The legal requirements for short-term rental properties in Australia are set in three places at once: federal tax law, your state or territory government, and your local council. Two apartments a short drive apart can sit under different rules, and the gap between cities is now wider than it has ever been. Melbourne owners pay a 7.5 per cent levy that Brisbane owners do not. Sydney caps non-hosted nights at 180 a year. Perth added a planning approval hurdle in January 2026. This guide works through each capital city, then covers the obligations that follow you everywhere: income tax, GST and insurance.
Short-term rental rules at a glance
Short-term rental regulations by state and territory have diverged sharply since 2024. The table below covers all eight jurisdictions in one place, with the position as at July 2026. Registration means a government register you must join before advertising. Levies are state taxes on the booking amount, usually collected by the platform. Caps limit how many nights a property can be let without further approval. Every row still sits on top of your council’s planning scheme and, for apartments, your owners corporation or body corporate rules.
| City / state | Registration required | Levy | Night caps | Planning permit | Strata or OC powers | Penalties |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Melbourne, VIC | Only if you take direct bookings, via the State Revenue Office | 7.5% on stays under 28 days | None statewide | Council by council, no city-wide scheme in City of Melbourne | OC can ban short stays by 75% special resolution, principal residence exempt | Penalty tax and interest on unpaid levy |
| Sydney, NSW | Yes, STRA Register. $65 to register, $25 a year | None | 180 days a year for non-hosted in Greater Sydney. Hosted unlimited | Exempt development if within the rules, otherwise consent needed | OC can ban non-hosted by 75% special resolution, cannot restrict a principal residence | Fines, listing removal, Exclusion Register |
| Brisbane, QLD | No | None | None | Material change of use may apply depending on zone | Body corporate by-laws | Planning enforcement, plus a higher rates category |
| Perth, WA | Yes, STRA Register. $250 to register, $100 a year | None | 90 nights a year unhosted in metro Perth before approval is needed | Development approval required above 90 nights from 1 January 2026 | Strata by-laws | Fines, and unregistered properties cannot be advertised or booked |
| Adelaide, SA | No | None | None | Council dependent | Community titles by-laws | Council planning enforcement |
| Canberra, ACT | No | 5% on platform bookings of 28 days or less | None | Lease purpose and planning may apply | Unit titles rules | Revenue Office penalties, applied to platforms |
| Hobart, TAS | No, but platforms report your details to the state | None in force. A 5% levy is before parliament | Permit required unless the property is your primary residence | Discretionary permit in most residential zones | Strata by-laws | Council enforcement, plus a higher rates category |
| Darwin, NT | No | None | None | May apply at commercial scale | Unit title by-laws | Council and planning enforcement |
Melbourne and Victoria
Victoria has the heaviest state-level tax on short stays in the country and the strongest apartment-level veto. Both arrived on 1 January 2025 through the Short Stay Levy Act 2024.
The 7.5 per cent short-stay levy
The levy applies to stays of less than 28 consecutive days in Victorian property, at 7.5 per cent of the total booking fee (State Revenue Office Victoria, page updated 6 January 2026). The base is wider than most owners expect. It includes the nightly rate, cleaning fees, GST and any late checkout fee. It excludes credit card and payment processing charges, and charges for guest damage.
If every booking comes through Airbnb, Stayz or Booking.com, the platform registers, collects and remits, and you do nothing. If you take direct bookings, you register with the SRO yourself. Lodgement frequency depends on volume: $75,000 or more in total booking fees for the property in a calendar year means quarterly returns due 30 days after each quarter, and anything under that is a single annual return due 30 January. Owners who start the year lodging annually and cross $75,000 have to switch to quarterly mid-year.
Properties that are the owner’s or renter’s principal place of residence are excluded, along with hotels, motels and hostels, and rooms that cannot be occupied separately from the main residence. The exclusion is not automatic in practice. You have to declare it, both to the SRO and through each platform’s own form, or the levy gets charged anyway. For a fuller breakdown, see our guide to Victoria’s short-stay levy.
