STR Rulebook
Cities / Seattle, WA

Seattle, WA short-term rental rules

Read from official city pages on 2026-10-23

Seattle licenses the operator rather than the unit: one licence covers a primary residence plus a single secondary unit, at $75 per unit a year. Rented rooms without their own kitchen and bathroom do not count toward that limit.

Can you run a short-term rental in Seattle, WA?
Yes, with a licence — only in your primary residence.

1. Can you operate here?

Permit required
Yes[1]
Primary residence
Required for one of the two allowed units[1]The two-unit allowance is built around the operator's primary residence plus one secondary unit, so a primary residence is effectively required to reach two units.
Unit limit
2 units (primary residence + one secondary)[1]
Night limits
None stated[1]No annual night limit appears on the city's licensing page.
1 of the 10 figures above are not published by the city. Those rows say so instead of carrying an estimate, and the reference still points to the page that was checked. These are the figures the city publishes — not a determination that a particular property may operate. Zoning, building occupancy class, lease terms and HOA rules sit outside this page and can bar a rental that otherwise holds a licence.

2. What the licence takes

Licence
Short-Term Rental Operator Regulatory License[1]
Fee — new
$75 per unit[1]Renewed annually.
Fee — renewal
$75 per unit[1]The page states a single per-unit fee that is renewed annually rather than a separate renewal rate.
Term
12 months from date of issue[1]

3. What it costs

Occupancy tax
Not published[1]The licensing page does not publish lodging tax rates. Washington state and King County lodging taxes are set separately and are left blank here rather than estimated.
If you operate without one
Enforcement action for operating without a regulatory license[1]The page states that operating without a license may result in enforcement action and fines but does not publish an amount.

Other rules that apply

Rented rooms

Rooms without their own kitchen and bathroom do not count toward the two-unit limit and need no separate license — they are covered by the primary or secondary residence license.[1]

RRIO registration

Rentals that are not the operator's primary residence must also be registered under the Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance before the STR license is issued.[1]

Legacy units

Units legally operating before September 30, 2017 can qualify for special provisions, but require documentation of short-term rental use in the 12 months before that date.[1]

License posting

The license number must appear on every listing, in the format STR-OPLI-##-######. Platforms may remove listings whose number is not formatted correctly.[1]

Compare this city with the others: can you operate · occupancy tax · licence cost.

Sources, and the wording behind the key figures

Each bracketed number above points to the entry below. Where a sentence is quoted it is the city's own wording — the exact text the figure was read from. Figures whose sentence is not reproduced here still carry a bracketed reference — follow it to the source page for the exact wording.

  1. 1Seattle Department of Finance & Administrative Services — Short-Term Rentalsprimary
    If you operate short-term rentals (STRs) in Seattle, you must have both a business license tax certificate and a regulatory license for STRs.
    The fee for an STR operator regulatory license is $75 per unit and it must be renewed annually.
    Most short-term rental operators may operate two units: the operator's primary residence and a secondary unit, one in which the operator does not live.
    Short-Term Rental Operator licenses are valid for 12 months from the date they are issued.
    The short-term rental license must be posted in this format: STR-OPLI-##-######.
    Operating an STR without a regulatory license could subject you to fines and other penalties.
If a figure above differs from the page it cites, the official page is correct and this page is out of date. Report it to [email protected].

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