Meredith, NH Airbnb & Short-Term Rental Regulations 2026

Regulation Overview

Lake Winnipesaukee town with strong summer lake-house rental demand; STRs require a Zoning Board special exception and are capped at 120 rental days per year, making this a moderately restrictive lake market.

A hard annual cap (120 days) on STR use, combined with a mandatory Zoning Board special-exception approval in every district except Business/Industry, pushes this past a simple registration model.

New Hampshire State Law

State preemption: No state preemption — RSA 674 grants land-use authority to towns, so STR regulation is purely local; 30+ NH towns have adopted their own STR rules or zoning definitions. A 2023 NH Supreme Court ruling (Town of Conway v. Kudrick) held that where a town's zoning ordinance does not expressly exclude transient use from its residential-use definition, STRs are permitted by right in that zone.

Statewide rules: No statewide STR registry or license exists. The only statewide instrument is the Meals & Rooms (Rentals) Tax (RSA 78-A) at 8.5% of gross rental receipts, applicable to any rental of fewer than 185 consecutive days, collected by the operator/platform and remitted to NH DRA.

Taxes: 8.5% state Meals & Rooms (Rentals) Tax on gross STR receipts; New Hampshire has no state sales tax.

2025–2026 legislation: Companion bills SB104 / HB109 (2025-2026 session) would limit municipalities' ability to ban or cap STRs and would mandate lodging-tax collection by platforms; as of the last recorded hearing (House Development Committee, March 18, 2026) no vote had been taken — status pending, not enacted.

Meredith Rules

Governing jurisdiction: Town of Meredith (Zoning Board of Adjustment, Planning & Development, Fire Department).

• Meredith caps short-term rental use at 120 days per year per property, a hard limit that materially affects investment underwriting compared to unrestricted markets.
• STRs need a Special Exception from the Zoning Board of Adjustment and are allowed in every zoning district except the Business & Industry District.
• A town license and a Fire Department inspection are required before operating.
• Properties built before January 1, 1978 must also obtain a Lead Safe Certificate before licensing.
• As with all NH markets, the 8.5% state Meals & Rooms Tax applies but there is no state sales tax.
• Meredith is one of the more clearly-documented Lake Winnipesaukee towns for STR rules; nearby Laconia was also researched but only secondary sources describing a stricter owner-occupancy model were found, so Laconia was not selected as the primary market for this dataset.

Not confirmed

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

• Exact permit/license fee amount.
• Whether Meredith's 120-day cap is enforced per calendar year or on a rolling basis.
• Laconia (nearby, not selected): secondary sources report a 2019 ordinance requiring STR owners to be owner-occupants living in the unit at least 150 nights/year — this could not be confirmed against the underlying ordinance text and is flagged only as a comparison note, not used as market data.

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