Owners corporation bans and the principal residence exemption
Since January 2025, a Victorian owners corporation can make a rule prohibiting short-stay accommodation in the building. It needs a special resolution, which is 75 per cent of lot owners or lot entitlements, and the rule must be registered with Land Use Victoria to take effect (Consumer Affairs Victoria). The rule cannot apply to a lot being used as the owner’s or occupier’s principal place of residence.
Two things about this catch owners out. The first is that a special resolution can also pass as an interim resolution on a much lower bar, where at least 50 per cent vote in favour and no more than 25 per cent vote against. A quiet ballot with low turnout can therefore go through. The second is that in the buildings we manage, ban proposals almost always follow a specific incident rather than general policy sentiment. Owners who attend meetings and keep their contact details current with the OC manager see the ballot coming. Owners who do not, find out when their listing has to come down.
Victoria has no statewide night cap. The 180-day figure that circulates in Melbourne host groups belongs to Greater Sydney.
Safety requirements
Working smoke alarms are required in every Victorian dwelling under the Building Regulations, and Fire Rescue Victoria recommends interconnected alarms on every level. The two-yearly gas and electrical safety checks that get quoted at short-stay owners are obligations for residential rental providers under the Residential Tenancies Act 1997, and short stays generally sit outside that Act. That said, insurers and platforms increasingly ask for the records, and we book them on managed properties anyway. Confirm your own position with a licensed practitioner before relying on the distinction.
Tax beyond the levy
Short-stay income is assessable income. Land tax applies to property that is not your principal place of residence, and Victoria’s Vacant Residential Land Tax can apply where a property is occupied for less than six months in a calendar year, which is a real risk for a lightly used holiday home rather than an actively let one. From 1 January 2026 the VRLT also reaches long-term undeveloped metropolitan land. Check current thresholds with the SRO, since these have moved repeatedly since 2024.
Sydney and New South Wales
New South Wales runs the most structured framework in the country, and it has been in place since 1 November 2021.
Registration through the Planning Portal
Every short-term rental accommodation property must be listed on the NSW STRA Register before it is advertised. Registration costs $65 and the annual renewal is $25 (NSW Planning Portal). You receive a Property ID that has to appear on the listing, and platforms are only permitted to list registered properties. Miss the renewal date and the property goes on hold for three months, during which bookings are blocked.
The 180-day cap and Byron Bay’s 60 nights
Non-hosted STRA, where you are not living on the premises, is limited to 180 days a year in the Greater Sydney region. Hosted STRA has no day limit. The count runs across a registration year, being 12 months from your first registration date, not the calendar year, which trips up owners who assume a January reset. Bookings of 21 or more consecutive days do not count towards the limit, which is a useful lever for filling shoulder season without spending capped nights. Byron Bay has applied a stricter 60-day non-hosted cap since 23 September 2024, outside two mapped precincts that remain at 365.
Code of Conduct and strata by-laws
Hosts, guests, platforms and managers all sit under a mandatory Code of Conduct, and repeated breaches can put a host or guest on the Exclusion Register, which blocks participation entirely. Dwellings must also meet the STRA Fire Safety Standard, which requires interconnected mains-powered or 10-year sealed battery smoke alarms, an evacuation plan, and a fire extinguisher and blanket in the kitchen. You attest to compliance when you register. Separately, under section 137A of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015, an owners corporation can ban non-hosted short-term letting by special resolution, but it cannot stop an owner letting their own principal residence.
Brisbane and Queensland
Queensland remains the most permissive major market, and it became more so in May 2026.
Council by council, and the permit that did not happen
There is no Queensland registration scheme, no state levy and no statewide night cap. Regulation is left to councils, and they differ. Brisbane City Council spent 2025 consulting on a Short Stay Accommodation Local Law that would have required an annual permit from 1 July 2026, and told almost 500 suburban operators to prepare to cease. On 12 May 2026 the Lord Mayor announced the scheme would not proceed. Many guides published before that date still describe the permit as incoming. It is not.
