Many councils have increased rates for people renting out their properties as STVAs. Auckland Council used to have a targeted accommodation rate,<\/a> which it no longer uses, but STVA providers may be charged business rates, which are higher than general rates.\u00a0<\/p>\n Christchurch City Council introduced Airbnb rules in 2023, including a maximum length of stay<\/a>, restrictions around where STVA can be provided and resource consents being required in some cases.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Mackenzie District Council has previously asked property owners<\/a> offering short-term accommodation to pay higher rates \u2013 but the rules are currently being reviewed<\/a>. Rotorua also charges higher rates<\/a> for accommodation used for more than 60 days a year, and Thames-Coromandel District Council has proposed limits on how many people can stay in each STVA<\/a>.<\/p>\n In Queenstown, short-term visitor accommodation requires a resource consent in many instances, and areas of the region have different rules for how many days short-term accommodation can be provided.\u00a0<\/p>\n These regulations often arise out of criticism that owners providing short-term accommodation to visitors exacerbate housing shortages and push up prices by keeping properties from being available as long-term rentals \u2013 a claim that Airbnb denies<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Do they actually get enforced?\u00a0<\/p>\n Christchurch City Council employed an Airbnb compliance officer in August 2025. Investigations revealed that the majority of properties were not complying with the rules \u2013 41 of around 50 investigated properties. A council spokesperson told The Press <\/a>that 10 of these were converted back to long-term rentals, and two were sold.\u00a0<\/p>\n Because so few properties have been evaluated so far, Christchurch councillor Nathaniel Herz Jardine said that the compliance officer should be considered a \u201cpilot programme\u201d for what could happen if the rules were more rigorously enforced. \u201cThere are around 4,300 units in Christchurch listed on Airbnb,\u201d he told The Spinoff. \u201cIf we scale up compliance activity, that could be 800 or more long-term rentals on the market, 150 or more properties sold, moving homes back into the community.\u201d He\u2019s suggesting a \u201chotline\u201d<\/a> for people to report STVA operators who aren\u2019t following the rules.\u00a0<\/p>\n A major issue for councils is property owners not paying the correct amount of rates for short-term rented properties. Commercial rates, which they should be paying, are about double standard residential rates. \u201cThe average Airbnb is dodging about half of their city taxes,\u201d Hertz Jardine says. \u201cThat means we pay twice \u2013 with higher house prices and higher rents, and millions of dollars a year not going to the city.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The New Zealand jurisdiction with the most stringent rules for Airbnbs \u2013 and also some of the most Airbnbs per capita \u2013 is Queenstown<\/a>. Properties operating fewer than 28 days a year have standard rates; between 28 and 180 days a year increases rate payments by 25-35%, and operating more than 180 days a year increases rates by 50-80%. In 2017, the council proposed much more stringent regulations in its annual plan, but had to make a number of concessions after Airbnb took the local authority to court<\/a>. With hundreds of thousands of tourists passing through Queenstown each year, the tech and property giant has resisted regulation that might channel more of those visitors to other accommodation like hotels, motels or hostels.\u00a0<\/p>\n Julie Scott, of the Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust, told The Spinoff in September 2025<\/a> that regulations were \u201ccreating more of a level playing field between throwing your home on Airbnb versus renting it to a long-term family\u201d. However, there are still thousands of Airbnbs available in Queenstown, and thousands of local families on long housing waitlists.\u00a0<\/p>\n How has enforcing Airbnb rules worked in other places?\u00a0<\/p>\n New Zealand is not the only country wrestling with the balance between providing accommodation for tourists and housing locals. Many Australian states and local agencies have strict requirements around what Airbnb can do. For instance, in New South Wales<\/a> it\u2019s impossible to list a property on Airbnb until you\u2019ve received a registration number from the government, which costs $65, and inner-city Sydney is considering halving its current 180-day limit<\/a> for short-term rentals.<\/p>\n Other areas have an even harsher approach. In Spain, where there has been a lot of \u201ctourism backlash\u201d in centres like Barcelona, Airbnb has been fined \u20ac65 million <\/a>for continuing to operate properties in violation of local rules. The city of Barcelona has said it is phasing out all tourist apartments in residential buildings by 2028, essentially preventing Airbnb from operating there. Booking.com, another short-term rental and hotel platform, is also affected.\u00a0<\/p>\n In London, landlords were getting around restrictions on the number of days a property could be let through Airbnb by creating multiple listings for the same property,<\/a> which the Airbnb platform allowed. A spokesperson for the Greater London Authority told the BBC: \u201cIllegal short-term lets pile pressure on supply at a time when affordable housing is desperately needed.\u201d<\/p>\n On the other side are people who say that the source of income Airbnb provides is useful for local communities, and that Airbnb makes travel more affordable. In New York, effectively banning Airbnb has made hotel rates much more expensive<\/a>. After rules were passed limiting Airbnb rentals in Mexico City, a network of \u201csmall hosts<\/a>\u201d who own three or fewer properties are saying that short-term rentals aren\u2019t the main cause of housing shortages in Mexico\u2019s capital. They are advocating for a way to rent their properties while limiting some of the social harms.<\/p>\n What\u2019s next for Airbnb regulation in Aotearoa?\u00a0<\/p>\n Queenstown mayor John Glover is calling for stronger government regulation. \u201cIf Airbnb are required to give our council the addresses of all the places on their platform, then that means at least we can follow up and make sure they\u2019ve got the right permissions and they\u2019re paying the right amount,\u201d he told 1News<\/a>\u00a0last month.<\/p>\n One crucial component, Herz Jardine says, is to require short-term rental companies to share information with local authorities. Right now, Christchurch City Council is using data from third party \u201cAirDNA\u201d, or searches of the Airbnb website, which may not pick up property owners who remove their properties temporarily. \u201cWe\u2019ve asked Airbnb for lots of info and they haven\u2019t given it to us,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They\u2019re supposed to pay higher rates and abide by various rules and regulations, but many Airbnb operators don\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[6527,138,17578,492,3339,111,139,69,20930,2935],"class_list":{"0":"post-274770","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-airbnb","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-christchurch-city-council","11":"tag-comments-enabled","12":"tag-housing","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nz","16":"tag-queenstown","17":"tag-society"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
Property in Queenstown is extremely expensive. Is that because everyone is turning their property into an Airbnb? (Image: Archi Banal)<\/p>\n
Opponents say Airbnbs make inner cities less vibrant (Image: The Spinoff)<\/p>\n