Momorandum of Understanding on Short Term Rental

Source: from Airbnb

Last week Airbnb and Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to help the City and County of Honolulu enforce its short-term rental rules. The agreement will facilitate compliance and allow hosts with compliant listings to continue supporting the City’s local visitor industry. Expedia signed a similar agreement.

Under the agreement, by late February Airbnb will create two new fields on each listing. One for the City-issued Tax Map Key (TMK) number and another for the Transient Accommodations Tax License Number (TAT) issued by the State of Hawai‘i. Hosts listing a bed and breakfast (B&B) or transient vacation unit (TVU) on Airbnb will be required to provide this information in order to continue hosting on Airbnb. Hotels, motels, and long-term stays (30 consecutive days or longer) are exempt from providing this information.

As part of the agreement, Airbnb will also share a monthly report with the City that includes the URL for each short-term rental listing and the corresponding host-provided TMK number and TAT number for each property listed on our platform. The City will use this monthly report to verify the TMK numbers for short-term rental listings. Hosts that fail to provide a TMK or input an invalid TMK will be blocked for short-term rental use and only allowed to re-list for short-term rental use once they provide the information.

To help educate hosts about the CIty’s short-term rental regulations, Airbnb will display a link to the County’s licensing and information webpage in close proximity to the mandatory field as part of the Host onboarding process.