What remains in Brisbane is a higher differential rates category for dwellings used predominantly for short stays, introduced in July 2022 and worth roughly 50 per cent above standard residential rates, plus ordinary planning rules. Whole-home letting in a residential zone can require a material change of use approval depending on zoning. Elsewhere in the state the picture tightens: Noosa requires a local law permit, and the Gold Coast requires $10 million public liability cover and the correct rates category, with party house controls in mapped areas.
Body corporate restrictions
Queensland bodies corporate cannot prohibit short-term letting outright in the way Victorian and New South Wales schemes now can, but by-laws on occupancy, parking, noise and common property are enforceable, and they are the practical constraint in apartment buildings. Every Queensland dwelling must also have interconnected photoelectric smoke alarms by 1 January 2027.
Perth and Western Australia
Western Australia moved from no framework to a two-part framework in 24 months, and the second part only landed this year.
The mandatory STRA Register
The statewide register opened on 1 July 2024 under the Short-Term Rental Accommodation Act 2024 and registration became mandatory on 1 January 2025. Registration costs $250 with a $100 annual renewal, and the registration number must be displayed in every advertisement. Platforms verify WA listings against the register. Bookings made through major platforms upload automatically, while direct bookings, including changes and cancellations, must be entered by the fifth of the following month.
The 90-night threshold in metro Perth
From 1 January 2026, unhosted properties in the Perth metropolitan area let for more than 90 non-consecutive nights in a 12-month period need development approval from the local council. At 90 nights or fewer, an exemption applies, though registration is still required. Hosted STRA is exempt from development approval anywhere in the state. Outside metropolitan Perth, including the Peel region, councils decide whether approval is needed from the first night, so the answer is genuinely local.
Getting the approval
Councils updated their local planning schemes through 2025 so they could issue these approvals, with the City of Perth amendments gazetted on 27 February 2026. Approval is not guaranteed and applications take time, which is the part owners underestimate. Anyone buying a Perth apartment on the assumption of year-round unhosted letting should check the council’s position before settlement, not after.
Adelaide and South Australia
South Australia has no state-level short-term rental scheme at all. There is no register, no levy and no night cap, which makes it the lightest-touch mainland market alongside the Northern Territory. That is worth stating plainly, because most national guides leave South Australia as “council dependent” without saying what that means.
What does apply is ordinary development law. Some councils require development approval for a dwelling used wholly as short-term accommodation, and the City of Adelaide has considered a permit scheme for the CBD and North Adelaide without implementing one. A 2024 parliamentary inquiry into the short stay sector recommended a statewide register, and Airbnb publicly supported one, so this is the jurisdiction most likely to change next. Community titles by-laws and council nuisance provisions still bite. Check with your council before listing, and check again if you buy.
Canberra and the ACT
The 5 per cent levy
The ACT introduced a Short-Term Rental Accommodation Levy on 1 July 2025 under the Short-Term Rental Accommodation Levy Act 2025. It is 5 per cent of the total amount the guest pays, including booking fees and taxes but not credit card fees or refunds, and it applies to stays of not more than 28 continuous days. Two features make it narrower than Victoria’s. The levy is payable by the booking service provider rather than the owner, so platforms register with the ACT Revenue Office and remit quarterly. And direct bookings with an owner or occupier are outside it entirely.
There is no ACT registration scheme, and no legislated night cap, despite a 180-day figure that appears on several aggregator sites. Hosted accommodation does not require a declaration. What ACT owners do need to check is the lease purpose clause and any planning approval for the property, since commercial-scale use of a residential lease can require approval, plus land tax, which applies to property that is not your principal place of residence.
Hobart and Tasmania
Tasmania regulates through planning and data collection rather than registration, and it currently has no levy in force.
