St. Louis, MO Airbnb & Short-Term Rental Regulations 2026

Regulation Overview

A large Midwest city with sports, music and convention demand, entry prices far below the coastal markets, and — right now — the most legally unsettled short-term rental position of any market on this site.

Governing jurisdiction: City of St. Louis, Missouri. Local position: Permit regime adopted — currently halted by court order.

Missouri State Law

Missouri has no state-level short-term rental statute, no state licence and no preemption. Regulation is entirely local — cities and counties set their own rules with no state floor or ceiling.

Attempts to change that have failed: a 2017 bill aimed at preventing local bans, and 2019's HB 473, which had its short-term rental provisions stripped before passage. Nothing has since passed.

Practically, this means two things for a Missouri investor. There is no state framework to fall back on if a city adopts something restrictive — and equally, a city that has no ordinance today faces no state obstacle to adopting one tomorrow. Missouri's marketplace-facilitator law requires platforms such as Airbnb to collect and remit applicable sales tax; local hotel and tourism taxes vary by jurisdiction.

St. Louis Rules

Ordinance 71729 (Board Bills 33 and 34, signed November 2023) created two permit types and, as written, a genuinely restrictive regime:

• Short-Term Rental, Occupied — the property is the owner's principal residence. Limited to one such permit per person.
• Short-Term Rental, Non-Occupied — investor-owned. Capped at four permits per person citywide, and permits may only be issued to a natural person, not an LLC.
• Building-level caps: in 3- and 4-unit buildings, non-occupied short-term rentals are capped at 50% of units; in 5–23 unit buildings, 25%; in 24+ unit buildings, 12.5%. Two-unit buildings allow up to two permits of either type.
• Minimum stay: no permit for units offering stays under two nights.
• Excluded properties: those actively benefiting from tax increment financing or tax abatement. The Single Family A district reportedly requires a conditional use hearing rather than allowing them by right.
• Penalties: warnings and permit review on a first violation; on a third within 24 months, revocation plus a 12-month bar on reapplying for that property; municipal court fines of $500 per violation, counted per day for continuing violations.

The four-permit-per-natural-person cap is the structural constraint to understand: it is aimed squarely at portfolio investors, and it cannot be engineered around with an LLC. If the injunction lifts and the regime resumes as written, a St. Louis short-term rental portfolio has a hard ceiling.

We could not confirm whether a permit would transfer on sale. Because permits are issued to a person rather than to the property, assume it does not.

Buyer Due Diligence Checklist

Before you write an offer on a short-term rental in this market:

• Get a written determination from the governing jurisdiction for the specific parcel. Verbal guidance from anyone else is not diligence.
• Establish which jurisdiction governs — incorporated city and unincorporated county can differ sharply within a few miles.
• Ask whether an existing permit transfers on sale. In several 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 CC&Rs during your inspection period. Private covenants bind even where the jurisdiction permits the use, and discovering a prohibition after closing is not grounds to unwind the sale.
• Model revenue against the legal occupancy cap, not the bedroom count. Where a cap is low, it — not the house — sets your ceiling.

Frequently Asked Questions