Salt Lake City’s ordinance restricting short-term rentals faces significant pushback.

Airbnb, the San Francisco-based company that helps people rent their homes for short-term stays, has sent a cease and desist letter to the city about the enforcement of its ordinance.

In the letter, Airbnb alleges that the city is violating the site’s terms of service by using “fraudulent guest accounts” to catch homeowners violating short-term rental rules.

Also frustrated are homeowners who had been operating short-term rentals but have found it more difficult since new rules went into effect on July 1. They have a litany of complaints: how quickly the ordinance was adopted by the City Council, the restriction limiting the minimum and maximum number of days a rental can be used, and the limit preventing more than 10% of a building’s units from being used as short-term rentals.

“I don’t understand the play here,” said Brent Stevenson, who owns a condominium downtown he bought as a short-term rental investment. “This feels like no input from the community as a whole to shut down [short-term rentals].”

Here’s what else they’re saying.

Cease and desist letter

There are roughly 1,800 short-term rental listings on Airbnb in Utah’s capital, and the city has hired two enforcement staffers who focus on ensuring that the short-term rental rules are followed.

But in a letter obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune, Airbnb alleged that those enforcement personnel were overstepping their bounds.

“It has come to our attention that individuals in your office, or third parties directed by individuals in your office, have created fraudulent guest accounts on the Airbnb platform to contact hosts and solicit confirmation that they will accept a booking on specific dates, and have used those responses as evidence in short-term rental enforcement actions,” Airbnb wrote in the letter, dated Aug. 6.

Airbnb said that the enforcement accounts violate the site’s terms of service, “which prohibit any user from misrepresenting their identity or pretending to be someone else.”

The company said the practice also “raises concerns” under Utah law.

State law says cities cannot “punish an individual solely for the act of listing or offering a short-term rental on a short-term rental website.” A 2025 measure (HB256) clarified that such a listing could be used as evidence, as long as the city “has additional information” that supported the position that the ordinance was violated.

In response to Tribune inquiries on the enforcement tactics, Sofia Jeremias, a spokesperson for Salt Lake City’s Community and Neighborhoods Department, wrote that the “civil enforcement team uses several methods to investigate suspected violations, including contacting people who advertise units to determine whether they are complying with city ordinance.”

“The city will continue to investigate and cite illegally operating short-term rentals,” she wrote. “We are reviewing Airbnb’s request to confirm that our methods comply with all applicable laws.”

Roughly 400 properties appear to be operating illegally in residential zones, Jeremias said. Even before the new ordinance went into effect, short-term rentals were prohibited in those areas. But they are allowed in mixed-use and business districts.

Property owners unhappy

Meanwhile, short-term rental property owners have a long list of complaints about the ordinance — primarily saying it interferes with their ability to make a living through their properties.

Aaron Kirkham manages a Sandy-based property management company called Conmigo, which handles roughly 100 short-term rental and vacation homes across Utah, Idaho and Alaska. The company lists those properties for rent on more than 15 websites, with roughly half the bookings coming through Airbnb.

While Kirkham takes exception to many aspects of Salt Lake City’s new licensing system, he said the biggest blow to property owners might be the new 200-day annual limit on short-term rentals.

“I am not sure where the city came up with this,” said Kirkham, who added that he knows at least two investors who purchased dwellings in legal zones within Salt Lake City. “Now,” he said, “they’re considering divesting because this literally cuts what their earning potential is by 45%.”

City officials say that cap reflects a desire to return properties to the city’s regular housing stock, available to more typical renters, for at least part of the year.

Many owners don’t have the resources to flip between short-term and long-term rentals, Kirkham said.

City officials said they could enforce the limits by inspecting guest-stay records, which owners are required to keep under the new regulations.

Kirkham and other owners also say the city’s two-day minimum rental requirement, intended to limit party rentals, is an arbitrary rule and a type of regulation officials wouldn’t consider imposing on other types of businesses.

“I can get a tattoo, and it’s not like, ‘Oh, you have to come in for a two-day session,’” Kirkham said.

Added Stevenson: “I can’t think of one other business where they’ll require a business license, but then make it so you can’t do business.” He said he acquired the condo he owns last fall specifically because it was located in an area of the city zoned to permit short-term rentals.

“There’s never been a scenario where we could afford just keeping it for when we want to use it, especially with the HOA [homeowners association] fees,” Stevenson said. Rather than choosing to buy a similar property in other states, he said, “we invested at home in a space we could use as a family and also still afford while investing in the city.”

Another Salt Lake City resident, who asked not to be named because he operates multiple short-term rentals in zones where they’re not allowed, said he got into the business nearly a decade ago.

The owner said he manages his properties carefully, lives a block away and tries to minimize impacts on surrounding homeowners. He said he had long hoped Utah’s capital would eventually come around to permitting such rentals in more of its residential neighborhoods.

“A lot of other large cities — San Diego, L.A. and all across the country — have [short-term rentals] regulation,” this owner said. “You know they also have homeless problems and affordability issues, but they still somehow manage to allow families to rent out their home to earn some extra income.”

Salt Lake City, he added, “needs to be more open-minded and look at how other cities are doing it.”

With the city cracking down on enforcement, he said, “they’re shutting down small businesses. And, like I said, we’ve been adding to the community for over 10 years now.”

“Our neighbors have no issues with us,” he said. “We’re not an out-of-state investor. We’re very committed to the neighborhood and the community.”

Quick rollout and implementation

One common complaint from Airbnb owners has been about the relatively quick nature of the implementation of the ordinance. It was first presented to the City Council on May 5 as part of the city’s fiscal 2027 budget, in which the estimated city revenue from licensing short-term rentals was $179,760.

But the first public discussion before the council on the ordinance came on June 16, two weeks before the ordinance’s July 1 implementation. Most of the council’s discussion on the ordinance, as well as public comment, actually came after that date, during the council’s July 14 work session.

“The recent ordinance that was passed via the budget was — not to be offensive, but messy and fairly poorly outlined,” Stevenson said then.

The council’s desire to more fully address the ordinance, including making changes, led to a pause in accepting short-term rental license applications, the city said, between July 7 and July 17.

During the July 14 work session, council members debated whether to make changes to an ordinance that so recently took effect. They considered eliminating the ordinance’s two-night stay minimum and the 200-nights maximum.

“I was shaking my head because this went into effect on July 1st,” council member Dan Dugan of District 6 said in the work session. “We can’t change anything right now because it just went into effect. We have to come back with a revised ordinance and go through that process.”

Furthermore, a note atop the city’s licensing page online told visitors that applications weren’t going to be accepted until Aug. 8 — but that note was in error, the city said.

“There was a delay in updating the website. This erroneous statement has been removed, and applications could always be submitted through the city’s application portal,” Arturo Garcia, director of finance operations, said.

So far, the city has received 26 applications and processed seven licenses.

Of the applications received, the most common reasons for rejections were:

• The properties were not located in an authorized zoning district.

• The number of units per building licensing limit had already been reached.

• A unit tenant was applying rather than the property owner.

In the July 14 meeting, council members, via straw poll, signaled their intention to leave the ordinance as is for now but return to the topic in the future.

Update • Aug. 14 at 10:12 a.m.: This story has been updated to clarify the city’s enforcement of its short-term rental ordinance.