Under the Short Stay Accommodation Act 2019, booking platforms must collect and display permit information for Tasmanian listings and report it to the Director of Building Control every quarter. Short stay use within a dwelling is exempt from needing a planning permit where the property is the owner’s or occupier’s primary residence and other conditions are met. Whole-home letting in most residential zones needs a discretionary permit, which neighbours can object to. Buildings over 200 square metres may require a change of use assessed by a building surveyor. Hobart also charges a higher rates category for properties used exclusively for short stays.
Two changes are live issues. A Short Stay Levy Bill 2026 setting a 5 per cent levy on platform bookings passed the House of Assembly on 7 May 2026 and had its first reading in the Legislative Council on 15 May 2026. It is not law yet, and the Treasurer has said the levy will start no earlier than 1 January 2027. Separately, the City of Hobart’s planning authority endorsed a draft scheme amendment on 10 June 2026 that would stop new whole-dwelling conversions to short stay in the Inner Residential, General Residential and Low Density Residential zones, with existing lawful operators unaffected and home sharing still permitted. Anyone buying in Hobart to let should treat both as likely rather than settled, and confirm current status with the State Revenue Office and the council.
Darwin and the Northern Territory
The Northern Territory has the least regulation of any Australian jurisdiction. There is no territory register, no levy, no night cap and no code of conduct. Nothing is pending that would change that.
Ordinary law still applies. Development consent under the NT Planning Scheme can be required where a dwelling is used for visitor accommodation at commercial scale, and unit title by-laws, noise provisions and council rules govern conduct. Federal tax obligations are identical to every other city. The absence of a framework is not the same as the absence of rules, and it is also the kind of gap that closes quickly once a market grows.
What applies no matter which city you are in
Income tax and ATO reporting
All short-stay income is assessable, and the ATO already has your numbers. Under the Sharing Economy Reporting Regime, accommodation platforms have reported host transactions to the ATO since 1 July 2023, twice a year, by 31 January and 31 July.
The bigger development for 2026 is Taxation Ruling TR 2026/1, which replaced IT 2167 after it was withdrawn on 12 November 2025. For the first time the Commissioner has stated that section 26-50 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, the leisure facility provision, applies to holiday homes that owners also let. Where a property is characterised as a leisure facility, ownership deductions such as interest, rates and depreciation can be denied outright rather than merely apportioned. What matters is whether the property is held mainly to produce income, judged on actual use rather than intention or gross rent. Blocking out peak periods for family use is the pattern that attracts attention. The ATO has offered a transitional approach for expenditure incurred before 1 July 2026 under arrangements existing before 12 November 2025. Talk to your accountant about this one properly. It is the single largest change to short-stay taxation in years and it is not a state issue.
GST
Residential premises let short term are input taxed, so you do not charge GST on a standard Airbnb booking and you cannot claim GST credits on expenses. GST only enters the picture if you are supplying commercial residential premises, which means hotel-like operations, and your turnover exceeds the $75,000 registration threshold. Note the interaction with Victoria: where GST does apply, it forms part of the booking fee the 7.5 per cent levy is calculated on.
Insurance
Standard home and landlord policies commonly exclude paying guests. You want a policy written for short-stay letting with public liability cover, and platform guarantees are not a substitute for it. The Gold Coast mandates $10 million public liability under local law, and $10 million to $20 million is the range most Australian short-stay policies are written at. Tell your insurer in writing what the property is used for. An undisclosed use is the most common reason a claim fails.
Penalties for non-compliance
Penalties scale with how organised the jurisdiction is. In New South Wales, operating unregistered or breaching the fire safety standard attracts penalty notices, and repeated Code of Conduct breaches can put a host on the Exclusion Register, which ends short-term letting at that property. In Western Australia it is an offence to enter into a short-stay arrangement without registration, and from 1 January 2026 unregistered properties cannot be advertised or booked at all. In Victoria, unpaid levy attracts penalty tax and interest from the SRO. In Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory, enforcement runs through council planning action, which is slower but can end with an order to cease use.
