The 3% Fee St. Louis Hosts Owe While Permits Are Frozen
Revised October 20, 2026
What are the Airbnb rules for St. Louis?
The City of St. Louis passed Ordinance 71729 requiring short-term rental permits, but a court order has blocked enforcement since April 22, 2025, so the city is not taking new permit applications. Separately, Ordinance 72095 requires a Short-Term Rental Business License from the License Collector and a 3% license fee on rent, paid every quarter.
Keep reading ↓Three percent. That is the license fee the City of St. Louis now charges on the rent from every booking. It shows up nowhere in the payout notification that buzzes on your phone while you strip the bed, the old sheets still warm and smelling of somebody else’s shampoo. The app says the money landed. It doesn’t say part of it was never yours to keep. And the rules over your head split in two, with only one half frozen.
Here is the split, plainly. The permit law the city passed, Ordinance 71729, has been frozen by a judge, and the city is not enforcing its permit requirements while that order stands. But a second law, Ordinance 72095, went the other way. It requires every short-term rental operator in the city to hold a Short-Term Rental Business License and to pay a license fee of three percent of the rent, quarterly, to the License Collector. One door closed. The other one opened, and it has a meter on it. The city’s own notice says the fee is figured on the base nightly rate, before cleaning charges, platform service fees and taxes, so $3,000 in base rent for a quarter means $90 owed, not a cut of your cleaning fee. It is due April 30, July 31, October 31 and January 31, each for the quarter just ended, and the return asks for two numbers: nights rented and base rent collected. The License Collector’s short-term rental page has the form. City Hall’s main line is 314-622-4800.
The enemy here is the half-told headline. “Permits paused” ran everywhere, and a host in a Tower Grove two-family who read only that would fairly think the whole question went away. It didn’t. The pause covers the permit and its $150 annual application fee, which the lawsuit called a hidden tax. It does not cover the license fee voters asked for through Proposition S and aldermen finally passed into law about 15 months later, with the money going to affordable housing and the Right to Counsel program for tenants facing eviction. A spare room in Soulard and a whole unit in Dutchtown land on the same desk at City Hall, 1200 Market Street.
One detail the headlines skipped entirely: the ordinance lets the city sign collection agreements with rental platforms, and until one covers you, the operator is the one who pays. The fee took effect in late February. If your platform hasn’t mentioned it, that silence is not the same as an exemption. The first move is small: open the License Collector page and download the form before the next due date.
What are the Airbnb rules for St. Louis?
Two laws, two very different states. Ordinance 71729, the permit law, has been blocked by a court order since April 22, 2025, and the city is not taking new permit applications. Ordinance 72095 is fully alive: it requires a Short-Term Rental Business License from the License Collector and a 3% license fee on rent, paid every quarter.
They sound like one law when a neighbor describes them over the fence. They are not. The permit ordinance reached anyone renting a home that is not their primary residence for less than 30 days at a time. Judge Joseph Whyte wrote that the company challenging it had “a likelihood of success on the merits” and granted a temporary restraining order.
On May 5, 2025, the court extended that order, and the city’s own notice still says it will not enforce the permit requirements while the order is in effect. That is a pause, not a repeal. A ruling can end it.
The license is the one in force. The city’s License Collector page says operators “must obtain a Short-Term Rental Business License and quarterly remit a 3% license fee.” Hold the two side by side. The permit is the law you’ve heard about. The license fee is the one with a due date.
The address on your tax bill decides which rulebook you live under
Everything above is the City of St. Louis. The city and St. Louis County are two separate governments that share a name and nothing else on this question. A unit with a “St. Louis” mailing address can sit in unincorporated county land or inside one of dozens of small municipalities, each writing its own rules. A license from the city’s License Collector means nothing across that line, and a county approval means nothing inside it.
