Registering a short-term rental in NSW: what an owner has to do

Do these two checks first

Before anything else, confirm the building allows it. In a strata scheme that means reading the registered by-laws and getting the strata manager to confirm in writing whether a by-law restricts short-term rental accommodation. A scheme can prohibit it where the lot is not the owner's principal place of residence.

Then confirm which planning rules apply to your property and council area. Short-term rental accommodation in NSW is governed by a state framework, but what it permits depends on whether the property is hosted or non-hosted and where it sits.

Fire safety, before the listing

NSW sets fire safety requirements for premises used as short-term rental accommodation, and they are a precondition rather than an afterthought. Depending on the dwelling that can mean smoke alarms to a specified standard, a heat alarm in some layouts, an evacuation diagram, and a fire extinguisher and blanket in the kitchen.

Get this done before the photographs, not after the first booking. It is cheap, it is checkable, and it is the part that turns an insurance conversation ugly if it was skipped.

Register the property

Short-term rental accommodation premises in NSW must be listed on the state register before being let. You register the dwelling — with its property identifier and a declaration that the fire safety requirements are met — and you receive a registration number that has to appear on the listing.

Registration carries a fee and an annual renewal. Both change from time to time, so take the current amounts from the register itself rather than from a blog, including this one.

Then run it inside the rules

For a non-hosted property in Greater Sydney, nightly letting is capped at 180 days a year. Stays of 21 consecutive nights or more do not count towards that cap, which is what makes a mixed calendar of nightly and longer stays the sensible shape for a capped property rather than a compromise.

The Code of Conduct applies to hosts, guests, managers and platforms, and there is an exclusion register for repeat breaches. In practice that means guest screening and complaint handling are compliance work, not just customer service.

This is general information and not legal advice. Requirements change and other states set their own rules — Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia each do this differently.