The commercial penalties matter as much as the legal ones. A delisting mid-season, an owners corporation ban with a short transition, or a refused development application all cost more than the fine.
A practical compliance checklist
Work through this before you accept a first booking.
- Confirm what your council’s planning scheme says about short-stay or visitor accommodation in your zone, in writing where possible.
- Register where your jurisdiction requires it. NSW and WA before advertising, and the Victorian SRO if you will take direct bookings.
- Display your registration or property ID number on every listing where that is required.
- Read your owners corporation, body corporate or community titles rules, and check whether any short-stay ban or restriction has been registered.
- Check whether a night cap applies and set up a way to count nights against the right 12-month period.
- Install and test compliant smoke alarms, and add an evacuation plan and kitchen fire equipment where the standard requires them.
- Arrange insurance that names short-stay letting, with public liability cover, and keep written confirmation.
- Set up separate records for booking fees, cleaning charges, levy amounts and any private use of the property.
- Talk to your accountant about TR 2026/1 before the end of the financial year, particularly if you use the property yourself.
- Diarise renewals. NSW registration is annual, WA registration is annual, and levy returns fall due on fixed dates.
Frequently asked questions
Do these rules apply to hosted stays as well as whole-home letting? Usually not to the same extent. Hosted stays, where you live on the premises during the booking, escape the 180-day cap in New South Wales, development approval in Western Australia, the levy in the ACT and Victoria where the property is your principal place of residence, and owners corporation bans in both Victoria and New South Wales. Whole-home unhosted letting is what almost every framework targets.
Does the Victorian levy apply if I only get direct bookings? Yes. The levy attaches to the stay, not the channel. The difference is that you become responsible for registering with the State Revenue Office, lodging returns and paying, rather than the platform doing it for you.
Can my Melbourne owners corporation actually ban my Airbnb? Yes, unless the apartment is your principal place of residence. The rule needs a 75 per cent special resolution and registration with Land Use Victoria. Note that a resolution can also pass on an interim basis with 50 per cent in favour and no more than 25 per cent against, so turnout matters.
Is there a night cap in Melbourne? No. Victoria has no statewide night cap. The 180-day limit applies to non-hosted properties in Greater Sydney.
Do I need to charge GST on short-stay bookings? Generally no. Residential premises let short term are input taxed. GST applies only to commercial residential premises above the $75,000 turnover threshold.
Does the ATO know what I earn from Airbnb? Yes. Platforms have reported host transactions under the Sharing Economy Reporting Regime since 1 July 2023, twice a year.
Which capital city has the lightest regulation? Darwin, followed by Adelaide and Brisbane. None of the three has a register, a levy or a night cap, though Brisbane charges higher rates for short-stay dwellings and all three still apply council planning rules.
What changed most recently? Perth’s development approval threshold started on 1 January 2026, Brisbane cancelled its proposed permit scheme in May 2026, Hobart moved to restrict new whole-home conversions in June 2026, and the ATO’s holiday home ruling TR 2026/1 takes full effect for expenditure from 1 July 2026.
Where this leaves you
Compliance in this sector is not hard so much as moving. Four of the eight jurisdictions changed something material in the past 18 months, and two more have legislation or planning amendments in progress. The owners who get caught out are rarely the ones who read the rules once. They are the ones who read them in 2024 and assumed they still applied.
If your property is in Melbourne, that is the part we handle. We track the levy, the owners corporation ballots and the council positions across the properties we manage, and we tell owners what has changed before it becomes a problem. If you are deciding how to approach it, start with self-managing vs. hiring a Melbourne Airbnb manager and how much Melbourne Airbnb managers charge. Elsewhere in Australia, our guide to finding a reliable Airbnb manager in Australia covers what to look for. When you are ready, talk to us about hiring a Melbourne Airbnb manager to handle compliance.