So before you buy another throw pillow, look at your property tax bill and find out who actually governs the lot. Hosts in Lake St. Charles, East Alton, Fairmont City, Foristell or Jerseyville answer to their own local offices, and some of those sit across a state line where Missouri law doesn’t reach at all. If you are still choosing where to buy a unit, our side-by-side look at St. Louis suburbs helps you weigh towns before the closing table.
Inside the city, the quiet part is that the fee runs on rent you already collected. Three percent of a booking is small on one weekend and real money across a year of weekends. Set it aside the day the payout lands, in its own account, so the quarterly filing never comes out of the grocery money.
A rental unit changes what your family loses if you’re gone. Compare term and whole life insurance.
Why a frozen permit law still deserves your attention
The lawsuit leaned on Missouri’s Hancock Amendment, the state rule that bars government from raising taxes without voter approval. The plaintiff’s argument was simple: the $150 annual permit fee was a tax in disguise. Notice what that does and doesn’t touch. The fight is about the permit fee and the permit program. The 3% license fee came out of a ballot measure voters already approved, which is exactly the kind of approval Hancock asks for.
I could not confirm a final ruling in the permit case as of this writing. That uncertainty is the whole point. It is the feeling of a lease you signed with a clause still blank: you can live there, you just don’t know the last line yet. If the court lifts the order, the permit requirements can snap back, and hosts who spent the pause doing nothing will be the ones scrambling for inspections while their calendar fills. Keep the city’s court-order notice bookmarked, keep a copy of anything the city tells you in writing, and check it before each quarterly filing.
What taxes should a short-term rental host understand?
There is the tax you collect and the tax you owe, and they live in different drawers. One is a shoebox of receipts you dread opening in March; the other is a quarterly line you can keep small if you file it on time. The city license fee is the first kind of headache. Your federal income tax is the second, and a few rules people repeat on video are much narrower than they sound.
The 14-day rule, or Augusta rule
The IRS says that if you use a dwelling as a residence and rent it for fewer than 15 days in the year, you don’t report any of the rental income and you don’t deduct any of the expenses as rental expenses. Fourteen nights, then the door shuts. Rent the fifteenth and you are back in ordinary rental reporting. It suits the homeowner who rents out the whole house for one big weekend, not the host with a unit booked most of the month.
The 80/20 rule and the short-term rental “loophole”
These two travel together in host chatter and both hinge on how your stays are classified and how much you personally participate. They can change how losses flow on your return, and they are easy to misapply. Bring them to a CPA with your booking history in hand instead of diagnosing yourself from a thirty-second clip.
When a guest stops being a guest
A weekend visitor leaves a towel on the floor and a five-star review. A person who has been in your unit for weeks, with groceries in the fridge and mail coming to the door, can start to look like a tenant under Missouri law, and tenants carry protections a nightly host never planned for. Missouri, for one, says a landlord may not demand or receive a security deposit of more than two months’ rent, and must return it, or send a list of damages, within thirty days after the tenancy ends.
You can feel the shift before you can name it. The suitcase never gets repacked. A second toothbrush shows up by the sink, a parcel with their name sits on your porch, and the checkout date in the app keeps sliding a week at a time. Nothing about it is dramatic. That is exactly why hosts miss the line until they are standing on the wrong side of it, keys in hand, unsure what they are allowed to do next.
If you plan to allow long stays, put the terms in writing before the guest arrives, and talk to a local attorney before you ever touch a lock. If buying a rental is part of your plan, our look at why St. Louis real estate stays affordable gives useful context, and here is our guide to choosing a real estate agent in St. Louis.
People are asking
How many people can live in a two-bedroom in Missouri?
Federal guidance starts at two per bedroom: HUD’s occupancy policy statement says a policy of two persons in a bedroom, as a general rule, is reasonable under the Fair Housing Act. HUD also calls that rule rebuttable and won’t judge compliance on head count alone, weighing the size of each bedroom and of the whole unit, the age of any children, the configuration of the dwelling and even the capacity of the septic or sewer system. A family of five refused an apartment with two large bedrooms and spacious living areas is one of HUD’s own examples where a charge might be warranted. So the week the checkout date keeps sliding and a sleeping bag appears on the den floor, write a cap that reflects any local occupancy code, which HUD treats as a point in your favor, and talk to a local attorney before you turn anyone away.
