NYC Local Law 18 and the 30-Day Rule, Explained

The Short Version

In most New York City apartments, you cannot rent your home to a guest for fewer than 30 days in a row unless you stay there with them. That rule is older than Local Law 18: it comes from state and city housing law that treats ordinary apartment buildings as places for permanent residents.

Local Law 18, also called the Short-Term Rental Registration Law, added enforcement. Since September 2023, a host who wants to offer short stays has to register with the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement (OSE), and booking platforms such as Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com are not allowed to process a short-term booking for a listing that is not registered.

What a Registered Short-Term Rental Looks Like

Registration does not unlock whole-apartment vacation rentals. A registered host still has to follow the underlying rules, which the city summarizes this way:

• The host lives in the apartment and is present for the guest’s stay.
• No more than two paying guests at a time.
• Guests have access to the whole home: no locked-off rooms.
• The building has to allow it. Owners can put a building on the city’s prohibited buildings list, and OSE will not register a unit there.

Who Cannot Register at All

Rent-stabilized and rent-controlled apartments cannot be registered for short-term rentals, and neither can public housing. If your apartment is rent-regulated, short stays are simply off the table, and offering them can put the tenancy at risk.

A renter in a market-rate apartment can apply, but the lease still matters. Most leases forbid short-term rentals outright, and registration with the city does not override your lease.

Why 30 Days Is the Line

The registration law applies only to rentals of fewer than 30 consecutive days. A stay of 30 days or more to the same person is not a short-term rental under this law. It needs no OSE registration, the host does not have to be present, and the two-guest limit does not apply.

That is why monthly sublets, semester sublets and summer sublets work in New York when weekend rentals do not, and it is why every stay on Sublet Buddy is 30 nights or longer.

The 30 days have to be real. A booking that is written as a month but that both sides understand to be a long weekend can be treated as what it actually is. If you need a week, a hotel is the legal answer.

What the 30-Day Line Does Not Change

Crossing 30 days takes you out of the short-term rental law. It does not take you out of your lease or out of state law on subletting. A tenant who sublets for a summer still needs the landlord’s written consent.

In a building with four or more apartments, Real Property Law 226-b gives a tenant the right to ask, sets out how to ask (in writing, by certified mail, with the details of the sublet) and says the landlord may not unreasonably refuse. In smaller buildings, co-ops and condos, the lease and the building’s rules decide. Rent-stabilized tenants have extra limits on how long they can sublet and how much they can charge.

• Is Subletting Legal in NYC?
• Subletting a Rent-Stabilized Apartment

If You Are the One Looking for a Place

For a stay under 30 days in a regular apartment, expect a host who lives there, a private room rather than the whole place, and a listing that shows a city registration number. Whole apartments advertised for a week or two are the listings this law was written to stop, and they are also a common shape for scams.

For a month or more, a sublet is the normal route. Ask the person listing for the landlord’s written approval, see the place in person or on a live video call, and get the dates and price in writing before you pay anything.

• How to Avoid Sublet Scams in NYC
• Monthly Rentals in NYC

If You Are the One Leaving

Going away for a summer, a semester or a few months? Renting your place by the night while you are gone is not allowed in most apartments, registered or not, because you would not be there. Subletting it for 30 days or more, with your landlord’s written consent, is the path the law leaves open.

Penalties for illegal short-term rentals fall on the host and can run into thousands of dollars, on top of whatever your lease says. Rules and fee amounts change, so check the city’s page before you rely on any summary, including this one.

• How to Sublet Your NYC Apartment
• List Your Place