaiʻi County Council, Policy Committee on Planning, Land Use, and Economic Development, Sept. 15, 2026)

Individual bed-and-breakfast and short-term rental permits are heard by the county's two planning commissions, and each application appears on the Ledger as the county's notices publish it. (The Leeward and Windward Planning Commission agendas)

Maui County's rules are administered by its planning department, and its council has been working through community plan and permitting changes that bear on visitor accommodations; the county's website refuses automated reading, so the Ledger reads what it can through the council's own agenda system and links the rest. (Maui County Council agenda items the Ledger reads)

On Kauaʻi, transient vacation rental use is administered by the county planning department, and applications and zoning amendments come before the Planning Commission, whose hearing notices the Ledger reads. (Kauaʻi Planning Commission hearing notices)

Ask the county planning department about the specific parcel, in writing, and keep the answer. Rules in all four counties have changed repeatedly since 2019 and are changing now; the trackers follow what is moving. (Vacation rentals tracker)

Guides are written by the Ledger for residents. Every paragraph names the record it comes from; where the Ledger has not read the governing law itself, the guide says what the record shows and links it. Found something wrong? Tell us; corrections go up the same day.