Kent, CT Airbnb & Short-Term Rental Regulations 2026

Regulation Overview

Litchfield Hills town known for covered bridges, Appalachian Trail access, and Kent Falls; a magnet for NYC weekender second-home and vacation-rental buyers seeking a rural Connecticut retreat.

No STR-specific ordinance could be confirmed for Kent from a primary source; a specific 2024 CT Office of Legislative Research list of the 12 towns known to expressly regulate STRs by ordinance does NOT include Kent, and a second research pass on other Litchfield Hills towns (Washington, Salisbury, Litchfield, Sharon) found none better documented, with Salisbury explicitly confirmed to have no STR ordinance either. This rating is a best-effort default reflecting the absence of confirmed regulation, not a verified finding — treat the entire market entry as low-confidence.

Connecticut State Law

State preemption: No preemption; historically ambiguous local zoning authority over STRs. PA 24-143 §7 (effective Oct 1, 2024) explicitly authorized municipalities to adopt STR licensing ordinances and to hire consultants to help draft them, confirmed via CGA Office of Legislative Research report 2026-R-0025 (Jan 20, 2026).

Statewide rules: No statewide STR registration or license. Operators must register with the CT Department of Revenue Services for a room occupancy tax number unless a marketplace facilitator (Airbnb/Vrbo) remits the tax on their behalf.

Taxes: State Room Occupancy Tax of 15% on rentals of furnished residential property for 30 consecutive days or less, confirmed via CT DRS Special Notice SN 2019(9); enacted by 2019 Conn. Pub. Acts 117, effective Oct 1, 2019.

2025–2026 legislation: Per CGA OLR 2026-R-0025: only PA 24-143 §7 (above) is STR-specific for the 2024-2025 sessions. A separate 2025 act (PA 25-73 §7) created a 9-member task force studying corporate/institutional acquisition of residential property (STR-adjacent, not STR-specific); its findings report was due to the Housing and Planning & Development committees by Jan 1, 2026 but appeared not yet completed as of the report date.

Kent Rules

Governing jurisdiction: Town of Kent, CT — Planning & Zoning Commission.

• Kent's status as a town with STR-specific regulations is disputed between sources — one secondary list includes it, a separate and more specific 2024 CT Office of Legislative Research list of 12 towns with confirmed STR ordinances does not.
• Kent's Planning and Zoning Commission maintains its own zoning regulations document (effective 09-09-23) that reportedly touches on short-term occupancy, though specific STR provisions could not be extracted from available sources during this research.
• Connecticut's state law (PA 24-143, effective October 1, 2024) confirms Kent's authority to regulate and license STRs at the local level, regardless of whether it currently does so.
• All Kent short-term rentals are subject to Connecticut's 15% state Room Occupancy Tax on stays of 30 days or less.
• Kent's rural Litchfield Hills setting (covered bridges, Kent Falls, Appalachian Trail access) drives strong second-home and weekend-rental demand from the NYC/Fairfield County corridor.
• A second research pass on four other Litchfield Hills towns (Washington, Salisbury, Litchfield, Sharon) found no better-documented STR ordinance; Salisbury was explicitly confirmed to have none.
• Because Kent's specific permit name, fee, and any zone restrictions could not be confirmed from a primary source, investors must verify current rules directly with the Town before relying on this listing.

Not confirmed

We could not verify the following against a primary source. Confirm each with the jurisdiction before you rely on it:

• Whether Kent has any STR-specific ordinance at all (sources conflict)
• Permit/license name
• Fee amount
• Any cap or quota
• Owner-occupancy requirement
• Minimum stay
• Occupancy limits
• Penalties
• Whether any permit transfers on sale
• Whether Kent's regulatory mechanism, if any, is a licensing regime or a zoning-based restriction in specific districts

Buyer Due Diligence Checklist

Before you write an offer on a short-term rental here:

• Get a written determination from the governing jurisdiction for the specific parcel. Verbal guidance from anyone else is not diligence.
• Establish which jurisdiction governs — city, town, village and unincorporated county can differ sharply within a few miles.
• Ask whether an existing permit transfers on sale. In many markets it does not, and a listing marketed as a running short-term rental may convey nothing of the sort.
• Read the HOA or condo covenants during your inspection period. Private covenants bind even where the jurisdiction permits the use.
• Model revenue against the legal occupancy cap, not the bedroom count.

Frequently Asked Questions