Your filing week, done before the sheets come out of the dryer
The laptop is open on the kitchen table, a mug going cold beside the booking app. Here is the whole job, in order.
- Apply for the Short-Term Rental Business License through the License Collector’s new business license application. One license covers the operator, but the 3% applies to every unit you run in the city.
- Download the Short Term Rental Tax Form from the License Collector’s page.
- Pull two numbers from your booking app for the quarter: nights rented and base rent collected, before cleaning and platform fees.
- Multiply the base rent by 0.03 and file by April 30, July 31, October 31 or January 31.
- Unless your platform has a collection agreement with the city, assume the payment is yours to make.
Stuck? City Hall’s main line is 314-622-4800 if you need to be pointed to the right desk.
Then be the host nobody calls the city about. Cap guest counts, post the parking rules on the fridge, and give the neighbors a number that actually rings. Most crackdowns start with one loud listing on the block. If you welcome pets, line up local pet help before you need it, including the hard parts our guide to pet funeral and cremation in St. Louis walks through.
Last, build the crew before the midnight lockout: a turnover cleaner you trust, a handyman who answers, someone who can swap a smart lock battery at 11 p.m. That is the difference between a side hustle that eats your weekends and one that pays for them.
You don’t have to clean, fix and file all by yourself. Browse short-term rental services across the St. Louis metro on St Louis Near Me Directory, from turnover cleaning to full management, and line up help before your next booking.
If you’re the turnover cleaner, the handyman or the one-person property manager hosts call at midnight, how many of those hosts searched tonight and found someone else? Your website and your Google listing are a single thread; a Gold listing at $357 a year, under a dollar a day, puts you in up to 10 categories so more customers can reach you. See who AI names instead of you → Refuse to be invisible.
Frequently asked questions
What are the Airbnb regulations in Missouri?
Start with your property tax bill, not the state, because the government named on it writes your rules. Inside the City of St. Louis, permit enforcement under Ordinance 71729 is paused by court order, while Ordinance 72095 requires a Short-Term Rental Business License and a 3% quarterly license fee.
What is the short-term rental loophole?
It is a federal tax idea, not a way around city rules. It describes how income from short stays can sometimes be treated differently from ordinary rental income depending on stay length and how much you participate. It changes how losses flow, so ask a CPA before you count on it.
What is the 80/20 rule for Airbnb?
In host tax talk, it points to how a stay is classified and how much service you provide, which can affect how the income is treated. Interpretations vary. Treat it as a question for a tax professional, and bring a full year of booking records when you ask.
What is the 14 day rental rule called?
It’s called the Augusta rule, also known as Section 280A(g) of the tax code. The IRS says that if you use a dwelling as a residence and rent it for fewer than 15 days in a year, you don’t report the rental income or deduct rental expenses. A fifteenth night ends the exemption.
What are the tenant laws in St. Louis, Missouri?
Longer stays can fall under Missouri landlord-tenant law. One example: a landlord may not take a security deposit above two months’ rent and must return it or itemize damages within thirty days after the tenancy ends. If you need a local attorney or property manager, St Louis Near Me Directory lists St. Louis pros by category.
What can landlords not do in Missouri?
Missouri law limits what landlords can demand, starting with a security deposit cap of two months’ rent. When a guest who has stayed for weeks won’t leave, don’t improvise with locks or utilities. Call a local attorney first; St Louis Near Me Directory can help you find one by category.
Written by a dedicated team of St. Louis locals who live, work, and play right here in the St. Louis metro. Founder Lane Forman and team are committed to building the region’s most trusted directory by verifying listings and connecting local businesses with loyal customers across Missouri and Illinois.