NYC finds 27% illegal STRs

New York City says more than one in four approved short-term rental listings it checked had turned into illegal stays. (nyc.gov; skift.com) The city’s Office of Special Enforcement said it estimated in early June 2025 that about 20% of registered listings were offering illegal occupancy, then found 27% in a later partial review reported on April 21, 2026. (nyc.gov; skift.com) The violations were not unregistered listings. They were approved listings that later advertised illegal terms, including entire-home stays, unhosted stays, or stays for three or more guests. (nyc.gov; skift.com) Those limits sit at the core of New York City’s short-term rental system. Under Local Law 18, adopted on January 9, 2022, hosts must register with the Office of Special Enforcement, and booking platforms cannot process transactions for unregistered rentals. (nyc.gov) The city began enforcing the platform-verification system on September 5, 2023. New York says that change cut active listings from roughly 60,000 illegal listings in 2018 and more than 38,000 active listings at the start of 2023 on one site to about 3,000 active registrations now. (nyc.gov) City officials tie the crackdown to housing supply. In the same April 2026 report, the Office of Special Enforcement said New York’s rental vacancy rate was 1.4% and said more than 550 applications involving rent-regulated units had been rejected. (nyc.gov) The city says it is now sending warning notices to hosts whose approved listings appear to have drifted out of compliance. Those notices warn of inspections, summonses, fines, registration revocation, and denial of future renewals. (nyc.gov) Platforms are part of the gap. New York requires booking sites to block unregistered transactions, but the city’s public guidance also says a registered listing can still violate the law if it later offers an unhosted stay or more than two guests. (nyc.gov; nyc.gov) Other cities are moving in the same direction, though with different tools. San Bernardino’s City Council voted 4-3 on April 15 to ban short-term rentals in residential neighborhoods, while Fairway, Kansas, approved steeper penalties for unlicensed rentals on April 13. (sbsun.com; fairwaykansas.org; johnsoncountypost.com) In New York, the next phase looks less like a new ban than a compliance campaign. The city has already built the registry, published listing data, and started warning approved hosts that legal status can disappear as soon as a listing changes. (nyc.gov; nyc.gov)